Outstanding leadership is crucial for the success of FIRST® in Texas. This community belongs to all of us, and we, the members of the selection committees, feel the weight of the importance of the selection.
We recognize that we have the opportunity and the responsibility to strengthen the foundation of our organization, enabling us to better serve our students and position ourselves for future growth. There have been issues in the past with prior leadership, a lack of communication, and a dearth of transparency. We are committed to doing better so that other members of our FIRST in Texas community can maintain their focus on the hard, exhausting, and amazingly rewarding work of serving students in our program and expanding it to reach more kids who need us.
On February 2, 2025, Jason Arms left the organization to pursue opportunities outside FIRST in Texas. Board Chairman and long-time volunteer, Eric van Gemeren, stepped up to serve as Interim Executive Director. After serving as Interim ED for two months, Eric let the Board of Directors know that he was interested in serving as the permanent ED in April 2025, and he removed himself from the selection process. Amy Bates took over as chair of the Board Selection Committee to ensure we continued to have an unbiased and objective process.
The members of the committee are:
The selection committee had many conversations about the priorities, objectives, and desired outcomes the Board was looking for in our next leader. We wanted someone with extensive experience in financial management and corporate governance – to ensure we build a sustainable, transparent organization that we can be proud of. We wanted someone who could speak to our corporate sponsors with credibility and successfully secure funds for our students. Most importantly, we wanted a passionate leader who is highly motivated by our shared mission and who can bring our diverse community together.
With all the complexities required for this role, the board wanted to do this right, so we engaged the global executive and nonprofit search firm DSG Global and set to work creating a position profile based on input from:
The resulting professional profile was shared widely in the nonprofit community, including in the FiT email newsletter on March 18, 2025.
The Board of Directors doesn’t always get to see the day-to-day challenges of what it takes to run the program, and therefore we wanted to make sure we brought people to the table that do. We wanted the staff and volunteers to be a part of building the foundation for the future, and we wanted a transparent process that was objective and unbiased. Involving staff and volunteers in the formal selection process was a way to achieve this.
With a desire to include many different viewpoints in the selection process, the Staff and Volunteer Selection Committee was seated in order to secure broader insight from our multi-faceted community. The members are:
Approximately 60 people indicated their interest by submitting resumes, which were evaluated against the desired qualifications and characteristics communicated in the professional profile, including:
The pool was narrowed first by DSG, and then four individuals were advanced to first-round interviews with the Board Selection Committee and the Staff/Volunteer Selection Committee. After deliberation and discussion, the two groups narrowed the candidate pool to three finalists.
The final selection process consisted of an hour-long interview with the Staff/Volunteer Selection Committee and a two-hour-long interview with the Board Selection Committee, which included a performance task. Background and reference checks were conducted on each finalist as well. The Staff/Volunteer Selection Committee and the Board Selection Committee collectively reviewed the feedback on each candidate to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of each.
As a result of this detailed process, the Board Selection Committee made a final recommendation to the Board of Directors which unanimously approved the path forward.
In order to maintain the momentum of positive change that we have witnessed, the Board of Directors has asked Eric to stay in an active leadership position within the organization, but with a revised role. The Board has also approved the hiring of an additional leader that will report to Eric to help drive long-term success.
Effectively immediately, Eric van Gemeren will serve in the role of “Executive Chairman”. In this role, he will remain the board chairman and will also assume the lead role in day-to-day finance, communication, fundraising, impact and evaluation, IT, and team grants. Eric will also retain overall accountability for the running of FIRST in Texas.
Effective July 15, Dr. Natasha Wilkerson will join FIRST in Texas in the new role of “Executive Program Director”, reporting directly to Eric. In this role, Natasha will assume overall responsibility for program and event delivery with a particular focus on driving growth, participant satisfaction, volunteer engagement, and reducing our average cost-to-serve.
Natasha holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and began her career with the Department of Defense before earning a master’s and PhD in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in STEM education. While working with Communities In Schools of San Antonio, she launched four FLL teams and a Space Club program that engaged over 1,500 students. In this role, she led five city-wide events and secured $1.6 million in grants and sponsorships. These initiatives led to the founding of a nonprofit organization that scaled Space Club to over 1,000 schools worldwide and hosted three international large-scale events, reaching more than 25,000 students and supported by 520 volunteers. Natasha is also the co-founder of Vivify STEM, a remote team of education specialists who have developed more than 250 STEM lessons and professional development courses.
We believe that Natasha is a great fit to lead the program delivery portion of our organization and builds our leadership bench strength for the future. A revised organization chart for FIRST in Texas is attached.
We appreciate your interest in the future of FIRST in Texas and hope you will find this information helpful to understand the full process and how your Board of Directors reached this important and difficult decision.
Amy Bates,
On behalf Board of Directors