50 Waugh Dr
Houston
TX 77007
Join us for the CGPH Annual Conference, titled “The LAST Change: Working with the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers.” Explore key insights and strategies for effectively engaging with these generations in today’s evolving landscape.
Featuring a lineup of exceptional speakers renowned in their fields, this conference promises valuable knowledge and practical takeaways.
Don’t miss this opportunity to attend a national conference at a local price! Tickets are priced at $49 for members and $99 for guests. Secure your spot now and embark on a transformative learning journey.
Conference Schedule
Conference Speakers
Amy L. Bacon is a Senior Planned Giving Officer for the Texas A&M Foundation, serving donors who have generously included Texas A&M in their future plans as well as assisting Aggies who are wanting to learn more about gift planning options such as gifts in wills, retirement accounts, life insurance, charitable trusts, real estate gifts, and other methods of giving. Her areas of focus at Texas A&M include the Bush School, the Corps of Cadets, the Division of Student Affairs, College of Engineering (focus in Houston), Texas A&M Health, and Texas A&M University at Galveston. Bacon’s career experience includes being a professional fundraiser for the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, University of Houston-Clear Lake, and fundraising consulting for Rice University. She is also a historian and is the author of Building Leaders, Living Traditions: The Memorial Student Center at Texas A&M University (TAMU Press, 2009) and Life in Bronze: Lawrence M. Ludtke, Sculptor (TAMU Press, 2013).
A graduate of Texas A&M University in 1991, she holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in public history from the University of Houston. Amy is a member of the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners and serves on the board of Charitable Gift Planners of Houston. In addition, she serves on the Texas A&M Memorial Student Center Board of Directors, the Texas A&M University Press Advancement Board, and the Aggie Women Network Board. She has also been an Aggie Muster speaker for the San Antonio A&M Club, the San Diego County A&M Club, the Central Florida A&M Club in Orlando, and the Class of ’69 Muster event. She and her husband, Robert, live in Seabrook and have one daughter who is at Georgetown Law School in Washington DC.
Jillian Day, CFRE, CSPG, is currently the Director of Development Programs at the Houston Zoo. She is a fundraising generalist with twelve years of experience in major and planned giving. In her current role, she oversees the Zoo’s corporate giving and gift planning programs, as well as engagement of the organization’s leadership donor club. Previously, she was a gift officer who raised millions in major and planned gifts for the Zoo’s Centennial Campaign. She has been at the Zoo for eight years. Prior to that, she spent four years building out the volunteer and fundraising programs at Vita-Living, Inc., a social services charity. Before finding her way to the nonprofit sector, Jillian worked in healthcare consulting for seven years. She specialized in team effectiveness, leadership development, and program evaluation first at UTHealth, then at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Jillian received her CSPG (Certified Specialist in Planned Giving) certification in February 2024 and her CFRE in 2017. She has a Master’s in Sociology from Portland State University. She volunteered on the board for AFP-Greater Houston for five years and now serves on the Advancement Committee for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). While not a native Texan, she got here as quickly as she could by marrying her husband, a native Houstonian.
Andrew B. Frew, ASA, ABV, Vice President, has nearly 25 years of business valuation experience. He has been involved with hundreds of valuation and related engagements in numerous industries. Andy values businesses and business interests for gift and estate tax, charitable giving, buy/sell agreement, mergers and acquisitions, business succession/exit planning, and litigation support purposes. Noteworthy industry experience includes oil and gas (specifically upstream/E&P), oilfield services, manufacturing, distribution, retail, automobile dealerships, and construction and building materials. As a member of the firm’s Oil & Gas Industry Team, Andy is a regular contributor to Mercer Capital’s Energy Valuation Insights Blog. Prior to joining Mercer Capital, Andy was a senior managing consultant in the Houston, Texas office of Forvis (formerly BKD). Andy began his valuation career in the early 2000s with HFBE, Inc. (formally Howard Frazier Barker Elliott, Inc.).
