George E. Matelich, National Nominating Committee Chair
Managing Director, Kelso & Co.
New York, New York
George joined Kelso in 1985 and is a managing director. He spent the preceding two years at Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, after earning an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1982. In 1978, he received a BA in Business Administration, summa cum laude, from the University of Puget Sound. George was a Certified Public Accountant and holds a Certificate in Management Accounting. Current directorships include Eacom Timber Corporation, Hunt Marcellus, LLC and Venari Resources LLC. In addition, he is active in Kelso’s investments in Tervita Corporation and Third Point Reinsurance Ltd. Past directorships include Americold Corporation, Charter Communications, Inc., CVR Energy, Inc., CVR Partners LP, FairPoint Communications, Inc., Global Geophysical Services, Inc., Federal-Hoffman, Inc., Harris Specialty Chemicals, Inc., King Broadcasting Company, Masland Industries, Inc., Optigas, Inc., Shelter Bay Energy Inc. and Waste Services, Inc. George has been a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council since 2010 and was treasurer of the University of Puget Sound Board of Trustees, where he served for twenty-three years. Since 2008, George has served on the board of American Prairie Reserve, an organization that is creating the largest nature reserve in the continental United States. Favorite activities include fly fishing and hiking with his family on their ranch near Big Timber, Montana.
Clyde Aspevig
Artist, Clyde Aspevig Studios
Bozeman, Montana
Clyde is a well-known artist for his western landscapes, which capture the beauty, rhythm, and harmony of each place he paints. His paintings of the West are not theatrical sets intended to reinforce regional mythology, but rather of places that he perceives as already disappearing during his own lifetime. Clyde has painted and shown his work in locations all around the world, and his paintings have been published in several magazines such as the Big Sky Journal, American Artist, and Persimmon Hill. He has traveled from the prairies of Montana to the rocky Atlantic coast, to the hillside estates of Tuscany capturing the beauty on his canvas. Clyde’s intent is to create something beautiful and harmonic, letting the canvas reflect nature’s beauty. His paintings possess qualities meant to outlast the viewer’s initial infatuation, qualities that will last several generations: “Paintings become symbols of all that we are.” Clyde will have a one-man show at the Brinton Museum in Big Horn, WY, opening May of 2016. Clyde grew up on a farm in Rudyard, Montana, near the Canadian border, where he witnessed the painful and joyful cycles of agricultural life. He was fortunate to be encouraged by his family in the pursuits of art and appreciation of music. Clyde learned early on to work hard and persevere against many kinds of obstacles. Rather than demeaning Clyde’s interests, Clyde’s father, a practical but open-minded farmer, bought his twelve-year-old son’s first painting. Clyde attended Eastern Montana College, in Billings, Montana. He lives outside of Bozeman with his artist wife, Carol Guzman, and became involved with American Prairie Reserve in 2003 with hopes to further the organization’s connection with artists and writers for inspirational results.
Douglas Brinkley
Austin, Texas
Catherine Coleman
Shelburne, Massachusetts
Having flown twice on the Space Shuttle and spent almost six months on the International Space Station (ISS), Dr. Cady Coleman has been privileged to see the world from a different perspective than most. She envisions a future where people from all over the world work together to solve problems that affect everyone on planet Earth, and advocates that inclusive teams play a pivotal role in constructing those solutions. Cady was originally educated at MIT and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst as a polymer chemist and was commissioned in the US Air Force, retiring as a Colonel. While living aboard the ISS, she served as the Lead Science and Robotics Officer for Expeditions 26/27. Her ground-based jobs for NASA’s Astronaut Office included serving as the Lead Astronaut for supply ships from NASA's commercial partners, and the Chief of Robotics. Before retiring from NASA in 2016, Cady went on to lead open-innovation and public-private partnership efforts at the Office of the Chief Technologist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC and is especially proud of her work with LAUNCH.ORG, an innovation platform dedicated to using public-private partnerships to address world-wide sustainability challenges. Currently a public speaker and consultant, Cady is passionate about the importance of both STEM and STEAM. She believes that storytelling in the form of art, literature, film and music can create the vision to advance the human footprint in today’s exciting new era of space exploration. She resides with her husband glass artist Josh Simpson and son Jamey in Shelburne, Massachusetts.
Dayton Duncan
Writer/Filmmaker
Walpole, New Hampshire
Dayton Duncan is an award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of twelve books. For more than twenty years he has been making documentaries for PBS with Ken Burns, including Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, The Dust Bowl, and The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, for which he won two Emmy awards as writer and producer, and was named by the director of the National Park Service as an Honorary Ranger. Duncan has served on the boards of the National Park Foundation, the Student Conservation Association and the Conservation Lands Foundation and was appointed by President Clinton as chair of the American Heritage Rivers Advisory Commission. He lives in Walpole, New Hampshire.
