On January 2015, eight new students started at the Foresight Program, we would like to give them a warm welcoming and wish them a lot of success on this new stage of their professional lives.
Brenda Chacon is a native San Antonian, she attended the University of the Incarnate Word, a private catholic university. She received her BBA in History. Her favorite historical era is the Civil War. And she currently works for USAA as a Consumer Loan Rep. She is also a very proud mother of have 5 kids, all adopted oldest one is 34 youngest one is 18.
George Paap -top left- lives in Austin but works in San Antonio. He graduated from the University of California with a degree in Physics. Now he is a Manager on Decision Science Analytics at USAA. He is looking forward to his studies in Foresight as it looks at much longer horizons than are typical in company strategy and will help me identify disruptive opportunities and threats. He plan to move towards a strategy/innovation role within USAA.
Greg Turner -top center- is the President of TurnerDuran Architects, LP, a Houston-based company he founded in 1984. The firm specializes in projects for institutional and corporate clients, and consistently ranks among the top firms in Texas. He has a Bachelor degree in Architecture and Design, and also a Master of Architecture, both from MIT. Greg is a returning UH alumni, he got an MBA degree from Bauer Business School.
Joe Murphy -top right- is a librarian and library futures consultant in the Bay Area with his small Italian Greyhound. Joe was formerly a Science Librarian at Yale University and a Director of Library Futures with a leading library software company (Innovative). This is Joe’s second masters degree, he earned an MLISc from the University of Hawaii and studied Physics as an Undergrad. Joe grew up in NY and has lived in LA, NY, Hawaii, NV, Connecticut. Joe has presented on future directions for libraries around the globe and the US.
Katie King -center- is a proud USC alumna with a degree in journalism. Nowadays she is a middle school English teacher, who is interested in the future of education. Her current interest in that sphere is the future of learning spaces and schedules. She is a native Houstonian who now lives in Humboldt County, CA. This is her first official semester on the program.
Khaliah Johnson -bottom left- is a first year student in the Foresight program. In December of 2014, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies from the University of Houston. Her concentrations were beverage mgmt. & mktg., global business, PR & advertising, and global & international studies. She is interested in improving the future of the global alcohol market by creating innovative strategies through product and service implementation. She currently works in beverage marketing doing consumer behavior research, and conducts an occasional wine tasting as a blossoming sommelier.
Maria Romero -bottom center- was born on Valencia, Venezuela and move to Caracas to get her bachelor’s degrees in Sociology at Universidad Central de Venezuela, biggest public university of the country and another in Communications at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, a top private catholic university. She has worked on several fields from multinational consumer goods company to technology and digital advertising startups, always being related to marketing, strategy and research positions. Currently she is a full time student and the GA for the program.
Will Williamsom -bottom right- currently works as a manual lathe machinist and millwright which is, in essence, an extremely precise metal worker. He enjoys everything creative about what he do, but he do not want to make a career of it, as it is extremely dangerous work. His background is in psychology with neuroscience and behavioral analysis focuses. He would like to move into a career space which might use behavioral analysis and foresight in concert. He assign a tremendous amount of value to strategic decision making, and I am excited to make the most of this opportunity to culture an understanding of foresight.
