OUR TEAM
Reginald Smith
Founder & Board Member
Reginald “Reggie” Smith is the Founder and Board Member of Building Promise USA. Raised in the Third Ward of Houston, Texas, he cycled through alternative schools and “at risk youth” programs only to be funneled into the juvenile justice system at the age of sixteen and the adult system at seventeen. This began a more than twenty-year odyssey of substance use and criminal justice-involvement, treatment programs and prison cells.
Finding himself in a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas for the second time, he remembered what his grandmother used to tell him as a boy, “If it is to be, it begins with me.” It was then that he realized that if he didn’t make an extraordinary effort to change, nothing was going to change in his life! Again, he remembered his grandmother told him, “If not now, when?” So, he made a commitment to himself that day to overcome any personal adversity, real or perceived, that would keep him from achieving his goals and reaching his full potential.
Reggie has gone on to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree in social work from the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. He was the Communities for Recovery, Hogg Peer Policy Fellow from 2016 – 2018 and a Policy Analyst for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition for 2018 – 2019. He is currently a Senior Advisor for the Peer Service Unit of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Reggie’s mission is to help build a community-based infrastructure of reentry support services to assist individuals with criminal justice involvement and behavior health challenges to achieve their goals and reach their full potential.
Hank retired after 6+ years as President and CEO of the Central Texas Food Bank in November, 2016, after completing a $25 million capital campaign and constructing a state of the art Food Bank to better serve the 21 counties in Central Texas served by the Food Bank.
Prior to that, Hank spent 38 years in the semiconductor industry in various roles – Senior Vice President at Zarlink Semiconductor, President and CEO of Legerity Inc., Vice President and CFO at Actel Corporation and in other financial positions at Applied Materials, National Semiconductor and General Electric.
Hank holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting from San Jose State University.
Hank Perret
Board Member
Kenneth D. Thompson, Sr.
Chair of BPUSA
Kenneth D. Thompson, Sr., brings a talent for children's and fathers' advocacy cultivated in the public sector. Kenneth’ s experiences as a parent educator, facilitator, mentor and talk show host serve him well as Fatherhood Specialist for the Division of Permanency. His previous assignments include lead host for “The Dad-Show” and the featured facilitator for “Focus on Fathers.” Mr. Thompson is a certified facilitator in multiple national fatherhood curriculums.
Kenneth served as Director of “All American Mentoring Project,” a mentoring program with an emphasis on children from single parent homes and low social economic status. He is the former President of the Board of Trustees for the Pflugerville Independent School District where he was the first African American elected to political office in the Pflugerville community.
Kenneth is also the former Vice President of Texas Caucus of Black School Board Members. Kenneth served as the Vice-Chair for the Austin Advisory Committee addressing Disproportionality within the Welfare System. Kenneth served as the Director of the East Austin Youth Foundation which serves economically disadvantaged youth by providing sports activities while promoting high academic achievement.
Kenneth also served as Board Chair of “A New Entry LLC,” a program charged with providing counseling and transitional housing to formerly incarcerated men. Additionally, he served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors for The Overton Group which focuses on multi-lingual education in Head Start. He served as Vice-President of Parenting Across Color, a Trans Racial Parent Support Group. Kenneth served as the Co-
Chair of the Austin Travis Reentry Planning council
Kenneth was appointed to the National Advisory Board which focuses on Non Resident Fathers in the Child Welfare System. Lastly, Kenneth was appointed to the Community Advisory Board for the Travis County Family Courthouse expansion project. Kenneth recently served the Chair of the Austin's African American Quality of Life Resource Advisory Commission. Kenneth is currently a board member for Solar Austin. Kenneth is a graduate of Southwest Institute of Technology.
Frank Ringer comes to the Board of Directors of Building Promise USA with over 20 year of executive management and administrative experience in Human Resources, Healthcare and Social Services. He currently serves as the principle of Frank Ringer & Associates a consulting firm whose client list included: Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation, GovLease Public Project Finance, IBM Consulting, Deloitte and Touch Consulting, Tyrex Manufacturing, Mental Health Management Services, and the Austin Travis County Re-Entry Roundtable. The firm’s primary focus is on Legislative initiative development, coalition building, best practices presentations, legislative education, data presentation and legislative testimony.
Frank received his BA in Psychology from East Texas State University (1971) and his Master Degree in Health Care Administration from Southwest Texas State University (1982). Frank passion is to mentoring at-risk youth, working with returning citizens and volunteerism.
Frank Ringer
Board Member
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Lynda Frost,
J.D, PhD
Board Member
Lynda Frost, J.D, Ph.D., is the principal of Lynfro Consulting, which she founded in 2018 to leverage her
extensive experience in grant making, program design, strategic planning, and public policy with her
technical expertise in mental health and legal issues to help nonprofits effectively advance their mission.
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Prior to founding Lynfro Consulting, Lynda worked for 14 years at the Hogg Foundation for Mental
Health, where she oversaw major initiatives and grant programs, led strategic and operational planning,
and managed program staff. Lynda is an experienced administrator and attorney with expertise in
human rights, juvenile and criminal justice, special education, and mediation. She served as an Assistant
Vice President in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at The University of Texas at
Austin and held appointments as a clinical associate professor in the College of Education and the LBJ
School of Public Affairs, where she taught interdisciplinary graduate seminars on topics such as Mental
Health & Social Policy or Race, Leadership & the School-to-Prison Pipeline. Lynda previously held
academic positions at the University of Virginia Schools of Law and Medicine, the American University in
Cairo, and the University of Richmond School of Law. She has published numerous articles on law and
social justice and was the co-editor of a book entitled The Evolution of Mental Health Law.
Carl F. Hunter II, M.Div
Executive Director
Carl F. Hunter II is a graduate of Morris Brown College and received his Master of Divinity Degree from New Brunswick Theological Seminary. He has over 20 years of experience in the non-profit and human service sectors. His unique set of skills include: community organizing, coalition building, legislative advocacy, project planning, programmatic design, group facilitation and public speaking.
In 2018, Carl became a Hogg Peer Policy Fellow. During the 86th session of the Texas Legislature, Carl provided technical assistance and was a subject matter expert for legislators and their staff. He also served on the Substance Use Disorder Coalition (SUDC) and the Texas Coalition for Healthy Minds (TCHM) during that same period.
In 2019 he was appointed to the Executive Committee of the Travis County Reentry Roundtable and the Travis County Substance Use Disorder Work-group. During that same year, the Austin Chapter of the NAACP recognized him for community leadership. His past awards include being recognized by the National Congress of Black Women, Trenton/Mercer Chapter and the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey for his leadership, volunteerism and commitment to the greater community.
Carl professes that his greatest accomplishment is being a person in sustained recovery from Substance Use Disorder, which has enabled him to be a father to Ashley and Isaiah, a grandfather to Khloe and Jules, a godfather to Candice and an inspiration to others.