Learn from the World's Most Respected Investors
October 3rd, 2017
GIBI is proud to present the 11th Annual GIBI Investment Symposium.
Gain Insight. Find Inspiration. Give Back.
The goal of the GIBI Investment Symposium is to enlighten, inspire, and inform attendees while raising funds for two exceptional charities. This premier investment event is fully underwritten by its co-founders, so that all donations go directly to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and Vickery Meadow Youth Development Foundation.
All proceeds go to the following beneficiaries
2017 Speakers and Panelists
The GIBI Investment Symposium is fortunate to have some of the world's most respected investors generously donate their time to share their best investment ideas and insights.
William A. Ackman
CEO and Portfolio Manager, Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P.
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William Ackman is the CEO and Portfolio Manager of Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P., an SEC registered investment adviser founded in 2003. Pershing Square is a concentrated research-intensive fundamental value investor in long and occasionally short investments in the public markets.
Prior to forming Pershing Square, Mr. Ackman co-founded Gotham Partners Management Co., LLC, an investment adviser that managed public and private equity hedge fund portfolios. Prior to Gotham Partners, Mr. Ackman began his career in real estate investment banking at Ackman Brothers & Singer, Inc. Mr. Ackman received an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Harvard College.
Mr. Ackman’s board memberships include Chairman of The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE: HHC) and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (NYSE: VRX). He is a Trustee of the Pershing Square Foundation, a member of the Board of Trustees at The Rockefeller University and the Board of Dean’s Advisors of the Harvard Business School.
Charles T. Akre, Jr.
Managing Member, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer, Akre Capital Management, LLC
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Chuck has been in the securities business since 1968 and continues to be the primary person responsible for ACM’s investment advisory services & investment selection. He previously held positions as shareholder, Director, CEO of Asset Management Division and Director of Research at Johnston, Lemon & Co (a NYSE member firm). Chuck established Akre Capital Management in 1989 and for a time operated it as part of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., ending in 1999. In 2000, ACM again became independent and established its current location in 2002. Chuck holds a BA in English Literature from American University.
Harold J. (Jay) Bowen, III
President and CIO, Bowen, Hanes & Company, Inc.
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Mr. Bowen joined Bowen, Hanes & Company, Inc. in 1986. As the firm's Chief Investment Officer and economic strategist, he is responsible for the formulation and implementation of the company's economic and investment strategies. The firm has received national acclaim for its 43 year tenure as the sole manager of the City of Tampa Firefighters' and Police Officers' Pension Fund. Subsequent to his association with the company, he attended graduate school at The London School of Economics, London, England, where he completed his thesis on the international economy in 1989. He concluded an economic and investment research project in 1990 on monetary, trade, and tax policy at the Cato Institute, one of the nation's leading public policy foundations in Washington, D.C. Mr. Bowen is a member of The National Economists Club and the National Association for Business Economics and is a Trustee for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). He has provided commentary on economic and financial issues for CNBC, the Fox News Network, the Fox Business Network, and the Financial Times. He and Bowen, Hanes have been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, Bloomberg, and The New York Times. Mr. Bowen holds a B.A. degree in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which he received in 1984.
Will Danoff
Portfolio Manager, Fidelity Contrafund
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Will Danoff joined Fidelity as an equity research analyst in 1986, after graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He covered the retail industry and managed the Fidelity Select Retailing Portfolio from 1986 to 1989. Mr. Danoff served as the portfolio assistant for the Magellan Fund in 1989 and 1990, before being asked to manage the Fidelity Contrafund in September 1990. Contrafund has more than $100 billion of assets now, and is the largest solely managed active equity mutual fund in the world. Mr. Danoff launched the Fidelity VIP Contrafund in 1995, grew the fund to $26 billion, and handed it off to colleagues in 2007. In addition, he started Fidelity Advisor New Insights Fund in 2003, and grew it to $25 billion. Mr. Danoff started Fidelity Series Opportunistic Insights Fund in 2012, and has grown it to $6 billion. Morningstar named Mr. Danoff “Domestic Stock Manager of the Year” in 2007.
David Einhorn
President, Greenlight Capital, Inc.
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David Einhorn is president of Greenlight Capital, Inc., which he co-founded in January 1996. Greenlight Capital is a value-oriented investment advisor whose goal is to achieve high absolute rates of return while minimizing the risk of capital loss.
