Far Hills, N.J. – Walter W. Driver Jr., 61, of Atlanta, Ga., has been nominated to serve a second one-year term as president of the USGA by the Nominating Committee of the United States Golf Association. The election of officers and the full 15-member USGA Executive Committee will take place Feb. 3, 2007, at the USGA’s Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Calif.
As president, Driver will continue to lead the Association’s professional staff and nearly 1,400 volunteers who serve on more than 30 committees.
Driver is Chairman-Southeast of Goldman Sachs and Company, a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Texas Law School. He began his service to the Executive Committee as general counsel in 1997 and was named to the Committee two years later. He served two years as treasurer and four years as vice president.
The other nominated officers of the Executive Committee will be: James F. Vernon of Pasadena, Calif., and James B. Hyler Jr. of Raleigh, N.C., as vice presidents; Emily R. (Missy) Crisp of Mill Neck, N.Y., as secretary; and Fredric C. Nelson of San Francisco, Calif., as treasurer.
The other seven returning members of the Executive Committee are: James T. Bunch of Denver, Colo.; Irving Fish of Wayzata, Minn.; William M. Lewis Jr. of New York, N.Y.; Pat McKinney of Charleston, S.C.; Cameron Jay Rains of San Diego, Calif.; Loren Singletary of Houston, Texas; and Steve Smyers of Lakeland, Fla.
Glen Nager, a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue, has been chosen as the Association’s general counsel for a second consecutive year.
There are three new nominations to the Executive Committee for 2007. They are Christie Austin of Cherry Hills Village, Colo.; John Kim of Farmington, Conn.; and Geoffrey Yang of Menlo Park, Calif.
Austin, 49, executive vice president of Marsico Capital Management since 2003, has been involved in the last two USGA championships held at Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village. Most recently, she served as vice chairman of the 2005 U.S. Women’s Open at Cherry Hills. She also was registration chairman for the 2003 U.S. Senior Open at Cherry Hills. A member at Cherry Hills, she recently won her 11th Club championship. She also has qualified for seven U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur championships.
Professionally, Austin, a CPA, helped found MCM in 1997 and served as its chief financial officer for six years until 2003. Today, MCM has 70 employees and manages more than $75 billion in assets. Prior to 1997, she helped found Englewood Mortgage Company in 1987 with her husband, Bob. They have two children, Michael and Julie. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado.
Kim, 46, has been president of Prudential Retirement (formerly CIGNA Retirement and Investments) since 2002, a leading plan provider that serves more than three million customers and manages roughly $140 billion in assets. The company has 2,500 employees.
A graduate of the University of Michigan (BBA) and the University of Connecticut (MBA), Kim is a chartered financial analyst who has been an industry leader since 1995, when he served as chief executive officer at Aeltus Investment Management. In 2001, he moved to the president and chief executive officer role of BondBook, LLC.
He and his wife, Diane, have three children: Andrew, Emily and Caroline.
Yang, 47, is a founding partner and managing director of Redpoint Ventures, a family of early stage venture capital funds based in California’s Silicon Valley. He is responsible for the firm’s investments in new companies, such as Ask Jeeves, Excite, MySpace, TiVo, Foundry Networks and Juniper Networks. Prior to 1999, Yang was a general partner with Institutional Venture Partners for 12 years.
Born in New York, N.Y., Yang is a 1981 graduate of Princeton University. He earned a master’s degree in business from Stanford University in 1985.
The three current Committee members who will be retiring at the upcoming Annual Meeting are Craig Ammerman of Cherry Hill, N.J.; Lewis Blakey of Alexandria, Va.; and James Reinhart of Mequon, Wis.
According to USGA by-law provisions, the 2008 Nominating Committee will consist of two recent USGA past presidents and three at-large committee members. This year’s committee is comprised of USGA past Presidents Trey Holland (2000-01) and Reed Mackenzie (2002-03) and three at-large members – Peter James of Los Angeles, Calif., Christopher Liedel of Reston, Va., and Leslie Turner of Minneapolis, Minn. James is a former Executive Committee member. Liedel serves as Chief Financial Officer of the National Geographic Society located in Washington, D.C. Turner is a former member of the USGA Women’s Committee.
The USGA, golf’s governing body in this country and Mexico, works closely with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland to produce a uniform code of Rules of Golf that are observed worldwide. The USGA also conducts equipment testing, maintains an official Handicap System, and administers an ongoing "For the Good of the Game" grants program, which has allocated $53 million over 10 years, through its headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo.
The organization’s most visible role, however, is played out each season in conducting 13 national championships, including the U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open, and U.S. Senior Open. The other 10 national championships are exclusively for amateurs, and include the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
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