SMU announces 2024 distinguished alumni, emerging leader
The annual ceremony will honor the achievements of five outstanding leaders during homecoming week on Thursday, Oct. 31
DALLAS (SMU) – SMU will honor five outstanding leaders in entrepreneurism, community advocacy, public service, sports management and philanthropy at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 31, at SMU’s Distinguished Alumni Award presentation and dinner.
Each year during Homecoming Week, SMU awards a group of leaders with the highest honor the University can bestow upon its graduates. The 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients are Jorge Baldor ’93, founder and board chair of After8toEducate; Kelly Hoglund Compton ’79, executive director of The Hoglund Foundation, and Hon. Terry R. Means ’70, ’74, senior U.S. district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Trent Redden ’06, general manager of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, will receive the University’s Emerging Leader Award, which recognizes the outstanding achievements of an alumnus or alumna who has graduated in the last 15 years.
New for this year, Caren Prothro, a celebrated Dallas philanthropist, servant leader, and owner and president of Prothro Clark Company, will receive the University’s Distinguished Honorary Alumni Award. Prothro is a past chair of SMU’s Board of Trustees and co-chaired several of SMU’s major fundraising campaigns.
Jorge Baldor
Born in Havana, Cuba, Baldor immigrated to the United States with his family when he was 6 years old. He graduated from Dallas ISD’s Skyline High School and embarked upon a career as an entrepreneur before pursuing higher education. “As an entrepreneur, I started a business, and seven years after high school I started attending SMU to gain the best educational experience for my own enrichment and not a career,” he says.
On the Hilltop, he majored in history and minored in political science before graduating cum laude in 1993. He credits SMU for his critical thinking skills and values the small class sizes and highly engaging and knowledgeable professors.
Baldor serves on the boards of the Cara Mia Theatre, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts Executive Board and the Parkland Health Foundation. He has previously served on SMU’s Dedman College Executive Board. He also endowed the Santos Rodriguez Memorial Endowed Scholarship Fund in SMU’s Human Rights Program.
Recognized for his impact, Baldor received SMU’s Distinguished Hispanic Alumni Award in 2017 and SMU’s Human Rights Program Triumph of the Spirit Award in 2021. Learn more about Baldor here.
Kelly Hoglund Compton
Compton spent 13 years in the corporate banking industry, serving as vice president of commercial lending with NationsBank Texas and its predecessors. There, she was among the first group of women hired by First National Bank of Dallas in the credit training program and was the only female officer in her lending group for several years.
She left the banking industry to help coordinate her family’s philanthropic efforts and establish The Hoglund Foundation, where she currently serves as executive director. There, she manages operations including investments, human resources, board relations, grantmaking strategy and oversight and mission. Since 1989, the nonprofit has supported more than 600 agencies focused on at-risk children and families, victims of family violence and educational quality and access.
In addition, Compton serves on the Atmos Energy Corporation Board of Directors, the Crystal Charity Advisory Board, the Commit! Leadership Advisory Council, Early Matters Dallas Advisory Council and the George W. Bush Presidential Center Board of Directors.
A dedicated Mustang, Compton grew up in Houston and Connecticut before she came to the Hilltop, where she pledged Kappa Alpha Theta and studied abroad in Paris before graduating cum laude with a degree in finance in 1979. She currently serves as secretary of the SMU Board of Trustees, chair of the Trusteeship Committee and co-chair of the Campaign Leadership Council. Additionally, she serves on SMU’s Investment, Compensation and Academic Affairs committees and is the vice chair of the Dedman College Executive Board.
In 2020, Compton received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Cox School of Business and in 2014 she received the Outstanding Alumnae Award from Kappa Alpha Theta. Additionally, in 2013, she received the SMU Students’ Association Outstanding Trustee Award. Learn more about Compton here.
Hon. Terry R. Means
A native of New Mexico, Means showed an early interest in politics and government. He served as his high school’s student council president, president of the Southeastern New Mexico Association of Student Councils and as a delegate to New Mexico Boys State. Means was an exchange student to Uruguay through the American Field Service.
In 1966, he enrolled at SMU to study political science and history. He served as president of the student body and Lambda Chi Alpha before graduating with distinction in 1971. In 1970, he won the University’s prestigious “M” Award.
Means expanded his love of government to a wider level, serving as the state chairman of Students for Bush in 1970. In this role, he helped garner political interest among college students for former President George H.W. Bush’s U.S. Senate campaign, along with his co-chair, former President George W. Bush.
In 1988, Gov. Bill Clements appointed him as a judge to the 10th Court of Appeals in Texas, where he sat until 1991. That year, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to the federal bench as a U.S. district judge in the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth division. Learn more about Means here.
Trent Redden
Redden first came to SMU in 2002 to pursue his bachelor’s degrees in accounting and public policy. He was being recruited to play Division II basketball but received a full academic scholarship to SMU through the President’s Scholars Program.
He made the most of his time at SMU, playing on the SMU men’s basketball team from 2003 through 2004; serving as a resident assistant from 2003 through 2005; pledging Delta Sigma Pi; and winning eight intramural championships in basketball, volleyball, flag football and softball.
From 2004 through 2006, he interned at Haynes & Boone LLP and served as the student member of the Athletic Advisory Committee to the Board of Trustees, which he counts as one of his most significant memories at SMU. He graduated magna cum laude in 2006.
Redden spent 11 years with the Cleveland Cavaliers, starting as an intern and eventually working up to basketball operations manager, director of college player personnel, assistant general manager and, finally, senior vice president of basketball operations.
Later, he made the career move to the Los Angeles Clippers as the assistant general manager in 2018 and 2019 before being promoted to general manager in 2023, where he oversees scouting, strategy, team operations and building operations. In 2021, he witnessed the team reach its first Western Conference Finals in franchise history. Learn more about Redden here.
Caren Prothro
Prothro joined the SMU Board of Trustees in 1992. Later, she served as chair of the Board from 2010–2014 and served as chair of the committee for the renovation of the Owen Arts Center. She co-chaired the University’s two previous major fundraising campaigns, A Time to Lead and SMU Unbridled: The Second Century Campaign and serves as a co-chair of the current SMU Ignited: Boldy Shaping Tomorrow campaign.
In addition, Prothro serves on the Executive Board of Meadows School of the Arts, Meadows Museum Advisory Council, Central Libraries Executive Board and SMU-in-Taos Executive Board. She is a past member of the executive boards of Perkins School of Theology and Dedman College and the Advisory Council for the Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility.
Her husband’s grandparents, Joe and Lois Perkins, provided funding for Perkins School of Theology. Her sister-in-law, Elizabeth Perkins Prothro, donated rare manuscripts and Bibles to Bridwell Library. And Prothro’s late husband, Vin, oversaw the renovation of Perkins Chapel. Most recently, an organ donated to Perkins Chapel was named in Caren and Vin’s honor.
A native of Wichita Falls, Texas, Prothro studied art at Mills College in Oakland, California, graduating in 1963.
Prothro serves on the board of the George W. Bush Presidential Center Foundation, the O’Donnell Foundation and the Letot Capital Foundation. She is a lifetime board member of the Hoblitzelle Foundation, Dallas Salvation Army and Southwestern Medical Foundation. She is a founding board member of the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center, and she was appointed to the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities during the George W. Bush administration from 2001–2008.
She’s a recipient of the Mustang Award, SMU’s highest honor for philanthropy to the University. Learn more about Prothro here.
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