Greenlight’s investment philosophy is to combine the analytical discipline of determining fair value with a practical understanding of markets. The firm believes that an investment approach that emphasizes intrinsic value will achieve consistent absolute investment returns and safeguard capital regardless of market conditions.
Prior to founding Greenlight Capital, Inc., David worked at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) as an analyst in the Investment Banking Group. After DLJ, Mr. Einhorn joined Siegler, Collery & Co., a buyout and investment management firm, as an investment analyst.
David is Chairman of the Board of Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (NASDAQ:GLRE) and Chairman of the Board of Green Brick Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRBK). He is the author of Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story, published in May 2008.
David graduated summa cum laude with distinction in all subjects from Cornell University, where he earned a B.A. from the College of Arts and Sciences.
Kathleen M. Gibson
President and CEO, Southwestern Medical Foundation
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Kathleen Gibson is President and CEO of Southwestern Medical Foundation - a leading charitable corporation supporting advancement in medical education, medical research and medical care. The Foundation’s assets exceed $800 million, arrayed across more than 1,000 funds, creating a financial resource that enables continuing advances in health care to benefit the citizens of the community and the world beyond for years to come. During 1943, the Foundation formed Southwestern Medical College, now known as UT Southwestern, and remains its most significant philanthropic partner.
Prior to joining Southwestern Medical Foundation, Kathleen spent thirty years in financial services, holding a number of leadership positions within Citibank and Bank of America. Kathleen joined Citibank in 2006, as Head of Citibank Texas Commercial and President of Citibank Texas. In 2007, she was named President of the Central Division, Commercial Banking, with responsibility for the Central US Commercial Business. Prior to joining Citibank, Kathleen spent twenty-five years with Bank of America and its predecessor banks, where she held top leadership roles in Corporate Banking, Commercial Banking and Asset Management; also, serving as President, Bank of America-Dallas.
Ms. Gibson has been involved in community activities in Dallas and Texas for many years. She is Past Chair of the Board of The Association of Former Students at Texas A&M University, and a current member of the Board of the Texas A&M Foundation. Ms. Gibson is Membership and Strategy Chair on the Board of the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations and serves on the Boards of the SMU Tate Lecture Series and the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas. She is a member of the Advisory Boards of the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at UT Dallas and the DFW Albert Schweitzer Fellowship Program. Kathleen is a member of Charter 100, the International Women’s Forum – Dallas, Dallas Woman’s Club, Marianne Scruggs Garden Club, and the Junior League of Dallas.
She has been recognized in the Dallas Business Journal as a ‘Top 25 Industry Leader in Women in Business’, and by the Profiles in Diversity Journal in the 10th Annual Women Worth Watching edition. Kathleen is a recipient of Texas A&M’s Tyrus R. Timm Honor Registry Award, Women’s Legacy Award, and was honored to be selected as a 2014 Fish Camp Namesake. She serves on the Advisory Council for the Center for International Business Studies at Texas A&M and the Mays Business School Development Council. Her prior involvement in civic activities includes serving on the Dallas Regional Chamber Board and Executive Committee, and serving on the Boards of Children’s Medical Center, Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation, The Dallas Opera, The Lamplighter School, Dallas Citizens Council, The City Club, and the Dallas 2012 Olympic Bid Committee.
Ms. Gibson earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas A&M University, and attended school at SMU in Oxford and SMU in Russia. Kathleen and her husband, Robert, have two daughters, Catherine and Sarah.
Ken Hersh
President and Chief Executive Officer, George W. Bush Presidential Center
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Kenneth A. Hersh, 54, is President and Chief Executive Officer of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, a Dallas-based non-partisan institution which houses the George W. Bush Library and Museum and the George W. Bush Institute. The Bush Center’s mission is to engage communities in the U.S. and around the world by developing leaders, advancing policy, and taking action to solve today’s most pressing challenges. Under his leadership and that of Executive Director, Holly Kuzmich, the Institute focuses its efforts on initiatives impacting economic growth, education reform, human freedom, global health, military service, and women’s empowerment.
He also serves as Co-Founder and Advisory Partner of NGP Energy Capital Management where he assists with the strategic direction of the firm. NGP is a premier private equity investment franchise in the natural resources industry managing over $15.8 billion of cumulative committed capital since inception in 1988. Through 2015, Mr. Hersh served as NGP’s Chief Executive Officer. From 1988 through 2015, under his leadership, NGP invested over $10 billion and achieved a 28-year gross IRR of 30% (net IRR of 19%), making it one of the nation’s leading investment firms during that period.
