REAL Exclusive Magazine

The Ringling Elects Two New Members To The Board of Directors.

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Foundation announced the appointment of two members to its Board of Directors, Frances Fergusson, Ph.D. and Thomas Charters.   The new board members will serve a four-year term from 2013-2017 and will have the opportunity for reappointment in 2017. It also announced the re-appointment of Cliff Walters as Board Chair, Mike Urette as Vice Chair, and Mike Pender as Treasurer. Newly appointed, Jane Skogstad  will serve as Secretary.

The new board members are as follows:

• Dr. Frances Daly Fergusson, Ph.D. – Fran is President Emeritus of Vassar College. She served on the Mayo Clinic Board for 14 years, the last four years as its Chairman, and as President of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University, She has been a Director of HSBC Bank USA, Director at Wyeth, LLC and Pfizer Inc. She served on the Board of the Society of Architectural Historians of the United States and on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU). She is a Graduate of Wellesley College with special honors in Art History. She holds a Master’s and Doctoral Degrees in art history at Harvard University. Her teaching career began as an Assistant Professor of Art at Newton College. She served as a tenured professor of Art at Vassar, as Associate Professor of art at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and as an Assistant Chancellor of the University. She is the recipient of many honors and awards and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association in 1999.

• Thomas J. Charters – Tom has a Sarasota history stretching back to the 1960s when his father and mother  retired here. Tom and his wife Ann bought their first home in Sarasota in 1983 while they were living in Korea and Tom was with Citibank and Ann with the Financial Times. They visited often during dual 25 year careers abroad which, in addition to Korea, included multiple stints in Brazil and Venezuela. Returning to the United States in 1995 Tom was for 15 years the President of PCFG Advisory, Inc. a New York- based family office for Latin American investors. They have been Sarasota residents since 2003, and both their daughters were married on the grounds of the Ringling Museum. Tom is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and has a BA from DePauw University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.