2023 Honorees

Mr. Kenneth L. Burgess, Jr. graduated from Texas Tech University in 1978 with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting. After graduation he worked for the original First National Bank of Midland where he worked until September of 1983.

Burgess served for 8 years as Executive Vice President of Texas National Bank of Waco and 5 years as President of Security State Bank in Abilene. Upon the sale of the bank, Burgess left to form the First National Bank of Midland and later changed the name of the Bank to FirstCapital Bank of Texas as the bank grew into other areas of the state. The Bank presently stands at about $2.1 billion in assets.

Burgess served in a number of roles in the banking industry. He served as Chairman of the American Bankers Association, the Texas Bankers Association, the ABA Community Bankers Council, the Corporation for American Banking, TBA Services Company and was a founding member of IBAT’s Young Banker’s Association and served on the Board of IBAT Services, Inc.

With the American Bankers Association, Burgess testified before the House Financial Institutions Committee in 2013 regarding the detrimental effects of the Dodd Frank Act on our nation’s community banks and the need for regulatory relief and again before the same committee in 2017 regarding the need to improve the regulatory environment to ease the ability for people and communities to start new community banks.

In 2017, he met with President Donald Trump to inform the President about the regulatory roadblocks inhibiting bank’s ability to serve their customers and communities. Upon the President’s request, Burgess and other industry executives met with Treasury Department officials to craft a regulatory white paper intended for the use of financial regulators to remove burdens on the industry.

He is a past member of the Midland and Abilene United Way board of directors and served as United Way campaign chair in both Midland and Abilene. He is past Chair of the Midland Economic Development Council and past Chair of the Vision 2000 Task Force on Economic Development for the City of Midland. During his time in Waco, Burgess served on the Board of Trustees of the Waco Independent School District. He also served as the founding Chair of the RAWLS College of Business Advisory Board at Texas Tech University.

Burgess has been married to Cathy for 43 years and has three children, two daughters-in-law, a son-in-law and seven grandchildren.

Mr. Ron Butler is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of First Financial Bank, N.A. Abilene Region in Abilene, Texas. First Financial Bank, N.A. is a $13 billion bank with 78 branches located throughout Texas. Butler is also Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of First Financial Bankshares, Inc. Butler previously was CEO of First Financial Bank in Eastland and Stephenville and has been with First Financial for 30 years.

Butler graduated from Texas Tech University with a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Business Administration from Tarleton State University. He is also a graduate of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at Southern Methodist University.

He has been active in the community serving on numerous community boards and is the former Board Chair of the Abilene Industrial Foundation and Abilene Chamber of Commerce. Butler also serves on the Advisory Council of the Excellence in Banking program at the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University, and the Advisory Council of the Rawls College of Business (Emeritus), former director of West Central Texas Municipal Water District, Board Chair of ContinueCare Hospital at Hendrick Medical Center, and the Abilene Improvement Corporation. Butler also served a 6-year term on the Brazos River Authority board of directors and was appointed by Governor Rick Perry and has served numerous terms as a director of the Texas Bankers Association.

Married to wife, Lorilei, and they have two grown children, a son, Trey, and a daughter, Sydney. Trey and Sydney are both graduates of the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University.

Mr. James D. Goudge began his banking career with National Bank of Commerce in 1976, where he trained for management and then worked his way up to Assistant Vice President and then Senior Vice President. Goudge also worked for Kelly Field National Bank as Executive Vice President - Senior Lender, and for Allied American Bank, where he served as Executive Vice President - Commercial Lender. In 1989 he joined Broadway Bank as its Executive Vice President of Commercial Banking. He was named President and CEO in 1998 before ascending to Chairman in 2001. He retired as CEO in 2016 and as Chairman of the Board in 2019.

As Chairman of Broadway Bank for almost two decades, Goudge continued the tradition of strength and stability that has kept the family-owned bank as a model for community banking. Under his leadership, Broadway experienced growth from $1.0 billion in total assets, $897 million in deposits, $400 million in loans, wealth management assets valued at $603 million, net income of $19.4 million, and 22 banking locations and grew to $3.7 billion in total assets, $3.2 billion in deposits, $2.1 billion in loans, wealth management assets valued at $2.1 billion, net income of $56 million, and 36 banking locations in 2019.

