U.S. Southwest Strategies is pleased to announce that two distinguished business leaders have joined our Advisory Board. Mark Riedy and Carole Brookins bring us their long experience in finance and real estate at the national and global level and we appreciate and value their endorsement of our business model and our personal and business ethos.

Dr. Mark Riedy is currently Chairman of the Board of Neighborhood Bancorp, the parent of Neighborhood National Bank in San Diego, California. Dr. Riedy also serves as Executive Director of the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate at the University of San Diego at which he became the Ernest W. Hahn Professor of Real Estate Finance in 1993. Previously, he served as Senior Staff Economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisors, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council of Community Bankers, President, Chief Operating Officer of J.E. Robert Companies, President, Chief Operating Officer, and a Director of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae). Dr. Riedy has held a variety of positions within the real estate finance industry, including Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America and Vice President and Director of Research for PMI , a private mortgage insurance company. He has previously served on the boards of directors of five public and four private companies, plus civic organizations. Dr. Riedy earned his Ph.D. in Business Economics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He has been listed on Who's Who in America since 1982 and Who's Who in the World since 2005.

The Honorable Carole L. Brookins served from 2001 to 2005 as the United States Executive Director to The World Bank in Washington, D.C., appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. An international consultant, she is Managing Director of Public Capital Advisors LLC (PCA), and a director on both corporate and non-profit boards. PCA provides financial advisory and support to infrastructure finance in emerging markets. A member of the Rabobank International'sNorth American Agribusiness Advisory Board and the Center for Financial Stability'sAdvisory Board, she is a Trustee of GVEP International (Global Village Energy Partnership)- a UK-based non-profit that accelerates access to sustainable energy in emerging markets. A Counselor of the International Agribusiness Management Association (IAMA), she was most recently a board member of Climate Exchange plc and the Chicago Climate Exchange, and was Chairman of NTR plc'sNorth American Advisory Board. Ms. Brookins was a municipal bond underwriter before moving to commodities at the Chicago Board of Trade and as a Vice President of E.F. Hutton. In 1980 she founded and led the Washington DC consulting firm World Perspectives for 20 years. Her public appointments have included membership in the President's Export Council (1990-1992), the State Department'sAdvisory Committee on International Economic Policy (1994-2001) and chairing the State Department's private sector Advisory Committee on Food, Hunger and Agriculture in Developing Countries, mandated by President Reagan.