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Hall of Honor to Welcome New Inductees

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Oklahoma City University’s Meinders School of Business will honor five business and community leaders during the 31st annual Oklahoma Commerce & Industry Hall of Honor luncheon Oct. 19 at the Cox Convention Center.

The 2017 inductees are Ray and Patt Potts with the Lifetime Achievement Award, Richard Clements with the Outstanding Achievement Award, Tom Hoenig with the Chairman's Award and Stephen Prescott with the President’s Award.

The Oklahoma Commerce & Industry Hall of Honor luncheon is the premier event benefitting the Meinders School of Business scholarship program.

Melissa Cory, director of communications and director of the school’s executive and professional education efforts, called the event an “opportunity to celebrate visionaries, leaders and role models for our students, who are the next generation of business and community leaders. We are thrilled to honor leaders who have made significant contributions to our state and region through their dedication and support to our community.”

Corporate sponsorships and individual tickets are available. For more information or to make a reservation, contact Cory at 405-208-5540 or [email protected]. Registration is also available online on the Hall of Honor page at okcu.edu/hallofhonor.

About the honorees:

Pat and Ray Potts

Pat Potts
Pat Potts

Pat Potts co-founded the Community Resource Development Foundation and its successor, the Potts Family Foundation (PFF). She also founded the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits and served as president and CEO for more than 20 years. Pat was also a founder of the Oklahoma Women’s Coalition.

Pat previously served as president on the Oklahoma City School Board, Oklahoma City Beautiful, the Zoo Trust, and the Society of Fund Raising Executives. She currently serves on the board of Sunbeam Foundation.

Pat was honored by the Journal Record as “Woman of the Year” in 2012. She focuses on leveraging resources “to address root causes and build the human potential of the people of our state one child and one organization at a time.”

Pat holds a master’s degree in business administration.

Ray Potts
Ray Potts

Ray Potts earned the rank of lieutenant in the United States Air Force, then co-founded PSEC and served as its president and CEO for over 30 years until its sale to ONEOK. At that point, it became Potts Exploration.

Ray has served as chairman of the Natural Gas Committee of the Independent Association of Petroleum Geologists of America. Ray also was president of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association. He served for eight years as a member of the State Board of Education and later as the first president of the Oklahoma City Public School Foundation.

Ray supports investment in early childhood education because, “it produces the best return for the individual and for society.” He also currently serves on the board of directors at Smart Start Oklahoma.

Ray earned a master’s degree in geology and a juris doctor degree.

Richard Clements

Richard Clements
Richard Clements

Richard Hamer Clements attended Oklahoma City Public Schools and graduated from Classen High School. Selected for the Navy’s V-12 program, he studied at Emory University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a business degree in 1948. He served in the Navy during the Korean War.

In 1953, Clements and his father started Clements Foods Company, which is now in its 64th year of family management and ownership. Their products are distributed throughout the United States and exported to Mexico, Europe and the Middle East.

Clements served as president of two trade associations — The Association for Dressings and Sauces and the International Jelly and Preserve Association. He was a long-time member of the Better Business Bureau and served as president. He served as president of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce in 1983 and is currently on their board. He was a member of Young Presidents’ Organization, Chief Executive’s Forum and the World Business Council. Clements served on the boards of directors of First National Bank, Local Federal Savings and Loan, and Integris Baptist Medical Center.

Clements has been involved with the United Way for more than 60 years. He chaired the annual campaign in 1975 and served as president in 1988-89. He received their Lifetime Achievement award in 1989, which was thereafter named in his honor. Clements chaired the Allied Arts campaign in 1982 and continues to serve as an honorary director. He served on the board of visitors for the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at OU, and served on the board of YMCA for 25 years. He has been a member of Kiwanis since 1951 and served as president in 1962. He served on the vestry of All Souls Episcopal Church and as a trustee of Casady School.

Clements was inducted into the Oklahoma City Public School’s Foundation Wall of Fame in 1997.

Thomas M. Hoenig

Thomas Hoenig
Thomas Hoenig

Thomas M. Hoenig was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Nov. 15, 2012. He joined the FDIC on April 16, 2012, as a member of the FDIC Board of Directors for a six-year term. He also serves as president of the International Association of Deposit Insurers, elected to the position in October 2015.

Prior to serving on the FDIC board, Hoenig was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and a member of the Federal Reserve System's Federal Open Market Committee from 1991 to 2011.

Hoenig was with the Federal Reserve for 38 years, beginning as an economist and then as a senior officer in banking supervision during the U.S. banking crisis of the 1980s. In 1986, he led the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank's Division of Bank Supervision and Structure, directing the oversight of more than 1,000 banks and bank holding companies with assets ranging from less than $100 million to $20 billion. He became president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank on Oct. 1, 1991.

Hoenig received a doctorate in economics from Iowa State University.

Stephen Prescott

Stephen Prescott
Stephen Prescott

Stephen Prescott, MD, joined the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) in 2006, becoming the ninth president since OMRF was chartered in 1946. A leader in studies of the basic mechanisms of human disease, Prescott came to OMRF from the University of Utah, where he founded the Eccles Program in Human and Molecular Biology & Genetics and served as the executive director of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, an NCI‐ designated cancer center.

At OMRF, Prescott has raised almost $100 million to fund the largest campus expansion in the foundation’s history. At OMRF, physicians treat more than 2,000 MS patients while exploring new avenues of clinical research. The MS Center is part of OMRF’s Autoimmune Disease Institute, recognized by the Institutes of Health as one of only 10 Autoimmunity Centers of Excellence in the U.S. Under Prescott’s leadership, The Scientist magazine has repeatedly recognized OMRF as one of its “Best Places to Work” both in academia and for post‐doctoral fellows, and two medications born at OMRF have received FDA approval.

Prescott earned an undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University, received his MD from the Baylor College of Medicine, and completed his training in internal medicine at the University of Utah. After advanced research training at Washington University School of Medicine, he joined the faculty of the University of Utah, where he became a professor of internal medicine and held the H.A. & Edna Benning Presidential Endowed Chair. He has authored more than 250 scientific articles and has trained more than 40 research students and postdoctoral fellows. Prescott served as a senior editor of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Journal of Clinical Investigation and on several advisory committees. He has been elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association of American Physicians, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, and the Royal Academy of Medicine in Spain. He has received numerous scientific awards, consulted for and served on the boards of numerous pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and is the founder of LineaGen, a biotechnology company.

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