UT Libraries Advisory Council

Beth Richey (Chair)

Beth McGregor Richey, a native Houstonian, graduated from the University of Texas in 1979 with a BA in Spanish. She received her JD from the University of Houston Law Center in 1982 and served as an Assistant District Attorney assigned to the Trial Division through 1987. Her subsequent trial work included a two-year criminal defense practice and then a shift to civil litigation for three different firms specializing in toxic tort and premises liability.

After retiring, Beth has been involved in many community activities in Houston until 2012, followed by the Vail Valley of Colorado where she lived until early 2021.

Beth and her husband, John W. Richey, have four sons, two of whom are Longhorns. She has long-standing family ties to both the University and the Austin area. She and her husband live in Horseshoe Bay, Texas and still travel to the mountains to enjoy winter sports.

Gustavo Artaza (Lifetime Member)

Gustavo Artaza a native of Asuncion, Paraguay, immigrated to the United States as a child. He received a BA in Sociology and Business Law from the University of Texas at Austin. In 1987, He founded and served as CEO of International Studies Abroad (ISA), which grew to become one of the largest student exchange programs in the world. In 2015, ISA was purchased by a Private Equity Fund which allowed Mr. Artaza to concentrate his business efforts in the medical field, founding Gen 1 Research and investing in several other early stage MedTech companies. Mr. Artaza’s ties to the Austin Community and University of Texas are extensive, with the Perry-Castañeda library having been named for his Grandfather. Mr. Artaza’s goal is to apply his extensive knowledge of international universities to the medical research field to deliver lower cost, better quality research.

Carol Billings Blood (Member)

Carol Billings Blood is thrilled to be able to support the U.T. Libraries through the Advisory Council. She spent her life among books from wandering stacks and bookstores as a child in Austin to working in publishing in New York. Carol is the daughter of former UT Libraries director Harold Billings who was the longest serving director of UT Libraries (1978-2003). His leadership was instrumental in guiding the library into the early days of a digital future shaped by his work in implementing computerized systems. His enduring contribution to UT Libraries is marked by a profound understanding of the importance of these systems to higher education in providing users with greater access to and control of academic resources.

Blanca Cummins (Member)

Blanca, a native of Mexico, is a communications and advertising executive, Montessori educator, Catholic school administrator, and mother. She joins the UTL Advisory Council as an alumna of the Tower Fellows Program here on campus.

Blanca graduated from Universidad del Noroeste with a degree in Ciencias de la Comunicación and received her master's in education from Texas A&M Corpus Christi. She is the founding director of Herrera Publicidad and served as creative director and copywriter for multiple firms and media institutions, producing award-winning advertising campaigns. She was a television producer for XHAK Channel 12, a Televisa affiliate in Hermosillo, and an account executive for El Imparcial, the leading daily newspaper in Northwestern Mexico.

Blanca balances her professional activities while raising two daughters and supporting her husband's efforts in renewable energy.

Saundria Chase Gray (Member)

Saundria Chase Gray is a native Houstonian. She graduated Cum Laude in International Relations from Tufts University and she received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Texas, School of Law. She is currently Senior Legal Counsel at Shell Oil Company in Houston. She manages Shell’s real estate portfolio in the United States. Saundria is an active member of her community. She was appointed by former Mayor Bob Lanier to be an Associate Municipal Judge for the City of Houston and to serve on the Houston Library Board. She is a member of the Links, Inc., Jack & Jill of America, League of Women Voters, and the Greater Houston Community Council. She is married to Jerome Gray and they have two children, Chase-12 and Grace-6

Bill Grosskopf (Member)

Bill Grosskopf is a native of Austin and a graduate of The University of Texas with B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering. For the next 33 years, Bill was an owner and led G&S Typesetters, a book production and composition company in Austin, through technology and publishing industry changes. Services supervised included book design, art preparation, manuscript editing, page makeup, and indexing for many thousands of books. Customers included college textbook publishers and university presses throughout the U.S. and Canada. Following the sale of his company, Bill continues to work with it as a consultant to offices in Austin and India, volunteers in administration for Austin Habitat for Humanity, and serves as president of his church’s endowment fund. Bill and his wife, Connie, have three children with five UT degrees in the family and a sixth in the works. Bill is grateful to The University for many experiences and opportunities, including access to the Rec Center and Gregory Gym for regular games of racquetball.

