Jeffrey Bethke
Interim Treasurer
DePaul University

Jeffrey Bethke, a six-year DePaul employee who most recently served as associate treasurer, was appointed interim treasurer on March 19, 2008. He is responsible for coordinating DePaul’s relationships with external financial organizations while overseeing cash and investment management, debt issuance and compliance and asset-liability management. He also oversees real estate acquisitions, dispositions and retail leasing.

Since he was named associate treasurer in September 2007, Bethke has led several major projects: a commercial real estate deal that paves the way for a significant addition to a downtown academic building; a key role in assisting the 403(b) Investment and Plan Administrative Committee in the comprehensive evaluation of the university’s defined contribution retirement plan; an initiative to secure independent financing for a  major  renovation of a Loop property;  and a $50 million tax-exempt fixed-rate bond issue.

He joined DePaul in 2002 as director of procurement. During the next three years he reduced costs and improved supplier service levels in many arenas. Most significantly, he worked with Information Services to implement an electronic procurement system, redesigned procurement card banking relationships, and secured more than $500,000 in supplier sponsorship and support of university athletics, theater and other programs. From 2005 to 2006, Bethke served as the owners’ representative and board secretary of the Educational Advancement Fund (EAF), a not-for-profit corporation formed by DePaul, Columbia College and Roosevelt University to develop and supervise operations of University Center, a jointly owned 18-story, 1700-bed student housing facility in downtown Chicago. He oversaw the center’s $19 million operating budget and directed two tax-exempt bond refinancings totaling $163 million and producing more than $10 million in interest savings.

Bethke also served as the sole DePaul representative to the EAF Operating Committee after he was named associate vice president for Budget in 2006. In this role, Bethke supervised the university’s budgeting process which, in coordination with the Strategic Resource Allocation Committee, produced a budget of $438 million for fiscal year 2008. He also served as chief of staff to the executive vice president for Operations, responsible for the financial oversight of the institutional salary planning process, supervising the university’s institutional compliance program, and developing quantitative and qualitative analyses to support executive and board-level decision-making.  Prior to joining DePaul, Bethke was a principal of Jelsen Corporation, a Chicago consulting firm providing strategic planning and operations consulting to public firms and not-for-profit institutions nationwide. He also served as director of acquisitions for the Chicago Public Library and in several financial and corporate managerial roles for Borders Group, Inc. including direct supervision of over $500 million in annual consumer product purchases.

Bethke holds bachelor’s degrees in English and History from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and an MBA in finance and strategic management from the University of Chicago.

Fred Malek
Co-Founder and Co-Chairman
Thayer Lodging Group

Fred Malek is Chairman of Thayer Lodging Group, a hotel investment company that has acquired and owns approximately $1.4 billion of hotel assets.

Mr. Malek led the 1995 acquisition of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, with Marriott International as a major equity partner.  He was one of three leaders in the acquisition of Northwest Airlines and is a director and major investor in Northwest Airlines, where he served as President and Vice Chairman from late 1989 through 1991.  Earlier, Mr. Malek led with management the acquisition of CB Richard Ellis (formerly Coldwell Banker), the largest real estate services company in the world, where he served as Co-Chairman until 1996 and was an investment partner with President Bush in the Texas Rangers Baseball Club.  He currently serves as a Director of several publicly traded companies, including Automatic Data Processing Corp. and CB Richard Ellis.

Mr. Malek was President of Marriott Hotels from 1981 through mid-1988, responsible for more than $3 billion in annual sales and approximately 70,000 workers.  During his eight-year tenure, profits of Marriott Hotels grew fivefold and Marriott Hotels rose from fourth to first in consumer preference.

In addition to his business career, Mr. Malek has served as an advisor to four U.S. Presidents over the past two decades.  In the early seventies, he entered government as Deputy Undersecretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.  He later became Special Assistant to the President of the United States and Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget under Presidents Nixon and Ford.  Mr. Malek advised President Reagan as a member of the executive committee of the President’s Council on Cost Control, as a member of the President’s Commission on Private Sector Initiatives, and as a member of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. More recently, he served President Bush as Director of the 1988 Republican Convention, as Director of the 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations, with the lifetime rank of Ambassador, and as Campaign Manager for President Bush during 1992.

Mr. Malek is a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Business School, and served in Vietnam.  He also serves on a number of charitable and educational Boards, and resides in McLean, Virginia.

