- Dale Dawson
- Bishop John Ruchyahana
- Scott Ford
- David Knight
- Judi Dawson
- Robert Lewis
- Dr. Tim Cloyd
- Dabbs Cavin
Scott Ford
Alltel President and Chief Executive Officer
Scott Ford, president and chief executive officer of Alltel, is responsible for the strategic direction and operations of one of the nation’s leading telecommunications companies.
Since Ford joined the company in 1996, Alltel’s wireless customer base has grown from nearly 800,000 to over 12 million and its wireless revenues are now almost $8 billion, up from under $475 million. In that same time period, Alltel’s shareholders enjoyed the greatest total return on investment of any of the major telecommunications companies with which Alltel competes.
Prior to his employment with Alltel, Ford, a graduate from the University of Arkansas with a BSBA in finance, worked in the investment banking division of Merrill Lynch in New York and Stephens, Inc. in Little Rock. He ended his investment-banking career as the Assistant to the Chairman of Stephens, Jackson T. Stephens, where his work involved traditional investment banking services, equity portfolio management, venture capital investing, and acquisitions in the media industry.
Scott serves on President Paul Kagame’s Presidential Advisory Council and is active in advising Rwanda government officials and entrepreneurs in projects and challenges related to economic development and infrastructure. Throughout his business career he has been active in his community.
He and his wife reside in Little Rock, Arkansas.
David Knight
Stephens Inc., Executive Vice President and General Counsel
David Knight serves as executive vice president and General Counsel of Stephens Inc., a large, regional investment-banking firm. He is active in community and philanthropic affairs and currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees at Hendrix College, a highly regarded liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas.
David has been instrumental in developing a partnership with Hendrix, the Rwanda Ministry of Education and B2R to create a consortium of U.S. colleges and universities that provide full, four year undergraduate scholarships to top-ranked Rwandan students majoring in the areas of math and science.
David is also an avid photographer and the author of Faith and Good Works in Africa, a photographic journal documenting the work of the Sonrise School and other ministries in Rwanda and Uganda.
He lives in Little Rock with his wife, Janna, and their three daughters, Riley, Anne and India.
Judi Dawson
Entrepreneur, business woman, full-time parent and mission worker
During her business career, Judi Dawson served as a CPA, entrepreneur and stockbroker. She began her accounting career with KPMG and later launched her own business at the age of 28, opening retail stores in Texas and Colorado. In 1986, she joined Stephens Inc. in Little Rock, Arkansas as an institutional stockbroker where she served money-management clients in the United Kingdom, earning the firm’s top producing salesperson designation.
Since 1998, Judi serves as a full-time parent and as a leader in Christian ministries, pursuing her passion for serving the world’s poor by organizing and leading mission trips from Little Rock, to Mexico and to Rwanda. In 2002, she and her husband, Dale, helped Bishop John Ruchyahana and Dabbs and Mary Cavin launch the campaign to build the Sonrise High School, a top academic boarding school in Rwanda. She has been an enthusiastic supporter of Opportunity International and a member of the Board of Governors since 2004. Judi is a founding Board Member of Bridge2Rwanda where she now focuses the majority of her time.
Judi and Dale live in Little Rock, Arkansas and have two children: a son, Jack and a daughter, Katherine.
Robert Lewis
Fellowship Bible Church, Pastor-at-Large and President, LifeReady
Robert Lewis is Pastor-at-Large for Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas and President of LifeReady, a pro-active organization that provides high-impact video resources to prepare couples, parents, men and women to embrace God’s best for their marriages, families, and lives.
Robert has authored numerous books and films including the nationally recognized Men’s Fraternity series: Quest for Authentic Manhood, Winning at Work and Home, and The Great Adventure. He also authored Raising a Modern-Day Knight, The Church of Irresistible Influence, The New Eve, and Culture Shift with Wayne Cordeiro. Robert also serves on the Board of Trustees for Leadership Network. In 2001, he was awarded Pastor of the Year by the National Coalition of Men’s Ministry headed by Patrick Morley.
Robert has been integral to organizing the B2R Container program established by Fellowship Bible Church to bring together churches, colleges, corporations and individuals in the Little Rock, AR community to provide much needed supplies in bulk to the Sonrise School in Rwanda.
Married since 1971, Robert and his wife Sherard reside in Little Rock, Arkansas, and have four grown children: Elizabeth, Rebekah, Garrett, and Mason, and two grandchildren.
J. Timothy Cloyd, Ph.D.
President and Professor of Politics, Hendrix College
In 2001, J. Timothy Cloyd became the 10th President of Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas where he also currently serves as a Professor of Politics. Tim has a MA degree and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. After serving as a member of the political science faculty at Vanderbilt University, Tim completed post-doctorial studies in Europe with the Institute for the Study of World Politics. He also received continuing education at Harvard University in Educational Management. Additionally, Tim serves on the board of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and on the American Council on Education’s Commission on International Education.
Tim is active in his community and is on numerous civic and governmental affairs boards. An active member of the United Methodist Church, Tim is the son of United Methodist missionary teachers in The Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) and with the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. His parents were the headmasters of the Navajo Methodist Mission School (a grade 7 to 12 boarding school for Navajo Indians).
Tim has co-chaired the efforts by Bridge2Rwanda to establish the Rwanda Presidential Scholars program and to create a consortium of U.S. colleges and universities to offer scholarships to top-ranked Rwandan students majoring in the areas of math and science. Through Tim’s leadership, Hendrix College has also agreed to provide administrative support to the program.
Tim, his wife Rebecca Davis Cloyd, and two sons, Samuel and Thomas live in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Dabbs Cavin
Assistant to the Chairman of Mountaire Corporation
W. Dabbs Cavin, 44, is currently Assistant to the Chairman of Mountaire Corporation and was Chief Executive Officer of Opportunity International Bank Rwanda (OIBR) for 2006 and 2007. At OIBR, Mr. Cavin was responsible for launching Opportunity International’s microfinance programs in Rwanda and led the efforts to merge World Relief and Hope International’s microfinance program in Rwanda known as Urwego Community Banking with OIBR creating Urwego Opportunity Bank. The combined entity represents the first partnership between these three global faith based organizations. Mr. Cavin was also one of the founding members of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1998 which was the first church in the United States to receive oversight from the Anglican Church in Rwanda helping to spawn the Anglican Mission in the Americas which now has over 130 churches located throughout the United States and Canada. Mr. Cavin has nearly 20 years of entrepreneurial commercial banking experience and is also an attorney and former regulatory examiner. He is a board member of the Mustard Seed Project, Kigali International Community School, Rwanda Community Works and Bridge2Rwanda.
