By KATHLEEN HAUGHNEY
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, Jan. 26, 2010……..Gov. Charlie Crist named five new appointees to the Board of Governors Thursday and reappointed vice chair Ava Parker, but did not reappoint Chairwoman Sheila McDevitt, who joined the board shortly after its inception in 2002.

McDevitt, who was visibly choked up during the meeting, congratulated the new appointees and said she will continue to serve the university system in any way that she can.

“I hope that I can say I added a little value,” she told members at Thursday’s Board of Governors meeting in Tampa.

The new members are:

-Richard A. Beard III, 66, of Tampa is a member of the Florida Council of 100 and the founding chairman of the University of South Florida Board of Trustees. He also served as a board member for the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute and the Florida Health ScienceTampa General Hospital.

-Dean Colson, 56, of Coral Gables is a partner at Colson, Hicks, Edison law firm and serves as a special adviser to Crist on higher education. He was largely responsible for helping the governor roll out the differential tuition plan last year. He also clerked for former U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist.

-Patricia Frost, 72, of Miami Beach worked as a teacher and principal in the Miami-Dade County Public School System for 28 years. She is a trustee at Florida International University and has served as chairwoman of the FIU Board of Directors.

-Morteza “Mori” Hosseini, 54, of Daytona Beach is the chairman and CEO of Intervest Construction. He is also vice chairman for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Board of Trustees. Hosseini is a member of the Florida Council of 100 and previously served on the Halifax Hospital Medical Center Board of Commissioners.

-John Rood, 54, of Jacksonville, is chairman of Vestcor Companies and served as U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas from 2004 to 2007. Previously, he served as vice chair, chair and commissioner of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

-Ava Parker, 47, was also reappointed to the board. Parker, of Jacksonville, is the president of Linking Solutions Inc. and a practicing attorney at Lawrence & Parker P.A.

The governor’s new appointees will serve until Jan. 6, 2017.

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