Sharon Hibbert (Member)

Sharon Hibbert lives in Houston and joined the Libraries Advisory Council in 2024.

Hillery Hugg (Member)

Hillery Hugg is a native Houstonian. She attended Colby College, graduating with a BA in English Literature and a dual minor in Creative Writing and African-American fiction. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, where she was a Teaching Fellow, and received an MA in English Literature from UT Austin, where she was also a Michener Fellow in Fiction both years of her degree. She has worked as an in-house editor for museum publications and collections at the MFAH, the Whitney Museum, the National Gallery, and the Cooper-Hewitt, editing large-scale monographs as well as exhibition and artists' catalogs. Her short stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, The Lifted Brow, The American Reader, 3rd Bed, Caketrain, and NANO, and she is currently finishing a novel. Her non-fiction and interviews have appeared in Guernica Magazine and The Believer.

She and her family lived in Wellington, New Zealand but have since moved back to the United States. Her husband, Greg, is an emergency physician at Seton Hospital and is a UT Plan II graduate. They have a son, Asher, and two daughters, Milla and Ondine.

Eric Lewis (Member)

Eric Lewis is a trader and entrepreneur in Houston who focuses on financial markets and digital marketing. Eric is also the host of The Weekly Option, a podcast recorded each week about option trading that started in 2018.

Eric currently works with a cryptocurrency trading start-up and helps companies improve their marketing results online. He worked in the energy business for 11 years, mostly in trading petroleum products and renewable fuels. Prior to the energy business, he worked nearly 5 years as an option trader market-maker at the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

Eric received a BA in economics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999. He also earned his MBA in analytical finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2007.

Greg Lipscomb (Chair Emeritus / Member)

Greg grew up in suburban Houston and was educated at UT/Austin, Harvard and Johns Hopkins University. Now retired, his career included journalism (Austin Statesman, San Francisco Chronicle), politics (staff to California Gov. Jerry Brown and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd) and telecommunications law (Federal Communications Commission). He particularly champions libraries and was chair of the library advisory council at the George Washington University and at UT/Austin. At UT/Austin he was Phi Beta Kappa and student body president, and he went to Selma. He has published several short stories, and at the 1978 Harvard Commencement Exercises he delivered the graduate student address, entitled “Is There a Life After Learning?"

Gene Locke (Lifetime Member)

Gene Locke is a practicing attorney who specializes in representing governments and handling matters of public concern. He has effectively blended his professional dedication as a lawyer with longtime public service, having served as the City Attorney for the City of Houston and County Commissioner for Harris County, Texas. Over the years, his clients have included the City of Houston, San Antonio, Harris County, Dallas County, the Port of Houston Authority, the METRO transit agency, the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, and a host of school districts, community colleges, and various other local governmental entities. Mr. Locke is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions for his longstanding work in support of civil rights, equality, diversity, and opportunity.

He is an honorary member of the LAC and is the nephew of Dr. Perry, the first African American faculty member at UT Austin for whom the library is named.

Jan Roberts (Member)

Jan Roberts is a longtime activist in community and philanthropic affairs. She is a graduate of the University of Texas and has volunteered as a docent at the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, the Texas Governor’s Mansion, the Umlauf Sculpture Garden, and the Harry Ransom Center. Her philanthropic interests include the University of Texas, where she has supported the Blanton Museum of Art, College of Liberal Arts, College of Fine Arts and, the Fine Arts Library, in which the Reading Room is named to honor her late husband, Richard T. Roberts. She also supports The Nature Conservancy and the National Audubon Society. Roberts is an active member of the Littlefield Society, the Chancellor’s Council, and the Texas Leadership Society.

Janet Roberts (Member)

Janet Roberts was born and raised in Lima, Peru and attended college in Longmeadow, Mass. She has been an Austin resident for 40 years.

Her career of 15 years was opening and marketing new hotels both in Austin and San Antonio. With a passion for Arabian horses, she owned and showed them at the highest level in the United States and Canada for over 20 years.

