Rice University held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new George R. Brown Tennis Complex today, which is located on campus near Rice Stadium in West Lot No. 3.

“We are so pleased to make this investment in the future of tennis at Rice, and I am personally grateful for the generosity of some of our most loyal supporters, including Ralph and Becky O’Connor,”

Rice University President David Leebron said. “This facility is another way in which we support our athletics programs to make Rice a premier destination for some of the very best student-athletes in the world.”

The new facility will have 14 tennis courts, coaches’ offices, locker rooms, training and equipment rooms and covered spectator seating. Competition-quality lights will give Rice the ability to play matches at night, and the court configuration will give coaches better visual access to monitor team play. Spectators will benefit from seating that allows for viewing multiple matches. The new facility will also accommodate intramural activities and the Rice Tennis Club.

“Rice Tennis is taking a huge step forward today as we break ground on a facility that will certainly become one of the finest of its kind in the nation,” said Rick Greenspan, director of Athletics and Recreation. “Our men's and women's teams have an established reputation for excellence, and their new home will be a tremendous asset in adding to their legacies. The George R. Brown Tennis Center will allow us to host high-profile events in a fan-friendly environment and grow our fan base and promote the game of college tennis.”

The new $8 million complex is named for the late George R. Brown, former chair of the Rice Board of Trustees. Brown was a prominent Houston businessman and philanthropist who served on the Rice board for more than 25 years, from 1943 to 1968.

Ralph and Becky O’Connor and their family provided lead funding for the project. Brown served as both Ralph O’Connor’s mentor and business associate and was the grandfather of O’Connor’s four children. O’Connor is a trustee emeritus of Rice; he served on the board from 1978 to 1988.

“When we talked about a new tennis facility, I realized it wasn’t a matter of what we needed to do but how we could do it,” O’Connor said. “We had a lot of ideas presented to us, and I finally decided to kick off the process with a lead gift. Nothing was more gratifying to me than to have the complex named after George R. Brown, my mentor and true friend. When my four children decided to pitch in, I was even more delighted.”

The university also released updated renderings of the 126,000-square- foot complex, which is expected to be ready for use by next tennis season.

“With six courts in a row, the court setup is going to provide a perfect college tennis environment for the fans and players,” said Elizabeth Schmidt, women’s head tennis coach. “It will be an intimate setting where the team can really feed off each other’s energy, and the fans will be able to view matches on all six courts from one vantage point. Everyone will really feel a part of the action.”

“This facility will be second to none and will be a place that all of our players will be proud to call their home court,” said Efe Ustundag, men’s head tennis coach. “When you combine these facilities with the chance to receive a world-class education, we have everything that the elite tennis programs around the country have to offer. We also will be able to attract a number of quality tennis events in the future as well as organize significant events to promote Rice tennis throughout the community.”

The Rice tennis teams have produced 24 All-Americans and have won a combined 15 conference championships. The women’s team reached the NCAA Sweet 16 in 2012 and is currently ranked No. 20 nationally heading into the 2013 NCAA tournament.

The American Leadership Forum- Houston/Gulf Coast Chapter will present the 2013 Joseph Jaworski Leadership Award to Bill King and the American Leadership Forum Public Service Award to Dorothy Gibbons at the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Wednesday, May 8. The evening begins at 6 p.m. with a cocktail reception, followed by a big board auction, awards program and dinner.

King is currently president of Southwest Airport Services, Inc. and writes a weekly column for the Houston Chronicle. King has enjoyed an extensive business and legal career, most recently retiring as Of Counsel to Bracewell & Giuliani, LLP.  In the early 1990s he was elected to city council and eventually served two terms as mayor of Kemah.

King has served on numerous charitable and community boards, including the Fire Fighters Foundation of Houston, Galveston Bay Foundation, Interfaith Ministries, Crime Stoppers of Houston, the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Council, Bay Area Houston Economic Partners and the HGAC Transportation Policy Council.

The American Leadership Forum Public Service Award, sponsored by Chevron, will be presented to Dorothy GIbbons, CEO of The Rose, who has led the organization from its grassroots beginning to become one of the most respected breast health organizations in Texas. Gibbons and Dr. Dixie Melillo co-founded The Rose with great dreams and greater determination. Gibbon's passionate advocacy for women, especially those in need, inspired her to create a place that was the first of its kind, a place where every woman could receive quality care regardless of her ability to pay. Today, The Rose provides breast health care to over 33,000 women every year.

Dorothy’s leadership has led to many firsts: She employed patient navigators when no one had heard of that terminology, established a 500+ member strong Physicians Network that provides pro bono care for the uninsured, brought in the first truly portable and business adaptable Mobile Mammography units which now serve a 24 county area in southeast Texas, created the Breast Health Collaborative of Texas, received Houston’s first “Fearless Woman” Award in 2011, was the first recipient of the Trekker Award and was awarded her first national honor in 2012 as Yoplait’s Breast Cancer Champion.

 Dorothy’s education began with a bachelor's of arts degree in communications and has extended to embrace studies of omen’s roles in worlds religions, mythology and history.  She currently serves as a board member for the Breast Health Collaborative of Texas, the Association of Business Professional Women and Gateway to Care. She is a Senior Fellow, Class XXIX, of the American Leadership Forum.

Proceeds from the evening will go towards supporting operations of the American Leadership Forum, including granting scholarships for fellows from organizations not in a position to pay full tuition. Please contact Celene Keserich at 713- 807-1253 or  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  for more information on purchasing tables and tickets.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker announced the launch of a new city-wide, online jobs platform to help Houstonians find work during her State of the City address this afternoon. 

