In January, numerous appointments to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ board of directors and its branch boards were announced. These appointees provide input on regional economic conditions as part of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy functions. Each Federal Reserve Bank has a nine-member board of directors. Three members represent commercial banks, three represent the public and three are appointed by the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. The Dallas Fed’s branch boards consist of seven members—four appointed by the Dallas Fed and three appointed by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C.
Ruth J. Simmons has been reappointed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ board. She will serve the remaining portion of a three-year term ending December 31, 2025. Simmons previously served on the Houston branch board.
Simmons is a distinguished presidential fellow at Rice University and advisor to Harvard University on relationships with historically black colleges and universities. She is the former president of Prairie View A&M University. She also served as president of Brown University and Smith College. In addition, she held various faculty and administrative roles at the University of Southern California, Princeton University and Spelman College.
Simmons is a member of many nonprofit boards, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture and The Holdsworth Center. In 2024, President Joe Biden presented her with the National Humanities Medal. She also is the recipient of many additional honors, including a Fulbright Fellowship to France, the 2001 President’s Award from the United Negro College Fund, the 2002 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, the 2004 Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal, Foreign Policy Association Medal, Ellis Island Medal of Honor and Centennial Medal from Harvard University. She is a fellow of the American Philosophical Society and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She also is an honorary fellow at Cambridge University’s Selwyn College and a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.
Simmons earned a BA degree in French from Dillard University and an MA degree and PhD in romance languages and literature from Harvard University. She has also received more than 40 honorary degrees from universities around the world, including Oxford University, Ewha Women’s University in South Korea and The American College in Greece.
Gary Kelly, Southwest Airlines chairman emeritus, has been reappointed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ board. He will serve a three-year term ending December 31, 2027. He joined the Dallas Fed board in 2024 to fill an unexpired term.
Kelly joined Southwest Airlines in 1986 as controller, eventually progressing to president and CEO and then executive chairman. He retired in 2024 and was named chairman emeritus.
Kelly serves on the Lincoln National Corp. board and is past chairman of Airlines for America. In 2022, he was appointed to the advisory committee on supply chain competitiveness under the Department of Commerce and is a current member of the Business Council.
Kelly received the 2020 Philanthropic Leadership Award from the Ireland Funds and the 2017 Wings Club Distinguished Achievement Award. He is a 2017 Junior Achievement Dallas Business Hall of Fame Laureate inductee, a 2016 inductee into the Texas Business Hall of Fame and received the 2016 Tony Jannus Award, which recognizes extraordinary accomplishments in the field of commercial aviation. Kelly was twice named D CEO magazine’s “CEO of the Year” and has been named one of the “Best CEOs in America” by Institutional Investor magazine three times. In 2010, Kelly received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Texas–Austin and was inducted into the University of Texas McCombs School of Business Hall of Fame in 2013. Also in 2013, he received the McLane Leadership in Business Award from Texas A&M University.
Kelly earned a BBA degree in accounting from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a former CPA.
Peter Rodriguez, dean of the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business and the Virani Undergraduate School of Business at Rice University in Houston, has been appointed to the Dallas Fed’s Houston branch board of directors. He will serve the remaining portion of a three-year term ending December 31, 2026. He previously served on the Houston branch board as an appointee of the Dallas Fed.
Rodriguez previously was a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, where he also served as senior associate dean for MBA programs and as chief diversity officer. In addition, he has served as an associate in the global energy group at JPMorgan Chase. Rodriguez taught short courses on global economics to the Canadian heads of ministries and as part of executive education teaching teams to the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. He has also taught members of multinational corporations such as Rolls Royce, Harris Corp., Lockton and AES. Rodriguez developed video and audio courses on globalization and growth for The Great Courses and served on the faculty of Semester at Sea.
Rodriguez earned a BS degree in economics from Texas A&M University and both his MA degree and PhD in economics from Princeton University. He studied under former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke while at Princeton.
Vanessa Wyche has been appointed to the Houston branch board for a term ending December 31, 2027.
She is director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, a position she has held since 2021. Wyche is responsible for a broad range of human spaceflight activities, including the development and operation of human spacecraft, NASA astronaut selection and training, and mission control. Under her leadership, the Johnson Space Center was recognized by Forbes and Statista as the “No. 1 Best Employer Among Texas’ Major Employers” for two consecutive years. Wyche has also served as director of the exploration integration and science directorate at the Johnson Space Center, as well as flight manager for the space shuttle program, director of operations and test integration in the constellation program and acting director of the human exploration development support directorate.
Before joining NASA in 1989, Wyche worked for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Wyche serves as a trustee of the American Institute of Physics Foundation. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a fellow alumnus of the International Women’s Forum. She has received numerous awards and recognitions, notably the Presidential Rank Award, two NASA Outstanding Leadership Medals and two NASA Achievement Medals.
Wyche received a BS degree in engineering and an MS degree in bioengineering, both from Clemson University.
Cynthia N. Colbert has been reappointed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ Houston branch board of directors. She will serve a three-year term ending December 31, 2027. She joined the Houston branch board in 2022.
Colbert is president and CEO of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, overseeing assistance to individuals in southeast Texas by providing food, clothing, shelter and support services. She served for six years as vice president of community resources at United Way Capital Area‐Austin and was previously executive director of Catholic Charities in Austin and in Wichita, Kansas.
Colbert serves on the boards of the Emergency Food and Shelter Grant Program, United Way of Greater Houston, the Better Business Bureau Education Foundation, Network of Behavioral Health and Catholic Charities USA. She is an adjunct faculty member in the master’s program in nonprofit management at the University of Houston and is a senior fellow at the American Leadership Forum.
Colbert earned a bachelor’s degree from California State University and a master’s degree in social welfare, planning and administration from the University of California.
