Ricky A. Raven, Board Chairman
Ricky A. Raven focuses his practice on civil litigation, toxic tort, products liability, personal injury, and white collar criminal defense. He has more than 20 years of experience in the resolution of complex litigation involving multiple plaintiffs and multiple defendants, as well as in handling single-party disputes, and he has first-chaired more than 100 jury trials to verdict. Mr. Raven's practice includes trial of cases to verdict and resolution of cases before trial. One of his trial verdicts, a wrongful death lawsuit in Jefferson County, Texas, was recognized by The National Law Journal as one of the top ten verdicts in the nation in 1998. 

Earl Cummings, Chairman Emeritus
Mr. Cummings currently serves as the President of Best Staff Technical Services’ Government Services Division. His previous positions include CIO of Best Staff Technical Services, Consultant at Unocal Corporation, Network Manager at Texas Children’s Hospital, and CEO of Technical Industry Consultants. In February 2001, he was selected as one of the Fifty Most Influential Minorities in Business by the Minority Business and Professional Network. Mr. Cummings graduated from the University of Houston’s School of Business with a Bachelors of Business Administration in Management Information Systems.

Reagan D. Flowers, Ph.D., President
Dr. Reagan Flowers is a STEM education pioneer impacting tens of thousands of teachers and students in the US and Latin America. Founded in 2002, CSTEM's inclusive education methodology has been implemented in over 260 PK-12 schools and has helped close the achievement gap among ethnic-minority and underrepresented students in the STEM instructional areas. Her pragmatic understanding of effective STEM education reform in classrooms across the nation has been instrumental in the successful implementation of the CSTEM Challenge model in each participating school. To date, over 50,000 students have been impacted by Dr. Flowers's STEM education outreach efforts. She has also authored several articles and two books, The CSTEM Challenge: A Feeder Pattern Approach to Reaching All Students through Hands-on Project-based Learning and CSTEM Pedagogy: Your Guide to Project-Based Learning, which has helped bring her innovative methods to life.

Dr. Flowers chairs the board of the Texas High School for Careers and Post Secondary Success and the STEM Education sub-committee for the Texas Business Education Coalition, serves as the vice chair of the American Leadership Forum Gulf Coast Chapter, is a 2011 World Innovation Summit on Education Award nominee, and has received numerous congressional recognitions for her leadership in STEM education.

Christopher Pankey, Director
Christopher Pankey is currently a Senior Network Engineering for AT&T and single point of contact for Sales & Marketing on network issues, outages, network information, and design and build plans for capacity growth and performance of the wireless network in the Houston Market. He previously performed the duties of a Data Network Consultant III in the Premier Client Group in the ABS organization for wireline virtual private networks, security products, cloud storage, and hosted applications. Christopher currently holds a Bachelor's of Science in Civil Engineering from Prairie View A&M University and a Master's of Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Christopher has previous experience as a Research Implementation Engineer-TxDOT, Civil/Structural Engineer for petrochemical refineries - Bechtel Corporation, Network Planning and Engineering -Capacity Manager - Advanced Solutions Inc., and as a Technical Sales Engineer/ Data Network Consultant in the Marketing Organization for SBC. Although his career has varied, Christopher currently serves as a Board Member to the CSTEM Teacher and Support Services organization, Vice President for the Houston Chapter of Community NETwork, member of HACEMOS, member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, INC. , Lifetime member of Epsilon Gamma Iota, INC., and an Eagle Scout with the Boy Scouts of America.

Sandy Hellums, Director
Building on her background in law and policy, Sandy Hellums primarily concentrates her litigation practice in the area of public law. She represents public and private entities on an array of issues including civil rights, planning and zoning, transportation and infrastructure projects, public housing, election law disputes, open records and meetings requirements, as well as commercial contract and tort disputes.

Stephen Harris, Director
Currently serves as the Corporate Communications Manager Schlumberger, based in Houston, Harris is responsible for external corporate communications activities including media relations, public affairs, community relations, crisis communications and serving as spokesperson for Schlumberger’s North American operations. Harris’s 13-year career with Schlumberger spans a variety of communications and marketing positions, including serving as public relations manager for the company’s Oilfield Services business segment; managing editor for online content; and executive editor of the company’s global corporate web space. Harris graduated from the University of Houston-Downtown where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in professional writing with an emphasis on journalism and corporate communications.

Barbara Thornhill, Director
Barbara Thornhill is a retired Houston Independent School District administrator. As an urban educator, Ms. Thornhill has been a teacher, principal, District office administrator and most recently West Region Superintendent. As the West Region Superintendent, Ms. Thornhill lead 64 elementary, middle and high school campuses in the west, central and southwest areas of Houston. Ms. Thornhill completed her undergrad and graduate work at the University of St Thomas and the University of Houston, respectively.

Cheryl Hatcher, Director
Cheryl Hatcher currently serves as the Project Procurement Manager for the Dulles Metrorail Project which is an extension of Washington, D.C.'s subway system to Dulles International Airport. Cheryl’s 23 year tenure at Bechtel Corporation, a major Engineering, Construction, and Procurement Company has been focused on purchasing material, materials management, and encouraging small business participation for numerous major construction projects around the world. Cheryl received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Houston majoring in Business and Commerce.