 | Roland GarciaSecretary-TreasurerCity Appointee, Position 11Originally appointed 06/01/2005 Term expires 08/31/2009 |
Founding Shareholder and Management Group Member of the Houston office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Roland Garcia received his BBA from Baylor University with Honors in 1981 and his JD from South Texas College of Law in 1986, where he also served as Assistant Editor of the Law Review. He served as a Briefing Attorney for the Texas Supreme Court.
The first minority to be elected as President of the Houston Bar Association, Garcia also served as President of the Texas Young Lawyers Association, an elected position of the 22,000 member state-wide lawyers organization. He was President of the Hispanic Bar Association and President of the Dispute Resolution Center. He served as an elected Director of the State Bar of Texas, and was a Trustee of the Texas Bar Foundation. He served on the Texas Supreme Court’s Judicial Selection Task Force which reported on the method for selecting and retaining judicial officers that would best serve the people of Texas. He currently serves on the Texas Supreme Court’s Rules Advisory Committee.
In addition to his board member duties with the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, he also serves on the board of directors of the Greater Houston Partnership, Memorial Hermann Continuing Care Corp., Harris County Hospital District Foundation, and Houston Independent School District Foundation. He is on the Advisory Boards of the Aspiring Youth of Houston, Taipai Society, and Baylor Medical School/UH Law Center Joint M.D./J.D. Committee. He is President of the Houston YET Center, Inc., charged with building and operating two youth education centers in Houston as part of the NFL’s legacy gift to the City of Houston for hosting Super Bowl XXXVIII. He is a Past President of the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans (AAMA), the largest non-profit social service and educational agency in Texas dedicated to assisting low-income Hispanic youth and families. He has volunteered his services to the United Way, March of Dimes, Special Olympics, YWCA, Boy Scouts, Habitat for Humanity, Mental Health Association and numerous mentoring programs for elementary, middle school and high school youth.
He received numerous honors including the AAMA Hero Award, Bikur Cholim Hospital Jerusalem International Brotherhood Award, Savvy Award, NAACP ALEX Award, United Way Project Blueprint Leadership Award, Center for Houston’s Future Leadership Award, Baylor University Outstanding Young Alumni Award, Five Outstanding Young Houstonians Award, and awards from the State Bar of Texas, HBA, TYLA and Houston ISD.
Garcia and his wife, Karen, a Manager for BMC Software Company, have two children--Scott and Kristin. He enjoys tennis, snow skiing, hunting, politics and scuba diving.
