After graduating from the University of Texas in 1996 with a Communications and Leadership Studies diploma Adam went on to an award winning, seven year run with legendary Texas advertising agency GSD&M. In 2002, he co-founded Butler brand development studio. His studio has led brand defining work for Austin FC, College Board, Texas Children’s Hospital, Truth Initiative, Chariot Energy, and a host of beloved Texas brands.
He is a founding board member of Farmshare Austin, a member of Austin Park Foundation’s Groundbreakers and currently serves the Shield Ranch Foundation as a fundraising steering committee member. Adam is a grateful husband to his wife of 17 years, Julie Butler and together they are the proud parents of three boys; Wilson, Davis and Noah. When not at work you’ll find Adam outside; most often on a bicycle, swimming in the sacred waters of Barton Springs, or somewhere in the Texas state parks system.
Andy is a Managing Director with Mesirow Financial, Inc. in the Public Finance Department. He focuses on servicing municipal clients primarily in Texas as well as other states across the South and mid-Atlantic. Andy has more than 30 years of public finance experience including over $100 billion in bond transactions for water and sewer facilities, utilities, general infrastructure, housing, and education. Andy has participated as a board member for the Greater Houston Area Red Cross, Jazz Houston, Inc., the Houston Area Urban League, and the Community Artists Collective among several civic endeavors.
Susana grew up in Del Rio, Texas and Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico, where she helps run her family’s multi-generation cattle ranch. In her legal practice, Susana specializes in water-rights and real estate transactions and administrative practice. She has represented land and water owners, as well as groundwater conservation districts, and regularly writes and speaks on water law. Following law school, Susana clerked for the Honorable United States District Judge Lee Yeakel of the Western District of Texas.
For over three decades, Golemon was a Partner with Brown McCarroll, LLP, where he was the senior member of the environmental team. From 1992 to 2006, he served as General Counsel for the Texas Chemical Council, the association representing the approximate 80 chemical manufacturing operations in Texas. He was a founder of the State Bar of Texas Environmental and Natural Resources Law Section and during a 30-plus year tenure in the American Bar Associate (ABA) Section of Environment, Energy and Resources (SEER) Law he held numerous leadership positions. In 2008, he was inducted as an initial Fellow in the American College of Environmental Lawyers (ACOEL). He presently serves on the Executive Council of the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Center for Energy, Law and Business at The University of Texas at Austin. Golemon served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1961-69, which included tours in Cuba, Okinawa, Taiwan and Vietnam.
John Hall is the President and CEO of the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), a research hub providing independent analysis on energy, air, water, and resilience issues to shape scientific solutions for a sustainable and equitable future. He has been a thought leader and practitioner on the impacts of energy on air quality, the environment, communities, and climate for the past thirty years. His policy and research expertise include environmental justice, clean energy, climate resilience, and emerging technologies that reduce air and climate pollution while supporting economic growth and job creation.
Before joining HARC, he chaired the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC), the predecessor agency to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Hall left a lasting mark on TCEQ by implementing the Mickey Leland Environmental Internship Program. He also served in leadership roles at Environmental Defense Fund, focusing on clean energy efforts in ten of the largest states, and vehicle electrification initiatives in Texas.
Palisades Pipeline is constructing a high capacity water pipeline to deliver non-potable, sustainable reclaimed water from the City of Lubbock, Texas to the Permian Basin with the ability to preserve an estimated 70 million barrels of ground water per year. Reagan brings 19 years of experience in commodity logistics to the water space allowing for fresh market driven ideas toward conserving the resource.
Reagan graduated from the University of Texas in Austin in 1999 and now resides in Houston with his wife Jacqui and their 3 children.
Holly serves as a Managing Director of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, a global venture philanthropy firm supporting early-stage, high-impact social enterprises. She plays a lead role in sourcing new investments and working with the leadership of those organizations as an operating partner and board member as they grow to build capacity and achieve their maximum impact. As a member of the Foundation’s senior leadership team, based in Dallas, Texas, Holly plays a lead role in increasing the Foundation’s presence, portfolio investments, and donor partnerships in Texas and the Southwest region. Holly currently serves on the board of grantee Child Poverty Action Lab.
Holly has 25 years of public policy and leadership experience. As Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute, Holly led the team in developing and implementing major policy and programmatic initiatives on key issues of national and global importance. She oversaw the organization’s strategy on leadership development, with four leadership programs graduating over 1,000 alumni to date from around the world. Domestically, she led their efforts to push for comprehensive immigration reform and developed key alliances and partnerships in support of that effort. Globally, she shepherded the Bush Institute’s public-private partnership on global health that scaled up screening and treatment for cervical cancer for millions of women in sub-Saharan Africa.
She is a veteran of the White House, U.S. Department of Education, and Capitol Hill, where she developed her expertise in education policy. She served on the White House Domestic Policy Council staff and then as Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant Secretary for Legislation and Congressional Affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to that, she worked for two United States Senators on domestic policy issues. She has also consulted on education and workforce issues with major foundations, companies, non-profits, and policymakers.
Holly also served as a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, a Pahara Institute Fellow, and an Aspen Global Leadership Network member. She serves on the boards of the Gates Policy Initiative, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, and the Dallas Assembly, and is an alumnus of the Texas Lyceum. She is a graduate of Northwestern University.
He currently represents numerous entities in the financing of public infrastructure projects, including the Texas Water Development Board, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board and the Cities of Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth. Among his many accomplishments is the development of the State Water Implementation Revenue Fund for Texas (SWIRFT) bond financing structure.
