Richard Hojel, President & CEO Corporacion Frigus Therme & Algas Industries Richard Hojel has been with Corporacion Frigus Therme since 1993 and in 1996 became its President and CEO. Corporacion is a group of companies based in Mexico, including the following business units: a manufacturing process equipment company that services the petroleum and petrochemical industry (Zeeco-Therme), a commercial refrigeration equipment company (Frigus-Bohn) and a business that rents capacity to transport and market natural gas (Igasamex). He is President and CEO of Algas Industries (a US company), a designer and manufacturer of liquid vaporizers and gas mixing solutions. Mr. Hojel began his career at Andersen Consulting and has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and a MBA from Harvard Business School. As a Partner of HM International, Mr. Hojel works closely with and serves on the Board of Directors of Quality Sausage Company and American Innovations. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Algas-SDI, Frigus Bohn de Mexico, and Igasamex.  Additionally, he participates as a Board Member of Corporación Zapata and Monte Xanic.  Mr. Hojel has been a Member of the Board of Directors of The Institute of the Americas since 2003 and is currently serving as its Chairman.

Nelson W. Cunningham, President and Co-founder of McLarty Associates Nelson W. Cunningham is President and Co-founder of McLarty Associates. Under Mr. Cunningham’s leadership, McLarty Associates has developed into a firm with global reach and over seventy employees and advisors, stationed in Washington and around the world. Mr. Cunningham is responsible for guiding our service to clients and is a skilled strategist on national and international policy issues. He travels extensively on firm business, helping ensure that we bring to our clients the broadest range of regional expertise and transnational perspectives. Prior to co-founding McLarty Associates in 1998, Mr. Cunningham served in the White House as Special Advisor to President Clinton on Western Hemisphere affairs and as General Counsel at the White House Office of Administration. He previously served as General Counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee, under then-Chairman Joseph R. Biden. Before moving to Washington, Mr. Cunningham served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1988 until 1994, having been hired by Rudolph Giuliani, and in 1984 he was a staffer on the successful Senate campaign of John Kerry. Mr. Cunningham is active on foreign policy and political matters and frequently speaks to audiences in the United States and abroad. He is a member of the Secretary of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, the Department of State’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, and past Chairman of the Export-Import Bank Advisory Committee. He also served as a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Team and an advisor during the campaign, and was a foreign policy and trade advisor to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, as well as to other Democratic candidates. Additionally, Mr. Cunningham serves as President of the American Security Project, a think tank founded by then-Senator John Kerry in 2005; Vice Chair of the Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) and of the Institute of the Americas; and is past Chair of NDN’s Latin America Policy Initiative. He is an active member of the boards of the Atlantic Council and the U.S.-India Business Council, and is a member of the Yale President’s Council on International Activities, the Council of the Americas, and the Council on Foreign Relations. A lawyer by training, Mr. Cunningham is a member of the DC, New York, and Massachusetts bars. Mr. Cunningham is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale College and Stanford Law School, where he served as an editor of the Stanford Law Review. He was raised in Latin America and has lived in seven different countries throughout the region. Mr. Cunningham speaks Spanish fluently and French passably.

Theodore E. Gildred, Chairman Emeritus Chairman of the Board, The Lomas Santa Fe Group Theodore E. Gildred was appointed United States Ambassador to Argentina in 1986 and served under both the Reagan and Bash Administrations until June of 1989. Mr. Gildred is the founder and Chairman of the Board of The Lomas Santa Fe Group, a San Diego based network of privately held real estate holding and development companies. He serves on the Board of Directors of North American Airlines, and the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Area Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Since completing his State Department assignment, Ambassador Gildred has returned home to San Diego. He and his wife, Heidi, live on the beach in Encinitas, California. Mr. Gildred’s family moved to San Diego in 1914 and established businesses in both the United States and Mexico. Mr. Gildred was born in Mexico City in 1935, and attended schools in Mexico and Southern California. Following military service in Germany, he earned a degree in 1959 from Stanford University and, subsequently, did post-graduate language studies at the Sorbone and the University of Heidelberg. Mr. Gildred worked in Mexico as administrator of family businesses before starting The Lomas Santa Fe Group in the sixties. In 1967, he became president of the Gildred Foundation, which has made substantial contributions to scientific research, education, health care, and community improvement in the United States and Latin America. More frequently, the Gildred Foundation focused on Latin American affairs, establishing chairs for Latin American studies at Stanford University and the University of California San Diego. In 1979, Mr. Gildred formed the Torrey Prines Bank, which became one of the largest independent banks in San Diego before being sold to Wells Fargo Bank in 1990. Mr. Gildred then joined the Board of Directors of Security Pacific National Bank and served until 1993 at which time he became part of the Bank of America Board of Directors through 1994. In the early eighties, Mr. Gildred was instrumental in founding the Institute of the Americas on the campus of the University of Calfiornia, San Diego. He served as chairman of its Board of Governors until he was appointed Ambassador to Argentina and rejoined the Board upon his return in 1989. In 1981, Mr. Gildred piloted a 1942 Stinson Reliant airplane, the “Ecuador II” on a 4600 mile flight from San Diego to Quito, duplicating the historic flight made by his father fifty years earlier, which led to the establishment of the first air mail system in Ecuador in 1931. He was subsequently awarded the honorary Command Pilot wings of the Ecuadorian Air Force by, then President, León Febres Cordero. In 1992, President Carlos Menem of Argentina awarded Ambassador Gildred the Orden de Mayo al Mérito, en Grado de Gran Cruz for the significant contribution he made to broadening and strengthening relations between Argentina and the United States. Ambassador Gildred has been a speaker at many international conferences and YPO and CEO Universities around the world and he continues to travel extensively in his capacity as president of the InterAmericana Group, a consulting firm specializing in the development of business opportunities throughout the Americas.

Managing Director and Chairman of the Board. David Weaver has built a number of major commercial real estate projects in Miami and served as the City of Miami’s Assistant City manager responsible for developing Miami’s Bayside Specialty Retail Center with the Rouse Company. A leader in many community activities, he chaired the Miami Parking Authority, the New World Center Action Committee (Miami’s “Committee of One Hundred”) and twice led Miami’s successful efforts to keep Homestead Air Force Base from being closed by the U.S. Congress’ Base Closure Commission (BRAC).