As a longtime member of the Pan American Round Table of Austin, she has served in many capacities, including Table Director. Other activities include serving on the Harry Ransom Center Advisory Council and the Friends of the Texas Historical Commission. She is currently serving on both the UT Libraries Advisory Councils and the LLILAS Benson Advisory Council.

Harriett Romo (Member)

Dr. Harriett Romo has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego. She has Master’s degrees in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of California, Los Angeles and in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego. She has been the Director of the Child and Adolescent Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) since its inception in 2005 and served as Director of the UTSA Mexico Center since its inception in 2006 until she retired in 2019. She received a million-dollar endowment from the Bank of America to fund the CAPRI and grants from the federal government for the UTSA Mexico Center and a grant from the Mellon Foundation to mentor undergraduate students to seek PhDs in the Humanities. Her research has involved collaborations with the University of Washington, Seattle to study language acquisition of infants in bilingual homes and collaborations with Mexican universities to study transnational families in San Antonio. She published a 2021 edited book Bridging Cultures: Reflections on the Heritage Identity of the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, University of A&M Press [with William Dupont], two books with University of Texas Press [Mexican Migration to the United States: Perspectives from Both Sides of the Border, 2016 and Latino High School Graduation, 1996] and the book Transformations of La Familia on the U.S,-Mexico Border with Notre Dame Press, 2008. She taught classes on the Sociology of Childhood, Language and Society, Race & Ethnic Relations, Immigration, Educational Inequities, and Border Studies at Texas State University, UT Austin, and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) where she retired as Emeritus Professor of Sociology in 2019.

Andrea Turnipseed (Member)

Andrea Turnipseed, LCSW-S is a licensed clinical social worker, clinical supervisor, and mental health entrepreneur based in Austin, Texas. She is the co-founder and former Executive Director of Roots Behavioral Health, a pioneering mental health clinic known for being the first in Texas to offer Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy. Under her leadership, Roots grew to include a team of over 50 clinicians and support staff and served thousands of clients across Central Texas.

Andrea has over two decades of experience in mental health care, crisis intervention, and clinical supervision. She has consulted widely on the integration of psychedelic therapies into mental health treatment and currently provides individual psychotherapy and ketamine therapy in private practice. She is also a passionate advocate for ethical leadership, innovation in mental health, and equitable access to care.

Andrea earned her Master of Science in Social Work from The University of Texas at Austin and remains actively involved in supporting the university community. In addition to her clinical work, she mentors graduate-level interns, supports community-based mental health initiatives, and serves on advisory boards that promote literacy, wellness, and professional development.

She joined the Libraries Advisory Council to help champion access to knowledge, support student and faculty research, and contribute to the evolving role of libraries in education and society.

Dinah Weems (Member)

Dinah Acord Weems graduated from the University of Texas in 1979 and was a Plan II student. She received her JD from the University of Houston in 1982 and worked at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office for four years. She then worked in the litigation section at Chevron, formed her own law firm and worked for several civil defense firms.

For the past fifteen years, Dinah has worked with her family’s investment partnership. She has been a docent with the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens in Houston for almost twenty years and served as General Chair of that organization. She currently is on the board of the National Ghost Ranch Foundation in New Mexico and The Women’s Home in Houston.

Dinah is married to Jeff Weems (another Longhorn having received his undergraduate and JD degrees from UT), and they have two sons, two daughters and three grandchildren. Dinah’s daughter, Dr. Virginia Bailey, graduated from the University of Texas in 2012 and then went to the UT Medical School in Houston (now McGovern Medical School). Virginia completed her residency in general surgery at UT Southwestern and is now in a plastic surgery fellowship at UT Southwestern.

Dinah’s great grandfather (Wilbur Cleaves) was a UT Law librarian and taught law at the UT Law School. Both of her maternal grandparents and her parents had degrees from UT.

Dinah enjoys bridge, needlepoint, her book clubs and spending time with her grandchildren. She is a member of the Chautauqua Study Club in Houston, a women’s study club formed in 1909 by Miss Ima Hogg and friends.