Mr. Hersh currently serves as a Senior Advisor and the Deputy Chief Investment Officer for The Carlyle Group’s natural resources division and sits on the Board of the Texas Rangers Baseball Club. In addition, Mr. Hersh serves on the Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Council of the American Enterprise Institute, the Dallas Citizens Council, and the World Economic Forum where he has been a featured speaker at its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. He also sits on the Dean’s Council of the Harvard Kennedy School. Mr. Hersh served on the Advisory Council of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business from 2009 through 2015. In 2014, he was recognized as Master Entrepreneur of the Year for the Southwest Region by Ernst & Young during its Entrepreneur of the Year program.
Mr. Hersh has also been very involved in the nonprofit arena both nationally and locally on a personal basis and through the efforts of The Hersh Foundation, his family’s private foundation. He serves on the boards of the Communities Foundation of Texas, Baylor Health Care System Foundation, and the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues. From 1998 through 2015, Mr. Hersh served on the board of St. Mark’s School of Texas, where he held numerous positions including President from 2010 through 2012. In 2015, Mr. Hersh received the St. Mark’s School of Texas Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Prior to co-founding NGP, Mr. Hersh was employed by Morgan Stanley & Co. where he was a member of the firm’s energy group specializing in oil and gas financing and merger and acquisition transactions.
Mr. Hersh was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. After graduating from St. Mark’s, he attended Princeton University where he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Politics in 1985. In 1989, Mr. Hersh earned his M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business where he graduated as an Arjay Miller Scholar.
Mr. Hersh and his wife, Julie, reside in Dallas, Texas.
John Kleinheinz
Founder, Kleinheinz Capital Partners, Inc.
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John Kleinheinz is the founder and president of Kleinheinz Capital Partners, Inc., the investment advisor for the Global Undervalued Securities Fund, a long-short equity and global-macro themed hedge fund which at its peak managed nearly $4 billion. Mr. Kleinheinz returned outside capital to investors in 2013 after a successful 20-year career. He continues to run the Global Undervalued Securities Fund, which is active in a variety of areas including Japan, US energy and technology markets and private equity.
After graduating from Stanford University in 1984 with a degree in Economics, Mr. Kleinheinz began his career as an investment banker, working in corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions for Nomura Securities in Tokyo and Merrill Lynch in New York and London. Upon moving to Texas in 1993, Mr. Kleinheinz was a partner in an investment firm where he managed the Russia Value Fund, which was one of the earliest funds to invest in Russia and was formed at the inception of the Russian stock market following the voucher privatization program in 1994. The Russia Value Fund was backed by several prominent investors, including Sir John Templeton and Robert Strauss, the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia.
Mr. Kleinheinz is actively involved with his alma mater, serving as an advisory board member for the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences and on the board of SIEPR (Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.) Mr. Kleinheinz also serves as a lead investor and on the Board of Directors for Texas Central Partners (TCP), a private entity which is developing high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston using state-of-the-art Japanese Shinkansen N700 technology.
John and his wife Marsha (SMU ’83) reside in Fort Worth and are actively involved in a number of philanthropic activities directly and through the Kleinheinz Family Foundation.
Nicholas A. Merrick
President, Mt. Vernon Investments, LP
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Mr. Merrick is President of Mt. Vernon Investments LLC, an investment company with over $1 billion in assets principally controlled by Kenny Troutt (Owner of WinStar Farm). Prior to Mt. Vernon Investments, Mr. Merrick was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Telergy, Inc. Mr. Merrick served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Excel Communications up to its merger with Teleglobe, Inc. Prior to that, Mr. Merrick served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Telco Communications Group, Inc. Prior to joining Telco, Mr. Merrick was Vice President of Corporate Finance at the Robinson-Humphrey Company, Inc. in Atlanta, where he was responsible for private capital placements and served as Managing Director at R-H Capital Partners where he managed a $26.5 million equity fund.
Mr. Merrick received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Commerce from the University of Virginia and his MBA from Harvard University.
Michael F. Price
President of The Price Family Foundation, Inc.; Managing Member of MFP Investors LLC
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Michael F. Price earned his bachelor’s degree in 1973 from the University of Oklahoma. In 1999 the University of Oklahoma honored him with a Doctor of Humane Letters.
