Three named to Rice University Board of Trustees

CONTACT: B.J. Almond
PHONE: (713) 348-6770
E-MAIL: balmond@rice.edu

Three named to Rice University Board of Trustees

Robert Clarke, Robert Tudor III and Robert Maxfield have more than just their first names in common: All are alumni of Rice University, and all were recently named to Rice’s board of trustees for a four-year term that begins July 1.

Clarke is a senior partner at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani L.L.P.

Tudor is a managing director of Goldman, Sachs and Co., a full-service international investment banking and brokerage firm.

Maxfield is a private investor and was co-founder of ROLM Corporation, a telecommunications and computer manufacturer.

“Bob Clarke and Bobby Tudor, who are new to the board, bring a worldwide perspective, having lived and worked in Europe and the Middle East,” said James Crownover, chair of the Rice University Board of Trustees. ” They also achieved the highest levels of success within their professions.  Bob Maxfield has been a very successful entrepreneur and brings an unparalleled depth of experience in Rice financial and technical matters."

Rice President David Leebron said, "I am very pleased with the additional strength and capability that the election of these trustees will add to the board as we enter an important phase in our planning for the future of Rice."

Clarke, who was raised in Hobbs, N.M., graduated from Rice in 1963 with a B.A. in economics. He received an L.L.B. from Harvard in 1966.

While at Rice, Clarke served as an officer of Hanszen College and as Student Association president. A member of the Thresher staff, the Honor Council and the Army ROTC, Clarke was an outstanding senior and a distinguished military student. He received the Cameron Service Award, and in 1992 he was named a Distinguished Alumnus of Rice.

At Bracewell & Giuliani, Clarke’s principal areas of practice include assisting banks in the U.S. and abroad in matters involving state and federal banking laws, regulations and supervisory agencies, mergers and acquisitions of financial institutions, strategic planning, independent counsel to boards of directors, new financial services products, management of regulatory risk, and litigation support as an expert witness.

President Ronald Reagan appointed Clarke as U.S. comptroller of the currency – a position to which he was reappointed by President George H.W. Bush.   The banks supervised by this office account for about two-thirds of the assets of the commercial banking system.   When Clarke’s appointment as comptroller ended, he rejoined Bracewell & Giuliani in 1991 as senior partner and head of the firm’s financial services practice.

Clarke received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in 1992 and the Banking Leadership Award from the Western States School of Banking in 1993.

Alexandria, La., native Tudor graduated from Rice in 1982 with a B.A. in English and legal studies.   He received a J.D. from Tulane Law School in 1987.

While at Rice, Tudor was a resident and an officer of Hanszen College and student representative on the University Committee on Examinations and Standing. He lettered in basketball and received the Bob Quin Award for being the male senior athlete who most exemplified distinction in athletics, academics and leadership.

Before attending graduate school, Tudor spent two years as a professional basketball player with Turnerschaft Raifeissen in Innsbruck, Austria, where he also had a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship.

Tudor joined Goldman, Sachs in 1987 in the Investment Banking Division in New York. He became a managing director in 1996 and was named a partner in 1998. After five years in London, where he headed the Industrial and Natural Resources group, Tudor returned to Houston in 2005 as a managing director in the Investment Banking Division again.            

Houston Mayor Bill White appointed Tudor to the Houston Library Board of Directors to complete an unexpired term that ends March 1, 2007.   Tudor served as president of the “R” Association’s Board of Directors at Rice last year and on the Association of Rice Alumni Board of Directors.

Maxfield was renamed to the Rice Board of Trustees after taking a year off in compliance with the limitation on two consecutive four-year terms.

Raised in Wichita Falls, Texas, Maxfield graduated from Rice with a B.A., magna cum laude, in 1963, and a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1964.   He also received an M.S. and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1966 and 1969, respectively.

While a student at Rice, Maxfield was a resident of Hanszen College who lettered in varsity swimming, and his honor society memberships included Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi and Sigma Tau.

Maxfield co-founded ROLM Corp. in 1969 with three fellow Rice graduates and served as the company’s executive vice president and director. In 1984 ROLM merged with International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), where Maxfield had worked previously, and he continued to serve as executive vice president until 1988.   Since 1989, Maxfield has been a consulting professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University and a director of Echelon Corp., which the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal ranked as No. 20 on its list of the region’s 50 fastest-growing companies in 2003.

Harvard Business School named the Rice co-founders of ROLM as Entrepreneur of the Year in 1980, and Rice has given Maxfield three alumni honors: Distinguished Alumni Award (2004), Outstanding Engineering Alumnus (1999) and Rice Engineering Alumni Association’s Outstanding Engineer (1964).

Rice trustees re-elected to a second consecutive four-year term were Alfredo Brener, Robert Brockman, Bruce Dunlevie, Lynn Elsenhans, Marc Shapiro and L.E. Simmons.

Others serving on the board during the new fiscal year along with Crownover will be J.D. Bucky Allshouse, Kent Anderson, Teveia Rose Barnes, Vicki Whamond Bretthauer, Albert Chao, Edward Dominguez, Douglas Foshee, Susanne Morris Glasscock, Carl Isgren, Terry Koonce, Michael Lynch, Steven Miller and Kenneth Oshman.