Carroll Elects New Board of Trustees Members and Chair

November 04, 2009


At its annual fall meeting on October 30, 2009, the Carroll College (Helena, MT) board of trustees elected three new members and a new chair.

The new chair of the board is Ray Messer of Bellaire, Texas, the president and board chair of Walter P. Moore and Associates, a Houston-based engineering firm. He has served as a member of Carroll's board of trustees since 2003. Messer has served Walter P. Moore and Associates as president since 1993 and chairman of the board since 1998. Under his leadership, this leading engineering firm has expanded to 13 cities and has received 34 awards for excellence in all phases of engineering and planning work. Since 1996, he has served as a charter member of the Carroll College Engineering Advisory Board. In addition to providing generous support for Carroll student scholarships in engineering, Messer has been a leader in providing expertise leading to the college's Civil Engineering program earning full accreditation and a national award. Messer is also active in fostering young engineers through Walter P. Moore and Associates' participation in the ACE (Architecture, Construction and Engineering) national Mentor Program and was instrumental in establishing a Houston chapter of ACE. Under his leadership, Walter P Moore is generously supporting Engineers Without Borders-USA, a worldwide program to bring sustainable engineering solutions to developing communities in which Carroll students are highly active. As a student in Carroll's 3-2 Engineering program, Messer received his bachelor's in engineering from Columbia University in 1970 while also receiving a bachelor's in mathematics from Carroll. He went on to earn a master's in engineering mechanics from Columbia University. 

Messer takes the helm as Helena attorney Jerome "Jerry" Loendorf of Helena stepped down at the end of his term as chair and term on the board. Loendorf is a Carroll class of 1961 graduate.

Carroll College's three new board members elected at the annual fall meeting were Dick Anderson, the president of Dick Anderson Construction, Inc., in Helena, Mont.; Dannette Sullivan, the western regional director of the higher education nonprofit National Student Clearinghouse in Herndon, Va.; and Dr. Thomas Flynn, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. They replace outgoing board members Monsignor Kevin O'Neill (Carroll class of 1973) of Helena and Pat McCutcheon (Carroll class of 1972), also of Helena, whose terms on the board have been completed.

Anderson has owned and served as president of Dick Anderson Construction since 1978. He is one of the owners of Summit Aeronautics Manufacturing, the Park Plaza Hotel and Best Western Great Northern Hotel, all in Helena, Mont., and owns Mountain States Electrical Contractors in Spokane, Wash. He and his wife Margaret received Carroll's Insignis Award in 2004 for their longtime generosity and service to the college. Anderson's company, Dick Anderson Construction, has constructed a number of Carroll's most important facilities, including the most recently completed Trinity Hall in 2003 and the Mary Alice Carroll Fortin Science Center, finished in 2000. The company also constructed the 1998 addition to the Carroll Campus Center and the 4,000-seat Nelson Stadium, completed in 2001. Dick Anderson Construction has also performed renovations in St. Charles and Our Lady of Guadalupe Halls. On all of these projects over the past decade, Dick Anderson Construction provided Carroll generous in-kind gifts of materials, equipment and labor. For many years, Dick Anderson Construction has supported Carroll student scholarships. Anderson earned a bachelor's degree in business management from the University of Montana in 1974.

Sullivan lives in Seattle, Wash., and has more than 30 years of experience in higher education. Before joining the National Student Clearinghouse, she was the associate vice chancellor and director of Student Affairs at the University of Washington, Bothell. Prior to that, Sullivan served as the assistant provost for Enrollment Services and Student Success at Seattle University, where she worked for almost 20 years. Sullivan began her career as the registrar at Carroll College from 1973 to 1987. She graduated maxima cum laude with a bachelor's degree in English from Carroll College in 1972 and holds a Master of Education from the University of Washington. Her awards include induction into Carroll's Alumni Hall of Fame in 1997 and being named a Champion of Catholic Education by the Archdiocese of Seattle's Fulcrum Foundation in 2004.

In 2006, Flynn received an honorary doctorate from Carroll for his extensive scholarship in French philosophy and in 1987 received Carroll's Academic Achievement Award. Flynn has received a bounty of awards and has lectured extensively on philosophical topics across the globe. He is the author and editor of numerous books and over 100 articles on philosophy. A Helena diocesan priest raised in Anaconda, he graduated summa cum laude in philosophy and history from Carroll in 1958 and received his licentiate in theology in 1962 from Gregorian University in Rome. Before earning his philosophy Ph.D. in 1970 from Columbia University, he returned to Carroll to teach philosophy for four years and French for three in addition to his four years of service as one of Carroll's assistant deans of students. After receiving his doctorate in philosophy and a four-year stint as a philosophy professor at Catholic University of America, he came back to Carroll once more to teach for two more years. Since 1978, he has taught at Emory, and over the past two decades he has enjoyed the honor of a named academic chair as the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy.