Crownover named new board chair

Crownover named new board chair

BY TERRY SHEPARD

In a unanimous vote Dec. 16, the Rice University Board of Trustees elected alumnus and Houston civic leader James W. Crownover as its next chairman, effective July 1, 2005.

Crownover

Crownover, 61, is a former director of McKinsey & Company Inc. and has been a Rice trustee since 1999. Over the last 30 years, he and his wife, Molly, have been active in Houston’s charitable, educational and civic life. Crownover has served the Houston area in roles ranging from chairing the 2004-05 United Way of the Gulf Coast campaign to serving on the boards of the Houston Grand Opera, St. John’s School, Project GRAD Houston and Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management.

He will succeed William Barnett, retired managing partner of Baker Botts LLP, who has chaired the Rice board since 1996. By the time Barnett steps down, four Houstonians will have chaired the Rice board for 90 of the 113 years since its charter: Capt. James A. Baker Jr. for 50 years (1891-1941), George R. Brown for 17 (1950-1967), Charles W. Duncan for 14 (1982-1996) and Barnett for nine (1996-2005).

“The Rice board was convinced Jim Crownover’s proven leadership abilities would make him an outstanding chair,” Barnett said, “and that he would join President David Leebron to form a great leadership team. Together they are well-equipped to lead Rice forward and to strengthen its numerous ties to the Houston community.”

Crownover said that following Barnett will be no easy task. “Bill’s leadership contributions at Rice have been exceptional and enduring,” he said, “and they were made with a unique personal style of thoughtful and caring determination. I am very aware of the large shoes I have been asked to fill.”

President Leebron said, “I know from my own experience with Jim as chair of the search committee how persuasive and enthusiastic he can be in representing Rice. He will be a wonderful chair, and working together with a truly outstanding group of trustees, he will build upon the extraordinary legacy of Bill Barnett to help lead Rice to great things in the years ahead.”

In a 30-year career with McKinsey, which he completed in 1998, Crownover led the firm’s regional practice in the Southwest for 10 years, co-headed its worldwide energy practice for five years and served on its 20-person elected board of directors for his last eight years. He has advised the executives of many of Houston’s leading companies and currently serves on the boards of directors of four firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange: Unocal Corp.; Great Lakes Chemical Corp.; Allied Waste Industries Inc.; and Weingarten Realty Investors of Houston.

On the Rice Board of Trustees, which was named by Worth magazine as one of the 100 most prestigious nonprofit boards in America in 2003, Crownover is chairman of the Academic Affairs Committee and vice-chairman of the Financial Affairs Committee.

Last year, he chaired the presidential search committee that successfully recruited Leebron as the university’s seventh president. Crownover also served on the search committees for Rice’s last two deans of the School of Humanities.

Crownover earned his bachelor’s degree cum laude in chemical engineering from Rice in 1966 and his MBA from Stanford in 1968.

Barnett was elected in 1991 to be a governor on Rice’s two-tier board, which included seven voting trustees and 12 advisory governors. In 1994, he was elected trustee and in 1996, chairman.

As board chair, Barnett led the strengthening of the university’s governance, moving from the two-tiered board to a single-tier board enlarged to 25 trustees. Under his leadership, the board elected a far more diverse group of trustees with representation from all parts of the country; the university amended its charter to allow for the use of debt financing, which led to the largest building and modernization program in the campus’s history; and the university’s endowment grew from $1.7 billion to $3.4 billion.