Goudge represented his industry well through his active participation in numerous positions such as Chairman of the Texas Bankers Association; Board Member of the San Antonio Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Federal Advisory Council Representative for the 11th Federal Reserve District; and American Bankers Association Government Relations Committee Member and Membership Committee; and Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas Board Member since May of 2014.

Goudge has served his community with unselfishness, enthusiasm, generosity and distinction in many different capacities including Chairman of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and Pathway to a Great City Committee; Co-Chairman of the Leadership San Antonio Class XXIII; Member of the Board of Trustees United Way of San Antonio; Executive Committee Member of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation; Board of Trustees Member of Southwest Research Institute; Chairman KLRN Public Television; and UTSA Development Board Member. Goudge currently serves as the Chair of Snack Pak 4 Kids, San Antonio and on the University of Texas Chancellor's Council Executive Committee. He and his wife, Suzanne, are the Co-chairs of the United Way San Antonio Tocqueville Cabinet Event Committee and the Alamo Heights School Foundation Endowment Capital Campaign.

Goudge graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin in 1976 and from the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking in 1985.

Goudge is married to Suzanne and has four children: Sara, Carrie, Cy, and Kate, and ten grandchildren.

Mr. J. Pat Parsons earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Lamar University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Houston. He began his banking career with First City National Bank of Houston in 1973 as a Management Trainee. Parsons served as Credit Analyst, Credit Supervisor - Energy and Commercial Lending Departments, Manager of the International Credit Group, and as a member of the Asia Pacific Banking Group. From 1979 until 1984, he served as General Manager for First City National Bank – London Branch and a Department Manager in the Energy Division of First City in Houston. In 1985, Parsons transferred to First City-Beaumont where he served as President & COO as well as Senior Regional Credit and Lending Officer, and as a director of First City-Beaumont and several other First City community banks.

Parsons joined Community Bank & Trust, SSB, a locally owned community bank, as President and Chief Operating Officer on July 16, 1992. In March 2004, Community Bank & Trust, SSB, was sold to Texas State Bank, McAllen, and Parsons became a Regional President until November 2006 when Texas State Bank was sold to BBVA.

Shortly after this sale, Parsons resigned from BBVA to start CommunityBank of Texas, N.A. where he served as founding CEO and Chairman of the Board.

Following a merger of equals with Vista Bank of Houston which included bringing Robert Franklin on the team as successor management, and most recently a merger of equals with Allegiance Bank to form the newly named Stellar Bank with approximately $11 billion in assets, Parsons is currently serving as director and Vice Chairman of the Bank.

Mr. David R. Seim was born in 1945 in Corpus Christi, Texas. At the age of 12, his family moved to Lubbock. He was a 1963 graduate of Monterey High School, where he played fullback for the football team and served as Senior Class President. He attended Texas Tech University where he met the love of his life, Paula Jane. They married in 1966. In 1968, they had their first child, J. Hunter.

At the time, Seim was a shoe salesman at JC Penney. With a growing family to care for, he went to an employment agency where they placed him in a job with CIT Loans, and thus began a career in banking that spanned nearly a half century. With his career in place, they had two more children, Spencer David in 1974 and Evan Elizabeth in 1977.

Seim's career took him from Plains National Bank, where he was tasked with coordinating the construction of the building at 50th and University, to Amarillo where he worked for American National Bank, and then back to Lubbock, where he worked at Lubbock National Bank. He eventually returned to Plains, which had become Plains Capital Bank. He loved working in that same building he helped make possible. He briefly tried retirement, but the call and service of community banking drew him immediately back. This began his final and happiest post as the Lubbock Market Chairman for Happy State Bank.

Throughout his life, he loved the Lubbock community, Texas Tech University, and community banking. He was active in several professional banking organizations as well as banking education. He served as Chairman of the Independent Bankers Association of Texas, as well as a director of the Independent Community Bankers Association of America. He also served on the board of The Independent Bankers Bank in Dallas and was chosen to serve as Chairman of the Board in 1995. Additionally, Seim served and chaired the board of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at SMU. Seims' strong community involvement in Lubbock was also extensive, serving and chairing many organizations. Servant Leadership was important to Seim, as he often spoke about. He lived his life motto, “service above self,” every day of his life.