Patrick Mitchell
Investment Committee Chairman
University of Idaho

Mr. Mitchell has more than 30 years of experience in portfolio management, commercial banking, research and investing in equity and debt securities and non-traditional asset management. He concentrated on three elements of investment related activities including – Commercial Banking, Pension Fund Management and Asset Management.

2000 – 2008 Asset Management. Mr. Mitchell is a Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Maple Stone Capital Advisors that specializes in opportunistic investments in debt, equity and derivative strategies. Patrick was a Managing Director at Metropolitan West Financial. He was responsible for a variety of activities including developing an institutional business model that could sustain growth to expand a $400 million asset manager into $10 billion of high yield, distressed and total return assets.

1987 – 2000 Pension Fund Management.

He managed portfolios for the California State Teachers' Retirement System, the nation's second-largest pension fund, where he was responsible for asset allocation, portfolio management, personnel and budget. He started as a Fixed Income Manager of a $10 billion portfolio of fixed income securities including corporate, mortgage backed and Treasury. Over time, he was assigned increasing responsibility including management duties for the domestic and international equity portfolios, currency hedging and off-balance sheet activities. The last four years he was the Chief Investment Officer. During his 13 years with CalSTRS, he managed various public and private investment portfolios ranging from $500 million to $15 billion.

1975 - 1987 Commercial Banking. He started his investment career with First Security Bank and subsequently worked for three large West Coast banking organizations engaging in commercial lending, branch management, portfolio management and corporate management. He held the various positions including commercial lender, branch manager, Comptroller, Treasurer and Asset/Liability Manager. Between 1979 and 1987, he managed fixed income portfolios including high yield, investment grade corporate, mortgaged back and Treasury securities.

Mr. Mitchell currently is the Investment Committee Chairman for the University of Idaho's Foundation. He also serves as an Fellow on the Milken Institute's Emerging Domestic Markets and Financial Innovations Group's. He received an MBA from Idaho State University in 1979 and a Bachelor of Science in Business from the University of Idaho in 1974.

Stephen Slade
Managing Director
The Commonfund

Stephen Slade, Managing Director, Risk Management, joined Commonfund in 2008 from Bank of America where he was Senior Vice President for Risk Management for Global Wealth and Investment Management.  There he developed the web-based risk management infrastructure, and served as the risk manager for Alternative Investments.   Prior to Bank of America, Dr. Slade developed financial information systems at Morgan Stanley and INVESCO. He has also created management information systems for several presidential campaigns and the White House.  Dr. Slade is the author of several books on object-oriented programming languages and decision making. He taught for many years at Yale University in the Computer Science Department and in the Information Systems Department at the Stern School of Business at New York University.  Dr. Slade was an undergraduate at Yale, where he went on to earn his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science.  He was certified as a Financial Risk Manager by the Global Association of Risk Professionals and is also a Six Sigma Certified Green Belt.

Mark Yusko
President & Chief Investment Officer
Morgan Creek Capital Management, LLC

Mark W. Yusko is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management, LLC, a registered investment adviser formed in July 2004 to provide investment management services based on the University Endowment Model of investing to wealthy families, individuals and institutional investors. As of March, 2008 Morgan Creek currently has $12 billion in assets under advisement in non-discretionary accounts and discretionary funds.

Prior to forming Morgan Creek, Mark served as the Chief Investment Officer for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) from 1998 to 2004. Mark, and his team, founded the UNC Management Company (UNCMC) in July of 2002 to provide comprehensive investment advisory services to the University including strategic and tactical asset allocation, investment manager selection, manager performance evaluation, spending policy management and performance reporting. The Management Company was also responsible for providing Cash Management and Planned Giving Management services as well as aiding in the commercialization of University technology and real estate development projects. UNCMC also provided outsourced investment management services to select schools within the UNC System. Total assets under management were $1.5 billion, $1.2 billion of Endowment and $300 million of University working capital.

Prior to joining UNC, Mark was the Senior Investment Director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office, where he joined as the Assistant Investment Officer, in October of 1993. He worked with the Chief Investment Officer in all aspects of Endowment Management including asset allocation, investment manager selection, manager performance evaluation, spending policy management and reporting to the Board of Trustees. Mark was primarily responsible for portfolio construction and was actively involved in establishing and building strong programs in real estate, private equity and marketable alternatives. Mark is an Advisory Board member of a number of private capital partnerships and alternative investment programs and has served as a consultant on alternative investments to a select group of institutions. He is currently a Board member of the MCNC Endowment, The Weaver Foundation and Carolina Meadows.

Mark received his Bachelor of Science Degree, with honors, in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame in 1985 and a Masters of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from the University of Chicago in 1987.