“Tweet My Jobs, Houston” uses innovative technology to combine the popularity of social media and the convenience of a smart phone application. The free service already has more than 150,000 Houston job postings from entry level to senior level corporate positions.

“Houston is the biggest economic success story in America, but the best can always get better,” said Mayor Parker. “This free and user-friendly online tool is the new way to find a job and hire in Houston. Job seekers will have instant and direct access to thousands of jobs via Facebook, Twitter, email or their mobile phone. Starting today, you can walk down the street and view on your smart phone all the jobs available in your immediate proximity. Likewise, this will greatly simplify the hiring process, providing any employer, regardless of size, with the same fast and free access to the best and brightest recruits available. This is truly a game-changer for Houston.”

Tweet My Jobs, Houston is available at www.houston.tweetmyjobs.com or in the application store for your mobile device. Just push a button to find jobs or to post a job listing to every corner of the digital landscape. The unique integration with Twitter and Facebook allows job seekers to receive job notifications via text message, email or through social media. It’s also possible to see if Facebook friends are connected with the hiring company. The online platform will allow the city to track the number of residents pursuing job opportunities, the type of positions being sought, the level of position and the industries in which job seekers want to work. It will also be able to show the number of jobs employers are posting over time as well as the type, industry and location of available opportunities.

“TweetMyJobs has launched in other cities throughout the U.S. and we have seen firsthand what our mobile platform can do to bolster job growth and economic development,” said Robin D. Richards, chairman and CEO of TweetMyJobs. “We are excited to bring this unique tool to the 4th largest city in America and we commend Mayor Parker for her proactive approach and desire to adopt the latest recruitment technology available to support her initiatives for job creation in Houston.”

Tweet My Jobs, Houston is being funded through a $350,000 grant from the Houston Housing Finance Corporation. It will be administered by the City’s Office of Business Opportunity (OBO).

“The Office of Business Opportunity, through its Houston Business Solutions Center, provides a suite of services to help small and medium businesses get started, sustain and grow,” said OBO Director Carlecia Wright. “Tweet My Jobs, Houston will expand the network of candidates available for hiring, while reducing recruitment costs. This platform is directly aligned with the Mayor’s priority to create and sustain jobs, right here in Houston.”

Two Rice University professors and a fellow from Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bonnie Bartel, Richard Tapia and John Mendelsohn joined the ranks of astronaut John Glenn, singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, actor Sally Field and operatic soprano Renee Fleming as members of the academy’s Class of 2013 — one of the highest honors for leaders in academia, business, public affairs, the humanities and the arts.

Bartel is Rice’s Ralph and Dorothy Looney Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Tapia is a University Professor, the Maxfield-Oshman Professor in Engineering and a professor of computational and applied mathematics at Rice. Mendelsohn is the L.E. and Virginia Simmons Fellow in Health and Technology Policy at Rice’s Baker Institute.

“The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is one of the country’s most prestigious honorary societies as well as a leading center for independent policy research,” said Rice Provost George McLendon. “We’re very proud to have three acclaimed members of the Rice community among the select group of new honorees.”

Bartel joined the Rice faculty in 1995. Her research specialty involves the use of genetic, biochemical and cell biology tools to study how plants produce and use auxin and other hormones. Her lab’s identification of an auxin biosynthetic route in a subcellular compartment known as the peroxisome led to a new understanding of how this essential organelle has been conserved and modified during the evolution of plants and animals. Bartel has received Rice’s Presidential Mentoring Award and the Charles W. Duncan Jr. Achievement Award for Outstanding Faculty. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Society of Plant Biologists and in 2006 was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Professor. HHMI awarded her $1 million to build programs at Rice that integrate undergraduate teaching with research by developing freshman seminars in local biology research. Before coming to Rice, Bartel was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass.

Tapia joined the Rice faculty in 1970. As a mathematician, he has specialized in optimization theory and numerical analysis. As director of Rice’s Center for Excellence and Equity in Education, he has directed or co-directed more underrepresented minority and women doctoral students in mathematics than anyone else in the country. He also directs the National Science Foundation-funded Empowering Leadership Alliance, which engages underrepresented minority students in computing disciplines at research institutions nationwide. In addition to having Rice’s highest academic rank as a University Professor, Tapia has achieved a number of distinguished honors, including the National Medal of Science, the inaugural Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, election as an AAAS fellow and receipt of the AAAS Lifetime Mentor Award, membership in the National Academy of Engineering, the Distinguished Public Service Award from the American Mathematical Society and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science.

Mendelsohn was named a fellow of the Baker Institute in 2011 and began his duties there in March 2012 after a sabbatical at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. His work focuses on the identification and evaluation of new health technologies, therapeutics and best practices as well as the promotion of policy recommendations to improve national and global health outcomes. A Houston cancer pioneer, Mendelsohn retired Sept. 1, 2011, as president of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center but remains on the faculty there and is co-director of the Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy. Mendelsohn’s research helped pioneer the development of cancer therapies that target the abnormal genes, gene products and cell-signaling pathways that cause the disease. Among his honors are the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, the Lila Gruber Memorial Cancer Research Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the 10th International Workshop on Molecular Targeted Therapy of Cancer.

The new members of the American Academy will be inducted at a ceremony October 12 at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge. A list of the honorees for 2013 is posted at http://www.amacad.org/members.aspx.