Two professionals join advancement staff
Feb 01, 2009
Adrian Matthys
Tara Holley
Ben Chandler, vice president of institutional advancement at Seminary of the Southwest, announces two new members of his staff. Adrian Matthys is the director of annual giving & alumni/ae relations and Tara Holley has begun work as director for major gifts & planned giving.
The addition of these professionals marks the first time in seminary history that specific offices are devoted to annual giving, alumni/ae relations, major gifts and planned giving.
Matthys comes to Seminary of Southwest with a decade of higher education development experience, focusing on annual giving best practices while building an experience base at three very different institutions. Most recently, Adrian has managed direct marketing efforts for the University of Houston's office of annual giving where he helped oversee the planning and implementation of a major overhaul of the university's annual giving efforts. He especially focused on phonathon, mail and e-solicitation activities.
Before joining the development team at Rice University as an associate director of its annual fund for student life and learning, Adrian began his career in higher education fundraising as the telephone outreach program manager at Stephen F. Austin State University and later served as the assistant director of development for annual campaigns at the university in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Adrian received his bachelor of arts in anthropology from the University of Texas and is currently working toward a master of arts degree in anthropology from UH. His study focus is on the cultural aspects of the relationships alumni/ae have with one another and with their graduating institutions. Adrian and his wife, Kristi, have two daughters - Mallory, 9, and Sophia, 6 - and a small dog named Henry.
A Texan and a cradle Episcopalian, Tara comes to Southwest with a 25-year career in the non-profit sector. She has served as senior fundraiser for three major universities including the University of Texas, Texas State University and George Washington University. As a consultant, she has worked with a number of social-service organizations in Texas and Washington, D.C., including United Way of Texas and Appleseed Foundation. With the consulting firm of Custom Development Solutions, Inc., Tara served as senior counsel for various campaigns, including the Kroc Corps Community Center Campaign in Greenville, SC.
Holley holds the bachelor of fine arts in music and has completed graduate work in musicology at the University of Texas as well as studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Den Hague. She has four grown children who are scattered far and wide. The nearby city of Elgin - northeast of Austin - was named for Holley's great grandfather Robert Morris Elgin, former deputy land commissioner of Texas who was a devout Episcopalian and attended St. David's Church, Austin, and later served as a deacon at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, until his death in 1906
She is the only current staffer in Rather House who worked in seminary's iconic building before it was recently renovated. She officed in Rather House in the late 1990s when she was a consultant for the New Texas Music Festival in Austin.