Michael F. Price was Chairman of the Board of Franklin Mutual Advisers and Franklin Mutual Series Fund. He had been associated with both entities and their predecessor organizations since 1975. At that time the adviser was known as Heine Securities Corp. and the fund was Mutual Shares Fund. Michael was Vice President of the fund from 1975 until 1986. From 1986 until November 1, 1998 he was CEO, President and Chairman of the Board of the adviser and the fund, which came to be known as Mutual Series Fund.
Presently, Michael is the President of The Price Family Foundation, Inc.; Managing Member of MFP Investors LLC; and Managing Partner of MFP Partners, L.P. He also serves as a Director of Liquidnet Holdings, an Investment Advisory Council Member to the Florida State Board of Administration and on Boards for The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Jazz at Lincoln Center and Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.
Thomas A. Russo
Managing Member, Gardner Russo & Gardner, LLC
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Thomas A. Russo joined Gardner Russo & Gardner LLC as a partner in 1989. In 2014 he became the Managing Member of the firm. Mr. Russo manages individual separate accounts and serves as the Managing Member of the General Partner to Semper Vic partnerships. Mr. Russo oversees more than $9 billion through separately managed accounts and Semper Vic partnerships. Gardner Russo & Gardner LLC is a registered investment adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and is not associated with any bank, security dealer or other third party.
Mr. Russo looks for companies with strong cash-flow characteristics, where large amounts of “free” cash flow are generated. (These industries typically have included food, beverage, tobacco, and advertising-supported media.) Portfolio companies tend to have strong balance sheets and a history of producing high rates of return on their assets. The challenge comes in finding these obviously desirable situations at reasonable or bargain prices.
Mr. Russo commits capital to leading global consumer products companies whose brands enjoy growing market shares in parts of the world undergoing economic growth and enjoying increasing political stability. He prefers companies with sufficient cash flows from existing operations, combined with balance-sheet strength, to allow investments to activate emerging markets. He backs rare management teams willing to invest to secure robust future returns even when such investments burden current reported profits. Mr. Russo believes that family-controlled companies are often uniquely well positioned to bear burdens on reported profits in pursuit of long-term gains. Accordingly, he often invests in public companies where founding families still retain control and significant investment exposure, to reduce management agency costs and to align owner interests.
Mr. Russo’s goal is one of an absolute return rather than a relative return, and he continues his long-term investment objective of compounding assets between 10 and 20 percent per year without great turnover, thereby realizing a minimum amount of realized gains and net investment income.
Thomas Russo is the Managing Member of the General Partner of Semper Vic Partners, L.P., and Semper Vic Partners (QP), L.P., limited partnerships whose combined investments are roughly $3 billion, along with overseeing substantially more funds through separate accounts for individuals, trusts, and endowments. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College (BA, 1977), and Stanford Business and Law Schools (JD/MBA, 1984). Memberships include Dean’s Advisory Council for Stanford Law School, Dartmouth College’s President’s Leadership Council, and California Bar Association. Mr. Russo is a charter member of the Advisory Board for the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing at Columbia Business School. He serves on the boards of the Winston Churchill Foundation of the U.S., Facing History and Ourselves, and Storm King Art Center.
Andrew Wellington
Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer, Lyrical Asset Management
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Andrew Wellington co‐founded Lyrical Asset Management and serves as the firm’s Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner. Mr. Wellington has been involved with active portfolio management for almost twenty years. He was a founding member of Pzena Investment Management, where he was the original equity research analyst, and later became a principal and portfolio manager. He then went on to Neuberger Berman where he became the sole portfolio manager for their institutional mid‐cap value product, growing that product from $1 billion to $3.3 billion in AUM, and earning a five‐star Morningstar rating. He also was a managing director at New Mountain Capital, where he played a key role in establishing and managing the $1.2 billion New Mountain Vantage Fund, a value‐oriented, long‐only, activist hedge fund. Early in his career Mr. Wellington worked as a management consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton and First Manhattan Consulting Group. Mr. Wellington graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania’s Management & Technology Program, earning both a Bachelor of Science from the Wharton School and a Bachelor of Science from the School of Engineering.
Jeanie Wyatt, CFA®
Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer, South Texas Money Management, Ltd.
