Mover and shaker

Station Houston hires new director to grow partnerships and community engagement

Mar 20, 2019, 10:27 am

Deanea LeFlore is Station Houston's new director of community engagement, partnerships, and education. Courtesy of Station Houston

A downtown Houston startup acceleration hub has created a new position focused on expanding the nonprofit's partnerships, engagement, and opportunities.

Station Houston hired Deanea LeFlore as director of community engagement, partnerships, and education. Previously, LeFlore served as chief of protocol for the city of Houston and a vice president of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"My passion is promoting Houston as a world-class place to invest, work and live, and I am thrilled to join an organization that embodies this same spirit," says LeFlore in a release. "Station's dedication to accelerating Houston's tech growth through collaboration and innovation compliments my professional experience and I look forward to opening our doors to new partners, expanding programming with our long-time supporters, and introducing Station to a new network of leaders."

LeFlore has experience connecting the city to international organizations. She's overseen visits of over 2,000 diplomats from around the world and has built relationships with more than 90 consulats. She also serves as president of a nonprofit organization, Casa Cultural de las Americas and was named an American Leadership Forum Senior Fellow.

"Deanea LeFlore's enthusiasm for helping Houston reach its untapped potential, paired with her deep experience in civic leadership, make her an outstanding addition to the growing Station Houston team," says Gabriella Rowe, CEO of Station Houston, in a release. "We look forward to strengthening our foothold in Houston under Deanea's leadership."

In just three years, Station has grown to 400 members with 200 startups and 130 mentors. The new position will provide an intensified focus on new partnerships and educational opportunities for the organization's members. LeFlore's main goal will be to find the pain points of Station startups and foster new programing to advance their businesses.

In January, Station Houston officially became a nonprofit to better serve its members. And, also earlier this year, the organization was announced as the programing partner for The Ion, Rice University's innovation hub to be located in Midtown.

Building Houston

fresh funding

Houston health care institution secures $100M for expansion, shares renderings

Baylor College of Medicine's Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower is set to open in 2026. Rendering courtesy of BCM

Baylor College of Medicine has collected $100 million toward its $150 million fundraising goal for the college’s planned Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower.

The $100 million in gifts include:

A total of $30 million from The Cullen Foundation, The Cullen Trust for Health Care, and The Cullen Trust for Higher Education.
$12 million from the DeBakey Medical Foundation
$10 million from the Huffington Foundation
More than $45 million from members of Baylor’s Board of Trustees and other community donors, including the M.D. Anderson Foundation, the Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation, and The Elkins Foundation.

“The Cullen Trust for Health Care is very honored to support this building along with The Cullen Foundation and The Cullen Trust for Higher Education,” Cullen Geiselman Muse, chair of The Cullen Trust for Health Care, says in a news release. “We cannot wait to see what new beginnings will come from inside the Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower.”

The Baylor campus is next to Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park, a 37-acre project. Rendering courtesy of BCM

The Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower is set to open in 2026. The 503,000-square-foot tower is the first phase of Baylor’s planned Health Sciences Park, an 800,000-square-foot project that will feature medical education and research adjacent to patient care at Baylor Medicine and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center on the McNair Campus.

The Baylor campus is next to Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park, a 37-acre project that will support healthcare, life sciences, and business ventures. Baylor is the anchor tenant in the first building being constructed at Helix Park.

“To really change the future of health, we need a space that facilitates the future,” says Dr. Paul Klotman, president, CEO, and executive dean of Baylor. “We need to have a great building to recruit great talent. Having a place where our clinical programs are located, where our data scientists are, next to a biotech development center, and having our medical students all integrated into that environment will allow them to be ready in the future for where healthcare is going.”

In the 1940s, Lillie and Roy Cullen and the M.D. Anderson Foundation were instrumental in establishing the Texas Medical Center, which is now the world’s largest medical complex.

“Baylor is the place it is today because of philanthropy,” Klotman says. “The Cullen family, the M.D. Anderson Foundation, and the Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation have been some of Baylor’s most devoted champions, which has enabled Baylor to mold generations of exceptional health sciences professionals. It is fitting that history is repeating itself with support for this state-of-the-art education building.”

The Cullen Foundation donated $30 million to the project. Rendering courtesy of BCM

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