Jan Latiolais Hargrave, Body language expert, teaches you the ways in which your body communicates to the world around you. As the nation’s leading behavioral authority and body language expert, Ms. Hargrave provides you with the skills you need to “read” your family, your associates, your customers, in fact, everyone around you. Jan is the author of Let Me See Your Body Talk, Freeway of Love, Judge the Jury, Strictly Business Body Language, Poker Face and a contributing author to Diversity and Inclusion in Quality Patient Care, 2nd ed. She has shared her expertise about body language, persuasion and influence with the New York Times, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, Fox Television, the Steve Harvey Show, The Lifetime Channel, E-Entertainment Television and dozens of popular magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Glamor, People, InTouch Weekly, Us Weekly, Life & Style, First for Women, The Forensic Examiner, Golf Magazine and others. Jan describes the “hidden messages’ you use in your everyday life and shows you how to stop the lies and uncover the truth—in any conversation or situation.
Working with thousands in the field of personal growth and self-expression as a consultant and corporate trainer for the past 15 years, Jan Hargrave continues to inspire may of today’s leading corporations such as Merrill Lynch, Starbucks, ESPN, Chase Manhattan Bank, NASA, Bank of America, IBM, Blue Cross Blue Shield, The Boeing Corporation, MARS Chocolate, Johns Hopkins Space Telescope Institute, MD Anderson Cancer Center, BlackRock Investments and the Tony Robbins Leadership Academy. Her membership and leadership in the American College of Forensic Examiners provides practical tools for her seminars to Legal Associations throughout the country. Jan’s expertise regarding witness preparation, jury selection and interrogation tactics is frequently requested by the United States Military Armed Forces and foreign governments.
Jan has become the go-to-resource for analyzing key White House figures and Presidential and Vice-Presidential hopefuls for the past 20 years. Jan consulted on the body language of President Bill Clinton during his grand jury testimony in 1998 and has continued her political behavioral analysis through to her recent study and reporting of President Donald Trump. As a media guest, she relays information concerning the delicate details of the political figure’s leadership style, thought processes, and decision making abilities.
The Cajun French Ms. Hargrave was born to French-Acadian parents in the unique “Joie de Vivre” (Joy of Life) culture of southwest Louisiana and as a result, sprinkles her captivating presentations with entertaining Ragin’ Cajun folkloric tales. Jan received her Bachelor’s Degree, Master’s Degree and Specialist Degree in Education with emphasis in Business Psychology from the University of Louisiana in Lafayette. Jan is presently CEO of Jan Hargrave & Associates, a Houston-based consulting firm, and serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston and M D Anderson Cancer Center. Nonverbal communication—Body Language—often communicates a different message from the spoken word. Jan proves with her contagious warmth, wit, and humor that there is a method, and style, to success. Bring your body, your curiosity, your sense of humor and learn what your body—and the body of others—is communicating to the world.
Jennifer Hester is a Planned Giving Officer for the Texas A&M Foundation. Her areas of focus are Mays Business School, the College of Architecture, the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts, and the Texas A&M University Libraries. With over 23 years of experience in the world of philanthropy and nearly 18 years with the Texas A&M Foundation, she has worked as a frontline fundraiser for Mays Business School and the College of Engineering and traveled nationally to work with donors across the United States. She currently assists donors in making after lifetime gifts to benefit their passions across the Texas A&M campus.
Jennifer earned her BS from Texas A&M University and her MS from the University of North Texas. She is a member of the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners. Jennifer and her husband, Sorin live in Brazos County on their hobby farm. Outside of her work as a planned giving officer, she is passionate about animal welfare and can be found volunteering at Aggieland Humane Society.
Russell James, after more than a quarter century spent as a planned giving fundraiser, an estate planning attorney in private practice, a major gifts fundraiser/college president, and now as a university professor researching charitable giving and fundraising, his focus is to make and share words, pictures, and discoveries that help others to encourage generosity.
His research has been cited in outlets such as The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News & World Reports, CNN, NBC News, Bloomberg News, ABC News, USA Today, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. His research methodologies include econometric analysis of large datasets, functional magnetic resonance imaging (neuroimaging), skin conductance response, and online and in-person experiments.
