POLICY AND PROGRESS: BUILDING A COMPETITIVE REGION

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  • Laura M. Uribarri serves as an Associate Professor and Program Director for the Healthcare Management Program at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. In her faculty role, she teaches management and health policy courses and provides academic advising for MPH and doctoral students. As Program Director, she works with her colleagues to develop program strategy, manage curriculum, and meet accreditation requirements for the Healthcare Management Program. Laura has over two decades of management, policy, and program leadership experience in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. 
    She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University, a Master of Public Affairs from the LBJ School at UT Austin, as well as a Master of Arts and Ph.D. from The University of Texas at El Paso. She lives in the Paso del Norte Region with her husband, Raul Carrillo Jr., and her sons, Emiliano and Elias. 

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  • Mayor Renard U. Johnson assumed office as Mayor of El Paso on January 6, 2025. He grew up on the northeast side of El Paso and graduated from Andress High School and the University of Texas at El Paso. He was named an Andress outstanding ex and as a distinguished alumnus from UTEP. Renard founded METI Inc., one of El Paso’s fastest growing and most successful companies, providing systems engineering, information technology, and natural resource management support to government and commercial customers worldwide. He received numerous awards to include the Minority Business Enterprise of the Year from the United States Department of Commerce. METI was ranked as the 6th fastest growing company in the U.S. by INC. 500 magazine. Black Enterprise magazine ranked his company as one of the largest black-owned companies in the nation. In 2020, he founded El Perro Grande Tequila, a company also headquartered in El Paso, Texas, which has received accolades from Forbes Magazine. Renard served as a former chairman of the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a former president and chairman of The Texas Lyceum, a past board member of the El Paso Boys & Girls Club, a former Board member of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, and the former chairman of the Board for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, El Paso Branch. He has also served as a board member of the Hospitals at Providence. Most notably and importantly, he is a loving father to his two young daughters and a lifelong resident of El Paso, Texas.

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  • Dr. Robert Kirken is the Dean of the College of Science at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and Principal Investigator of the Border Biomedical Research Center. He earned his B.A. in Chemistry from Olivet College and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from Wright State University. Following postdoctoral research at the National Cancer Institute, he held faculty appointments at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Since joining UTEP in 2005, Dr. Kirken has been instrumental in faculty recruitment, student success, and research expansion. His leadership has strengthened UTEP’s research infrastructure, particularly in Hispanic cancer health disparities. A distinguished cancer researcher, he has published extensively in top-tier journals and secured significant funding from federal, state, and private sources. His research focuses on T-cell signaling and related diseases, including leukemia, lymphoma, and autoimmune disorders, with the goal of developing novel therapeutic strategies.

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  • Scott B. Delaney is Unichem Pharmaceuticals (USA), Inc.’s President and Chief Executive Officer – North America and CEO of Bayshore Pharmaceuticals. He is also a member of Unichem’s Board of Directors. Scott is an accomplished leader with over 30 years of experience in brand and generic pharmaceutical management. He brings deep expertise in many areas of generic pharmaceutical management, including sales, marketing, contract negotiation, business development, manufacturing/distribution, third party payor management, product portfolio selection and product life cycle management. Scott has worked with outstanding organizations such as Eli Lilly and Company, Johnson and Johnson, HEB Grocery Company, Teva Pharmaceuticals, URL Pharma, Jubilant Cadista Pharmaceuticals and Edenbridge Pharmaceuticals. Scott grew up in Kerrville, Texas and earned his B.B.A. in Accounting/MIS from Baylor University and his M.B.A. from the McCombs Graduate School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin.

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  • Emily Hartmann is the Executive Director at PHIX (Paso Del Norte Health Information Exchange). Under her leadership, PHIX has grown to exchange data with additional hospitals and clinics in the community as well as the Veteran’s Administration and Department of Defense nationally. She also has experience in health care analytics and strategy. As a health care consultant at Sg2, she helped hospitals prepare for policy changes and evolving financial models. She also has experience developing health initiatives for the City of Chicago and State of Massachusetts. Hartmann has a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelors in Economics from the University of Chicago.