Joseph L. Downey - Director
Mr. Joseph L. Downey is retired from The Dow Chemical Company following a thirty-eight-year career. He began his career with Dow in 1961 after he received a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Kansas State University. He served in a wide variety of positions with the company, including Senior Vice President and member of the Board of Directors. Following retirement, he returned to his hometown, Manhattan, Kansas, and developed Downey Ranch, Inc. He is a Director of Landmark Bancorp, Inc. He is involved with several activities associated with Kansas State University. Among those are: KSU Foundation Executive Committee, KSU Golf Course Management and Research Foundation, KSU Research Foundation Finance Committee, KSU College of Engineering Advisory Council, and the National Institute for Strategic Technology Acquisition and Commercialization (NISTAC).
John R. Graham, Ph.D. - Director
Dr. John Graham currently serves as Chairman, President and CEO of Graham Capital Management, Inc., a company engaged in financial consulting, real estate investment management, and security investment. From 1979-1999, he was CEO of KFB Insurance Company, Kansas Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company, Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company, and Kansas Farm Bureau Services (a financial services holding company). Additionally, from 1994-1999, he was Chairman and CEO of FB Capital Management of Kansas, a registered investment advisor with approximately $1.2 billion of investments under management or advisory agreements. He was inducted into the Kansas Insurance Education Foundation Hall of Fame in 1988 and was selected as the Financial Executive of the Year and Hall of Fame Inductee by the Kansas State University College of Business in 1998. He is a member of several other public and private company boards, including Kansas State Bank (Manhattan, KS) and Tortoise Energy Infrastructure Corporation (NYSE: TYG).
Terry S. King, Ph.D. - Director
Dr. Terry King currently serves as the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Ball State University. Prior to becoming Provost at Ball State University, Dr. King held a variety of university and private positions including Dean of the College of Engineering at Kansas State University, Chair of the Chemical Engineering Department at Iowa State University and Senior Research Engineer at Exxon Chemical Company in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles, one book chapter and holds three patents. His professional affiliations include the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Chemical Society and North American Catalysis Society. Dr. King earned a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State University and his Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Bill Snyder - Director
Mr. Bill Snyder is well known as Head Football Coach at Kansas State University from 1989-2005 and resumed that post in December of 2008. He is credited with being the architect of the “greatest turnaround in the history of college football.” During his first tenure at Kansas State, Snyder’s teams amassed a 136-68-1 record and were perennially ranked among the nation’s elite. Snyder was named National Coach of the Year in 1991, 1994, and 1998. He was also voted by his peers as Big 8/12 Conference Coach of the Year five times. Snyder serves as the chairman of the Leadership Studies Building Campaign, honorary chairman of the K-State Changing Lives Champaign, Director of the Kansas Mentors initiative, and is past president of the K-State Friends of the Libraries organization.
Trevor Jones - Director
Mr. Trevor Jones has an extensive background in corporate leadership and technology commercialization. He is currently Chairman and CEO of ElectroSonics Medical Inc., a biomedical device company, which he co-founded in 2007. He was Chairman and Founder of BIOMEC Inc., an entrepreneurial company which developed and commercialized biomedical engineered devices and systems, founded in 1998, and acquired by Greatbatch, Inc. (NYSE:GB) in 2007. His career achievements include service as Chairman and CEO of Echlin, Inc., Chairman, President and CEO of Libbey-Owens-Ford Co., Vice President, Engineering, of TRW’s Automotive Worldwide Sector, Group Vice President and General Manager of TRW’s Transportation Electronics Group, and numerous executive positions in General Motors and GM’s aerospace activities at Delco Electronics Division.
Mr. Jones is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, one of the original group of Lifetime Associates of the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the British Institute of Electrical Engineers, an Honorary Fellow of the British Institute of Mechanical Engineers, a Life Fellow of the American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers, former Chairman of the NRC’s Committee for the Partnership for a New Generation Vehicle (PNGV), a member of UTC’s Fuel Cell Advisory Committee, and Chairman Emeritus of the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition. He currently serves on the NRC Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Advisory Committee and has chaired numerous other special scientific and technical project committees of the National Academies, the U.S Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Department of Defense.
Mr. Jones was named the 2004 Northeast Ohio Entrepreneur of the Year for Innovation by Ernst and Young. Other recognitions include the U.S. Department of Transportation Safety Award for Engineering Excellence in 1978 and 1991, and the “H.H. Bliss Award” from The Center for Study of Responsive Law; both awards recognized his pioneering contributions to inflatable occupant restraint systems development. He has been awarded 16 patents and has lectured and authored numerous papers on automotive electronics, occupant safety, fuel cells, international human resource management and entrepreneurship. In 2006 Cleveland State University awarded Mr. Jones with an honorary Doctor of Science degree and cited him for outstanding developments in fuel cell and biomedical device technologies.
A native of Maidstone, England, Mr. Jones completed his formal engineering education in electrical engineering at Aston Technical College in 1952 and in mechanical engineering in Liverpool Technical College in 1957, prior to moving to the United States.