Russell’s teaching includes classroom and online graduate instruction, webinars, seminars, educational videos, and keynote presentations at national conferences for fundraisers, financial planners, and estate planners. His publications have appeared in more than forty different academic journals including Cognitive Neuroscience, Environment & Behavior, Applied Economics, Applied Economics Letters, American Journal of Economics & Sociology, Social Indicators Research, American Review of Public Administration, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, International Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Management, Voluntas-International Journal of Voluntary & Nonprofit Organizations, Journal of Financial Counseling & Planning, Financial Services Review, Journal of Personal Finance, Journal for Financial Planning, Journal of Financial Therapy, Ageing & Society, Educational Gerontology, International Journal of Consumer Studies, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Review of Religious Research, The Geneva Papers on Risk & Insurance, Estate Planning & Community Property Law Journal, and UC-Davis Law Review.
Kevin Pickett is responsible for cultivating and engaging the Foundation’s donor base, building and strengthening relationships across the greater Houston region, leading strategic planning, and driving business development across the board. Kevin is a proven development leader with a 25-year history in gift planning. With an undergraduate degree in Business & Bible from Kentucky Christian University, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Houston, and a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) certification, Kevin is well positioned to work with high-net-worth donors and their advisors to create meaningful impact. His extensive career encompasses roles such as Chief Development Officer of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Executive Vice President at Moffitt Cancer Center, Executive Director of Development at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Kentucky Christian University. Additionally, he served as the Director of Estate and Asset Services for the American Cancer Society. Beyond his career, Kevin is a father of four daughters, an avid golfer and tennis player, a travel enthusiast, and an athlete who trains for Sprint and Olympic distance triathlons.
David Starnes serves UT Health Sciences Center Houston as Senior Director, Estate and Gift Planning. Prior to joining UT Health, David served as Senior Director of Gift Planning at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Director of Gift Planning at Baylor College of Medicine and the Director of Gift Planning at the University of Houston. Since starting his fundraising career, David has focused on gifts of non-cash assets and helping individuals develop a gift plan that will produce beneficial results for the donor and their family. Other professional memberships include the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners and Houston Estate and Financial Forum. David has served on the speaker committee for the National Conference on Gift Planning. David and his wife Sheri have been married 39 years and have 2 boys and two granddaughters.
Nathan Stelter is the president of The Stelter Company, a leading source for gift planning marketing solutions for the nonprofit community. The Stelter Company, which was founded in 1962, currently partners with more than 1,200 organizations nationally with a staff of over 90 individuals.
Nathan’s personal goal and charge to his staff, his clients and this industry is to continue to lead by example as Stelter build’s marketing programs based on scientific-data, informed by industry-changing research and focused on connecting people, passion and purpose by way of personal philanthropy!
Over Nathan’s 24-year career in planned giving, he’s been fortunate to speak at over 150 national and regional industry meetings on gift planning marketing trends and cutting-edge donor and fundraising research. He’s been quoted in Planned Giving Today, Advancing Philanthropy, Nonprofit Pro, and other trade publications and currently authors the highly successful Stelter Insights blog. Nathan is the immediate past chair (2023) for the board of the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners (CGP), a past board member of the National Capital Gift Planning Council (Washington, DC), current member of the Mid-Iowa Planned Giving Council, member of CGP’s Leadership Institute and co-chair for CGP’s National Standards for Gift Planning Success (NSGPS) task force. Nathan also proudly serves on the national board of the Giving Institute.
Nathan is a two-time graduate of the University of Iowa with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and an Executive MBA. He lives by the mantras: “It is what it is”, “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” and “Everything happens for a reason” …and it seems to work out. He is a lover of music, soccer, spicy food and his beloved Iowa Hawkeyes. He rarely sleeps. And is extremely competitive in everything he does. When not at his Stelter desk, Nathan enjoys spending time with his friends & family and three amazing children Benjamin Hawkeye (17), Brody (13) and Brynn (11).