Collaboratory welcomes new board leadership
Collaboratory recently welcomed new board leadership.
Gail Markham will serve as Board Chair, Gary H. Griffin will serve as Vice Chair and Secretary/Treasurer and Dr. Aysegul Timur will serve as immediate past board chair.
Markham, CPA and Founding Partner of Markham Norton Mosteller Wright & CO., PA, has been on the Collaboratory Board since 2016. She started her firm as a sole-practitioner in 1979. Forty-four years later, she works alongside her eight partners and a team of 46, with offices in Fort Myers and Naples. Her firm has consistently ranked one of Florida’s Best Companies to Work For by Florida Trend Magazine.
She has been recognized for being an outstanding community leader on many occasions. In 2023, she received the Collier/Lee Chapter of Hadassah Inspiring Women Award and in 2018 was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Gulfshore Business Magazine. She was also named as one of the FICPA’s Women to Watch Experienced Leaders in 2017. She was inducted to the Business Hall of Fame by Junior Achievement of Southwest Florida in 2013 and was a recipient of the 2013 Southwest Florida Makers Award: Women Who Make Southwest Florida. Markham is the founder and former chair of the Lee County PACE Center for Girls; sits on the FGCU Foundation Board of Directors and Finance committee and is chair/advisory board member of the Lee County Industrial Development Authority.
Griffin is CEO of B&I Contractors, Inc., an employee owned mechanical, electrical, HVAC and plumbing contracting firm with 2022 revenues of $168 million. He has over 37 years of experience in engineering, estimating and project management. He has served on a number of community boards including the FGCU Construction Industry Advisory Board and President’s Advisors Circle, Horizon Council, The Chamber of Southwest Florida, the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools, Habitat for Humanity, United Way of Lee, Hendry and Glades Counties, the American Heart Association and the Edison Festival of Light. He is a member of FutureMakers Coaliton and has been on the Collaboratory board since 2019.
Dr. Timur was selected to become Florida Gulf Coast University’s fifth president on May 4, following a unanimous endorsement from the FGCU Board of Trustees. Prior to becoming President, she served as Vice President and Vice Provost for Strategy and Program Innovation at FGCU, where she has worked since 2019.
“We thank Dr. Timur for her years of strong dedication and service to Collaboratory and always serving with distinction and congratulate her on all she is sure to accomplish in her new role at FGCU,” said Dr. Michael V. Martin, interim president and CEO of Collaboratory.
ABOUT COLLABORATORY
Collaboratory is committed to coordinating the solving of all of Southwest Florida’s social problems on an 18-year deadline including homelessness, poverty, mental illness, racism, illiteracy and more. We plan to do this with the entire community working together including people of all ages, colors, beliefs and imaginations across all five counties. We’re committed to coordinating all of this on a massive scale, in the way NASA coordinated the hundreds of thousands of businesses, universities, institutions and people to get us to the moon in nine years. We’re not oblivious to people saying this is ridiculous, insane and crazy but we’re driven by the inspiration of all those great figures in history who have come before us to achieve things no one ever thought remotely possible. Steve Jobs’ observation sums it up for us: “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” We’re building the largest, most democratized living laboratory for community problem-solving in history.
Collaboratory was founded in 1976 as the Southwest Florida Community Foundation. It has made over $100 million in grants since then and is home to more than 650 philanthropic funds. It is upon that legacy of a commitment to community we plan to fulfill on that mission at the level of its greatest expression. As Collaboratory, we will finish what we started.
To learn more and get involved, call 239-274-5900 or visit collaboratory.org.
Source: Collaboratory