Thomas R. Kowalski is President and CEO of the Texas Healthcare and Bioscience Institute (THBI) in Austin, Texas. The Institute is a statewide, public policy research organization whose purpose is to promote medical research, development, and manufacturing in Texas. THBI consists of leading biotechnology, medical device, and pharmaceutical companies, universities, private research institutions, chambers of commerce, and economic development corporations. Prior to his appointment as President of THBI, Mr. Kowalski served as the Executive Director for the Washington, DC-based National Association for the Support of Long Term Care. He has previously served as a senior staff member to Governor Bill Clements of Texas, U.S. Senator John Tower of Texas, and Congressman Jim Collins of Dallas, Texas. With over twenty-five years of political and policy experience, Mr. Kowalski was appointed in 1989 by Governor Bill Clements to the Board of Regents of the Texas State University System. He served as Chairman of the Board of Regents in 1995. An avid public speaker, Mr. Kowalski gives numerous talks on positioning Texas as a global leader in the development of biotechnology. He is the Executive Producer of Texas Innovations, a semi-annual publication of the Texas Life Science Industry. He was appointed in 2002 to Governor Rick Perry’s State Council on Science and Biotechnology Development. He helped facilitate the founding of the Texas Life Science Center of Innovation and Commercialization as interim chairman which is part of the governance structure of the Emerging Technology Fund. He is the immediate past Chairman of Bio’s Council of State Biotechnology Associations, whose national membership consists of forty state associations involved in biotechnology development and advocacy. A lifelong Texan, Mr. Kowalski resides in Austin, Texas.