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Rotary Club of Okla. City Preparedness Plan
Your Rotary Club 29 Foundation
Growing up in Oklahoma, Ann Ackerman received a B.S. in Mathematics from OSU and earned a M.S. and Ph.D. from OU. Making her home in Oklahoma City, she began her career as an engineer, but quickly changed to education and spent 25 years in the higher education system. Her positions included Professor of Mathematics, Department Chair of Mathematics, Dean of Science and Mathematics, and Vice President for Economic and Community Development. After leaving academia, she served as the Chief Executive Officer for Leadership Oklahoma, a position that she held for almost ten years. Then from January 2016 – October 2020, she served as the President and CEO of the Oklahoma Business Roundtable, Oklahoma’s primary economic development support organization, providing critical private funds in support of the economic development efforts of the Governor, Lt. Governor, Oklahoma Department of Commerce, and other partners. Dr. Ackerman is an executive decision maker with over thirty years of organizational management and experience as an educator, administrator, economic developer, and nonprofit chief executive officer.
Balancing a career with community involvement, Dr. Ackerman believes in community service. She is a member of Rotary Club 29, Oklahoma’s largest and oldest civic organization, where she served as President of the Board of Directors in 2019-2020 and is a Paul Harris Fellow. She currently is the Chair of the Rotary Club 29 Foundation Board. In addition, Dr. Ackerman currently serves as Treasurer of the Friends of the Mansion Board of Directors, as a Member of the University of Central Oklahoma’s Council of Advisors, and as Member of the Advisory Board of Leadership Oklahoma City.
She has also served as Chairman of the American Red Cross of Central Oklahoma, Chair of the Governor’s Youth Council, President of Oklahoma Association of Community Colleges, Member of the Governor’s Council of Science and Technology, Trustee for Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics Foundation, Governor’s Appointee to Oklahoma Science and Technology Research and Development Board and has held leadership positions in over 40 other civic and nonprofit organizations.
Dr. Ackerman was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame and received the Distinguished Alumni Award for Mathematics from the College of Arts and Sciences at Oklahoma State University. Other accomplishments include selection as an American Council on Education Fellow and recipient of Leadership Oklahoma City’s Paragon Award for Service, Journal Record’s Woman of the Year Circle of Excellence, Junior Hospitality’s Woman in the News and OCCC Employee Award for Excellence. Seven times since 2012 she was named one of the Most Powerful Women in Oklahoma by Friday and in 2014 was one of The Journal Record’s Most Admired CEO’s.
Believing that the best way to reduce stress is physical activity, Ann enjoys exercising and hiking. She also likes to travel and has visited 30 countries and all 50 states.
Steven C. Shepelwich is a senior community development advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City – Oklahoma City Office. Steven leads the Branch efforts to promote economic development and fair and impartial access to financial services in Oklahoma’s low- to moderate-income communities and manages the District’s workforce development program areas. In this role, Steven has lead a research and outreach initiative on the District’s unbanked market, organized national conferences on innovations in consumer financial services, asset-based approaches in rural development and workforce development strategies.
Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Bank, Steven worked with national organizations focused on expanding the roles of financial institutions in low-income communities including leading banks and credit unions, microenterprise funds, and affordable housing loan funds throughout the country. Steven began his career by working internationally with microfinance, rural development, and refugee programs in Kenya, Burundi, and India for over six years.
A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Steven holds a B.B.A in Marketing from Texas A&M University and an M.S. in Resource Development from Michigan State University. He is a graduate of the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
After leaving D.C., Taylor spent the next 15 years working in corporate management, government relations and public affairs positions for McDonald’s Corporation in Chicago, Phillips Petroleum Company in Oklahoma City and Denver, and the Coastal Corporation in Aruba, Dutch Caribbean and in Houston. Before founding the Taylor Group in 1994, he served as corporate vice president for government and corporate affairs for the Coastal Corporation.
For the past 30 years, Clayton Taylor has maintained a close working relationship with the Oklahoma State Legislature and the U.S. Congress. He has always been heavily involved in community activities in Oklahoma ranging from his early start as Oklahoma 4-H Club State President and continuing as a founder of Leadership Oklahoma – serving as President in 1991. Other leadership positions have included President of Oklahoma City Rotary Club #29 (largest Rotary Club in the world), Foundation Chair for Oklahoma City Rotary Club #29, Alumni President of Leadership Oklahoma City, President Rural Enterprises Institute of Oklahoma, Administrative Board Chairman of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, founding chairman of Oklahoma Leadership Congress, Metropolitan Oklahoma City Library Commissioner, one of 6 founders and Past-President of Leadership Oklahoma, Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Executive Board, Board of Ballet Oklahoma, Oklahoma 4-H Foundation and the Community Advisory Board of the Junior League.
Taylor is a 1975 graduate of Oklahoma State University with a B.S. in Business Administration. He graduated from OSU as the Outstanding Senior Man in the College of Business Administration and as Top Ten Senior in the University. In 2003-2004, he served as President of the National OSU Alumni Association Board and previously chaired the Building Design Committee for the $14 million ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center built on the Stillwater campus. Currently, he serves on the Building Corporation for his OSU Phi Delta Theta Fraternity Chapter. He was recently recognized by Oklahoma State University as a 2012 Distinguished Alumni.
Clayton Taylor’s lobbying clients represent a strictly pro-business clientele. In behalf of his clients, he has been involved in the successful managing and directing of some of the state legislature’s highest profile issues over the past few years including the Native American motor fuels tax issue, the public-private joint venture for operating the state-owned University Hospitals, ad valorem tax equity issues, auto tag reform and both telephone and electric deregulation efforts. In recent legislative sessions, he has focused his lobbying leadership toward state taxation policies, the elimination of the state’s capital gains tax for corporations and stopping locally assessed personal property taxes on intangible business assets.
He is married to Marnie Taylor and they have two sons, Clay and Clark. Clay is married to Becky, is a graduate of Oklahoma City University School of Law and owns Taylor Capitol Group. They are parents to grandchildren Josephine Louise “Josie” and Clayton Charles Taylor III “Tripp”. Clark is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and currently resides in Crested Butte, Colorado. Marnie is the President and CEO of the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits. Clayton’s hobbies include snow skiing, water skiing, scuba diving, wind surfing, basketball and gardening.
Chair of the Day
Tim Dowd attorney at law, practices with Elias, Books, Brown and Nelson. His primary area of practice is oil and gas law, including the rendering of title opinions, litigation, and drafting and negotiation of industry contracts.Mr. Dowd has vast experience in oil and gas title examination, transactions and civil litigation representing oil and gas clients for over twenty-five years. Mr. Dowd has represented international and independent oil and gas companies and individuals. Additionally, Mr. Dowd has been a noted lecturer at over 100 seminars and CLE presentations.
Mr. Dowd is a past President of the Oklahoma City Mineral Lawyers Society as well as past Chairman of the Oklahoma Bar Association Mineral Law Section. Mr. Dowd is also a member of the legal committee of Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, the Advisory Counsel to the Marginal Well Commission of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City Advisory Committee for the Center for Environment and Energy. Mr. Dowd is also the author of the Chapter on Oil and Gas Titles in West Publishing Company’s Oklahoma Real Estate Forms and Practice.