Rice to welcome six new trustees

Six alumni with long connections to their alma mater have joined the Rice University Board of Trustees. Elle Anderson, George Gonzalez, Courtney Hall, Byron Pope, Gloria Meckel Tarpley and Michael Yuen will each serve four-year terms.

“On behalf of the Rice community, I am honored to announce our new trustees, all of whom are Rice graduates,” said Robert T. Ladd, chair of the board. “They have demonstrated a long-term commitment to Rice University that will inform their representation of our many stakeholders. There is much to accomplish in the years ahead and our new trustees will be instrumental in shaping our future.”

“This is a remarkable slate of six new board members, dedicated alumni who bring a diverse array of experiences and backgrounds to the governance of this university,” said Rice President David Leebron. “I am very grateful they are willing to support the university in this way. Their insights will be extremely helpful as we enter a time of great change in higher education and extraordinary opportunity for Rice University.”

Elle Anderson

Anderson was the founder and co-owner of Grounds Anderson LLC, an engineering consulting company in Houston specializing in civil engineering and water resources that was named one of the nation’s fastest-growing woman-owned businesses four years in a row; the company was acquired by LJA Engineering Inc. She is a past chair of the Student Affairs Committee at Rice and member of the School of Engineering Advisory Board as well as a former member of the Engineering Advancement Committee for Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Initiative for Students Cabinet.

Anderson earned a bachelor’s degree from Rice in 2001. She is a Rice Annual Fund volunteer and a member of the R Association. She recently chaired her class’ 20th reunion and received the Outstanding Volunteer Award. She was also named the Outstanding Young Engineering Alumna by the School of Engineering in 2015 and the Outstanding Engineering Alumna in 2020.

George Gonzalez

Gonzalez is a partner at the law firm Haynes and Boone LLP, where he is a trusted adviser to clients in the energy, oil and gas, midstream, upstream, downstream, power, water, food and beverage, construction, infrastructure, real estate, health care and technology industries. He serves as a board member of the Greater Houston Partnership (chair of the International Investment and Trade Committee), the Spain-Texas Chamber of Commerce and the Rice Business School Council of Overseers. He is also a former chairman of the board of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, where he is a chairman emeritus, and is an advisory board member of the Hispanic Bar Association of Houston and the Center for Houston’s Future.

Gonzalez earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and Spanish from Rice in 1990 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1994. He also studied a year abroad at the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile, as a Rotary International Scholar for Foreign Study. He is a Rice Annual Fund volunteer and the parent of a Rice graduate and a Rice junior.

Courtney Hall

Hall is a managing director and co-founder of Hillcrest Venture Partners. He serves as a board member of the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center and Randall’s Island Park Alliance and as an advisory board member for venture debt firm Applied Real Intelligence. Hall is also a visiting fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. During his career in the National Football League, he played center for the San Diego Chargers from 1989 to 1996. Hall served as captain for the 1995 Super Bowl team, was a four-time Pro Bowl first alternate and was a team representative to the NFL Players Association. He also received the Rimington Trophy’s Gerald R. Ford Legends Award in 2014 and was inducted into the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame in 2019.

Hall earned a bachelor’s degrees in economics and managerial studies from Rice in 1990 and graduated with a joint J.D./MBA from the University of Chicago in 2003. He is a volunteer for the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) and a lifetime member of the R Association. He has previously served as a member of the Association of Rice Alumni Board, a Rice Annual Fund volunteer, a regional volunteer leader and a member of Rice Alumni Volunteer for Admissions (RAVA). He was elected to the Rice University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994. Hall lives in New York City with his wife, U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall (Eastern District of New York).

Byron Pope

Pope is vice president, ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and Investor Relations at ChampionX, a global leader in chemistry solutions and highly engineered equipment and technologies that help companies drill for and produce oil and gas safely and efficiently. He was previously a partner and managing director of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., an integrated energy investment and merchant banking firm, where he was co-head of research, and a member of the management committee of its parent company, Perella Weinberg Partners.

Pope earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and managerial studies from Rice in 1992 and an MBA from Harvard University in 1996. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder and a member of the Rice Initiative for the Study of Economics (RISE) Council. Pope is also on the advisory board of Pickering Energy Partners, an energy-focused asset management and consulting firm, and he is a deacon at Living Word Fellowship Church in Houston.

Gloria Meckel Tarpley

Tarpley is a retired attorney and a longtime civic volunteer who previously served as an alumni trustee on the Rice University Board of Trustees from 2015 to 2019. She also was president and a member of the Association of Rice Alumni Board. She currently serves as a member of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Board and the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden.

Tarpley earned a bachelor’s degree in managerial studies and political science from Rice in 1981 and J.D. from the University of Houston in 1984. She is a member of the Rice School of Social Sciences Advisory Board, a class chair, a class recorder and a member of the Dallas/Fort Worth Rice Alumni Regional Volunteer Committee. Tarpley was also a Centennial Commission member and a Centennial Campaign volunteer.

Michael Yuen

Yuen is vice president and executive committee member of the Making Waves Foundation. He previously served as a partner at SPO Partners & Co., where he led the firm’s investments in wireless telephony towers, offshore drilling rigs, and oil and gas producers.

Yuen earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Rice in 1989. He also holds a master’s from Harvard University and an MBA from Stanford University. Yuen is a member of the Making Waves Foundation Board of Directors and the Menlo School Board of Trustees. Previously he was a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Management Board, the Harvard University China Advisory Group and the University of California, San Francisco Foundation Investment Committee. At Rice, he is a member of the Association of Rice Alumni Board, the School of Humanities Advisory Board and co-captain of the Class of 1989 annual fund.

The new trustees will begin their four-year terms July 1.