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Jeanie Wyatt, CFA, founded South Texas Money Management (STMM) in December 2000. Barron's magazine named Ms. Wyatt to the Top Financial Advisors by State list (2017 and 2016), the Top 100 Women Financial Advisors list (June 2016 and 2015) and the Top 100 Independent Advisors list (2010, 2011, and 2012). She was named to wealthmanagement.com’s Top 10 Women-Owned RIAs list (2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016). Financial Times Magazine named her “Top 100 Women Financial Advisors” (2014) and the firm Top 300 RIAs (2014, 2015 and 2016). CNBC named STMM to their list of Top 100 Fee-Only Wealth Managers (2014 and 2015) and Forbes named the firm Top 100 Wealth Managers (2015 and 2016). The firm has been named on multiple occasions as one of the "Top Guns" by Informa Investment Solutions (IIS) under IIS Plan Sponsor Network (PSN) database in the peer group for Domestic All-Cap Core Equity Managers and was named “Top Guns of the Decade” for the ten years ended 12/31/10. Based in San Antonio, South Texas Money Management has additional offices in Austin, Corpus Christi, Houston, and Dallas.
Prior to founding STMM, Ms. Wyatt was Executive Vice President and head of Frost Investment Services (Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc.). She was responsible for the investment areas of nine trust departments around the state with approximately $13 billion in assets. She also managed the Trust Department's largest commingled equity fund for 15 years. Her total trust-banking career spanned 27 years with three bank holding companies around the state starting in 1976 at Corpus Christi National Bank. A Chartered Financial Analyst, she holds an honors degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Ms. Wyatt is past chairman of the CFA Institute's Public Awareness Committee and served on the Board of Governors of the CFA Institute, an international organization of over 100,000 investment professionals. Ms. Wyatt has been a special guest on Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser and was also a regular guest on Wallstreetweek.com. She has been interviewed by financial media, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Advisor Magazine, CNN, Fox Business news, AP newswire, and Thestreet.com. She has also published stock sector research that she directed.
Ms. Wyatt was appointed to the Employees Retirement System (ERS) of Texas Board in 2016 by House Speaker Joe Straus. She has also served on the State Pension Review Board, the state’s nine member mechanism for limited oversight of public retirement systems in Texas. She has also served on the National Endowment Fund Board of Trustees of the American Red Cross. In addition, she has served on the Pension Plan Board of Trustees of the University Health System in San Antonio and is currently a trustee of the Southwest Research Institute and on the Development Board of the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio. An Austin native, she currently serves as Vice Chair of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Advisory Board.
Gretchen Morgenson (Moderator)
Assistant Business and Financial Editor, The New York Times
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Ms. Morgenson has been Assistant Business and Financial Editor and a Columnist at The New York Times since 1998. She covers the world financial markets and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her “trenchant and incisive” coverage of Wall Street. In 2009, Ms. Morgenson won a Gerald Loeb Award in the “Beat Writing” category in her coverage of Wall Street. This followed her Gerald Loeb Award for excellence in financial commentary in 2002 and the American University School of Communication’s Annual Journalism Award for excellence in personal finance reporting in 2000.
Ms. Morgenson began her career at Vogue magazine as an Assistant Editor in 1976. By the time she left the magazine in 1981, she was a writer and financial columnist. She has filled the roles of Assistant Managing Editor and Investigative Business Writer and Editor at Forbes magazine, Press Secretary for the Forbes for President Campaign, Executive Editor for Worth magazine, Staff Writer at Money magazine, and Stockbroker for Dean Witter Reynolds in New York from 1981 to 1984. Ms. Morgenson received a B.A. degree in English and History from Saint Olaf College. She is co-author of The New York Times bestseller Reckless Endangerment, published by Times Books in May 2011.
Prices
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$100,000 Angel Investor
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$50,000 Breakout Investor
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$25,000 Perfect Hedge
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$15,000 Lead Investor
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$10,000 Value Investor
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$6,000 Friends & Family
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$1,000 Professional
Donor Information must be submitted by September 15, 2018. to receive an Underwriter Party invitation and ensure program listing.
Attendee Information must be submitted by September 22, 2018 to ensure printed name tags for attendees.
Attendee Information must be submitted by September 22, 2018 to ensure printed name tags for attendees.
"John Neill is doing extraordinary things. He is committing his time, money, and expertise to assure that children receive educational opportunities. Because of John’s work, lives of youth are forever changed by being the first in their families to attend college."
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