NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Two residents of Georgia are the newest members of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust.
During its spring meeting April 22-23, the Board elected to a four-year term outgoing Alumni Association president Ron D. Ford, an Atlanta real estate executive. Graduating Vanderbilt senior Heather Souder of Marietta, Ga., was elected to a four-year term as a young alumni trustee.
A native of Lenoir City, Tenn., Ford currently serves as president of Wells DC, a real estate holding company, and as chief financial strategist of Wells Real Estate Funds, one of the world’s largest owners of office buildings.
Ford received his Master in Business Administration through the Executive MBA Program at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt in 1992. While a student at Owen, Ford was elected to the Owen Alumni Board of Directors and served 11 years, culminating with his presidency of the group. He has been a member of the Vanderbilt Alumni Association Board for the past several years and assumed the presidency July 1, 2003. His term as alumni president expires June 30.
Ford has a degree in accounting from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and holds a doctorate in executive management from Case Western Reserve University. He serves on the boards of Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta.
Souder, a political science and communications major, has dedicated her time at Vanderbilt to women’s issues, becoming an active member of the Women’s Studies Club in 2000 and serving as the organization’s treasurer in 2002-2003. In her efforts to combat violence against women on campus, she became a trained Hand in Hand volunteer during her freshman year.
A Chancellor’s Scholar, Souder has served as the campus outreach officer for the Vanderbilt College Democrats, a Vuceptor for transfer students, a mentor for refugee families in the Nashville community and a tutor at the Cayce Learning Center. A member of Mortar Board and the Gamma Beta Phi, Lambda Pi Eta and Omicron Delta Kappa honor societies, Souder is a 2002 recipient of the Benjamin Mays Award.
Vanderbilt set a national precedent in 1968 when the Board of Trust voted to elect a graduating senior to its membership each year.
Media contact: Kara Furlong, (615) 322-NEWS
kara.c.furlong@vanderbilt.edu