Brent D. Glass
Director Emeritus, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
District of Columbia
From 2002 to 2011, Dr. Brent D. Glass directed America’s largest history museum. Today he is a national leader in the preservation, interpretation, and promotion of history providing management and consulting services to museums, historical organizations, and cultural institutions in the United States and other countries. His most recent book, 50 Great American Places, explores the power of essential historic sites and how they illuminate core themes in American history. Since 2012, Glass has served as a senior advisor to more than 60 cultural and educational institutions including the Presidio Trust in San Francisco, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation in Illinois, the DeVos Institute for Arts Management at the Kennedy Center, the Diplomacy Center in Washington, DC and Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is currently working with several museums under development including the National Railroad Hall of Fame in Galesburg, Illinois, and the Sing Sing Prison Museum in Ossining, New York.
Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D.
President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY
The Honorable Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D., is the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest technological research university in the United States, where she has led an extraordinary transformation since 1999. Described by Time Magazine as “perhaps the ultimate role model for women in science,” Dr. Jackson has held senior leadership positions in academia, government, industry, and research. A theoretical physicist, Dr. Jackson holds an S.B. in Physics, and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics, both from MIT.
In September 2014, United States President Barack Obama appointed Dr. Jackson as Co-Chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, where she served until January 2017. Dr. Jackson also served on the U.S. Secretary of State International Security Advisory Board from 2011-2017, and the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board from 2013-2017. From 2009 to 2014, Dr. Jackson served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), and, as part of PCAST, was Co-Chair of the President’s Innovation and Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC).
Before taking the helm at Rensselaer, Dr. Jackson was Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), from 1995 to 1999. At the NRC, Dr. Jackson conceived and promulgated risk-informed, performance-based regulation and created a new planning, budgeting, and performance management process (PBPM). During her tenure at the NRC, Dr. Jackson spearheaded the formation of the International Nuclear Regulators Association (INRA), and served as its Chairman from 1997-1999.
Dr. Jackson is a Life Member of the MIT Corporation, and a former Vice-Chair of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. She serves on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, and major corporations that include FedEx, IBM, and Medtronic. She is a former member of the board of the World Economic Forum USA (WEF USA).
Dr. Jackson is an international fellow of the British Royal Academy of Engineering, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and the American Philosophical Society, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society. She holds 53 honorary doctoral degrees.
In 2007, describing her as “a national treasure,” the National Science Board selected Dr. Jackson as the recipient of the Vannevar Bush Award for “a lifetime of achievements in scientific research, public policy, and senior statesman-like contributions to public policy.” In 2016, United States President Barack Obama awarded Dr. Jackson the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor in science and engineering.
Shelton Johnson
Interpretive Ranger, Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park
Shelton Johnson was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1958 and graduated from Detroit's Cass Technical High School in 1976. He attended Wayne State University for a year before transferring to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he graduated with a BA in English Literature. He briefly served in the Peace Corps as an English Teacher in Liberia, West Africa. After the Peace Corps, Shelton enrolled in the University of Michigan's Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing where his focus was poetry. In the summer of 1984, he began work in Yellowstone National Park as a front desk clerk at Old Faithful Inn. Shelton's career with the NPS began in 1987 when he became a ranger at the West Gate Entrance Station in Yellowstone. He's been working in the national parks ever since and has done a variety of jobs leading to his current position as a Park Ranger in the Division of Interpretation and Education in Yosemite National Park where he’s been for the last 23 years. From 1999 to 2009, Johnson served as a consultant and featured on-screen commentator for the documentary film The National Parks, America’s Best Idea by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan. On September 25, 2009, Ranger Johnson attended a special screening of segments from the film at the White House where he spoke with President Barack Obama about the national park experience. On November 19, 2009, Johnson was awarded the National Freeman Tilden Award for his work with Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan on their film. In 2010, Ranger Johnson invited and hosted Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King on their first visit to Yosemite National Park. Yosemite was Ms. Winfrey's first national park visit, and she dedicated her two Yosemite shows, which focused on the importance of cultural diversity on park lands, to the national parks. At the time of the broadcast, The Oprah Winfrey Show, in its 25th and final season, was the number one talk show in the world.
Tim Kelly
Co-founder and CEO, Planet3
District of Columbia
Tim Kelly is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Planet3, an exploration-based learning company which presents the entire Earth as a living laboratory through immersive, game-based experiences. Targeting science, technology, engineering, arts, and math subjects, Planet3 seeks to empower student curiosity and achievement while improving student-learning outcomes in K-12. Tim previously served as President of the National Geographic Society, where he transitioned the primarily print-based organization to a global multimedia force and engineered the launch of the National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Films, and a wide array of digital media products. In addition to leading Planet3 and serving on the Board of American Prairie Reserve, Tim serves as an advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative and on the Board of the Great Plains Conservation Trust. An avid explorer and conservationist, Tim is passionate about connecting the next generation to the challenges and solutions affecting our rapidly changing planet.