Board of Directors
Katherine Malmay-Bazemore has been creating new ideas and selling products and services since she was 10 years old. Her resourcefulness and eye for finding solutions to what appears to be impossible has been her trademark, both in turnarounds and managing sales and client relationships. Katherine has been key in productizing new technologies from concept, to implementations.
In 1983 Katherine started her participation in entrepreneurial activities as assistant controller over a physicians holdings including 7 diverse corporate entities all of which had different structures (C Corp, Non-Profit, Partnerships, Sole Properietors). Thereafter Katherine moved into financial services and while still in her twenties she negotiated and managed the merger of a financial institution in NYC into a TN organization. She was instrumental in managing, as CEO of her consulting firm, several turnarounds of financial institutions.
In 2004, Katherine founded Cocoon Resources, Inc., a small boutique Private Equity group that manages and productizes new technologies through start-up organizations in Biotech, Pharma, and Energy. Today, Katherine leads Cocoon Resources, Inc. as a Native American woman and has a heart for helping teach other entrepreneurs how to create organizations that can lift communities out of poverty. She believes in being a steward of all resources entrusted to her through power and guidance provided by Jesus Christ.
Katherine has been integral in recruitment of key talent, identification and development of technological opportunities and leads the long-term strategy development of the portfolio companies. She identifies entrepreneurial opportunities for Cocoon and is very committed to tying non-profits and for-profits together to make a global impact in the area of changing economies.
Katherine is chairman of the board of Cocoon Resources, Inc. and Zaen Energy Corporation and Secretary/treasurer on the board of Volatile Analysis Corp.
Dr. Ancker-Johnson began a uniquely diverse and illustrious career in physics, engineering and public service. She serves as one of the United States’ most distinguished role models for women as part of a generation that helped to change perspectives on gender roles and aptitudes in scientific fields.
She was the first woman vice president at General Motors where she was responsible for the emission control and safety of General Motors products and for the control of pollution generated by its plants worldwide. She also supervised international regulatory activities aimed at maximizing vehicle export. Compliance with fuel economy, product noise control, and electromagnetic interference regulations were also under her purview.
Dr. Ancker-Johnson attended Wellesley College where she earned a bachelor’s degree in physics. She then moved to Germany to attend the University of Tuebingen where she completed her Ph.D. in physics.
Her illustrious career began with a position at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a lecturer from 1953 to 1954; she moved on to the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship in Chicago from 1954 to 1956; she then became a Senior Research Physicist with the Microwave Physics Laboratory at Sylvania Electric Products in Palo Alto, California from 1956 to 1958. She then became the Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology, U.S. Dept. of Commerce from 1973 to 1977. She was responsible for managing six organizations with a total of 7500 employees and an annual budget of 230 million dollars, including National Institute of Standards and Technology (National Bureau of Standards), Office of Telecommunications.
During the 1960s, Betsy Ancker-Johnson worked for the David Sarnoff Research Center at RCA, as well as for the Plasma Physics Laboratory at the Boeing Science Research Laboratories in Seattle, and then as an Affiliate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington from 1961 to 1973. Also during this time, she served as visiting scientist at Bell Laboratories, as well as supervisor in the division of Solid State and Plasma Electronics at the Boeing Corporation.
Over the course of her career, Ancker-Johnson has written more than eighty scientific papers, is the co-author of ten public policy documents and holder of seven patents on electronic properties of semiconductors. She has received a variety of honors and awards including membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science as well as the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. In 1972 Dr. Ancker-Johnson was appointed as Assistant Secretary of Commerce in President Nixon’s cabinet. In 1975, she was the fourth woman elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
After retiring she has served on many government, university and professional committees and been or is a director of: Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association, Society of Automotive Engineers, Varian Associates, General Mills Incorporated, Johnson Scholarship Foundation, Woman in the Workplace, EndPoverty.org, The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, Enterprise Development International, 1994- , and Cocoon Resources in 2009.
David Hart has over 20 years experience in business development from IPOs to multinational corporations, serving public, private and nonprofit organizations.
Prior to joining Cocoon Resources, David worked in diverse industries. He spent 10 years serving in various positions around the world in the high tech subsidiaries of Exxon Corporation. Beginning in Litigation and Marketing, he worked his way up to Chief International Counsel of Exxon Enterprises in London and Geneva, serving on the Boards of subsidiaries all over Europe. His duties included substantial time in Japan and Korea, negotiating second source and manufacturing agreements, culminating in the sale of 14 companies. He finished his career with Exxon as General Counsel of Zilog, a wholly owned silicon chip manufacturer in Silicon Valley.
He then accepted a position as Vice President and General Counsel of Pansophic Systems, a Chicago based NYSE seller of mainframe systems software with 800 employees and $160M in revenue. Responsible for all administrative departments, strategic planning and acquisitions, he engineered the sale or purchase of ten software companies. After the sale of Pansophic, he moved to Orlando as Senior Vice President of Newtrend, Corp. spending two years in complex litigation between competing owners, acquiring additional products and maintaining employee morale. Newtrend was sold for a premium shareholder return and David spent 9 months preparing Phoenix International Inc. for an initial public offering. He served as Executive Vice President of Business Records Corporation in Dallas. He also spent 5 years as an officer in the US Navy, primarily in Puerto Rico. He has served as President of Cocoon Resources, Inc. and as the CEO of Zaen Energy Corporation.
David holds a J.D. Law degree from the University of Illinois, graduating magna cum laude and receiving the Order of the Coif, the highest honor available to law students. He also holds a B.A. degree in Accounting and Economics from MacMurray College, where he has served as a trustee for the last 8 years. He was honored as the Distinguished Alumni of the Year for 2009. He has been honored as a Distinguished Speaker by the American Corporate Secretaries organization. He has taken several mission trips and serves as a volunteer financial counselor through a church in Tennessee.
Since 1972, Obie L. McKenzie has served the financial services industry in asset management, commercial banking, trade finance, investment banking, corporate treasury and brokerage. Mr. McKenzie is currently a Managing Director at BlackRock in the Global Client Group. BlackRock is the largest publicly traded investment management firm in the United States.
During his career, he has held positions as Managing Director at Merrill Lynch Investment
Managers (1990-2006) Executive Director at UBS Asset Management and Managing Director at Chase Investors (1987 tol990). From 1984 to1987, Mr. McKenzie was President and founder of McKenzie & Company, an NASD registered broker dealer. During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Mr. McKenzie held positions at Citibank, Chemical Bank and Freedom National Bank as a commercial banker. Mr. McKenzie was also Manager of Banking and Pensions at the New York Times in 1975 and Corporate Finance Associate for Morgan Stanley in 1972.
Mr. McKenzie has served as President of the Association of Investment Management Sales Executives (AIMSE); founding board member of the TOIGO Foundation and Associate Advisor to the Texas Association of Public Employees Retirement Systems (TEXPERS). He was also a founding board member of the National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP), where he received the Wall Street Hall of Fame Award in 2001. He was also a recipient of the Wall Street Award for Service to Children from the New York Mission Society in 2006.
Recently, Mr. McKenzie received the AIMSE Richard A. Lathrop Outstanding Achievement Award as recognition for his outstanding achievements in the investment management industry and his community.
Mr. McKenzie is a published writer, an accomplished public speaker and vocalist and has been an Expository Bible teacher for over 20 years.
Mr. McKenzie graduated from Tennessee State University in 1967 and received his MBA in Finance from Harvard Business School in 1972.
Murray Wilton received his accounting degree from the University of Cape Town in 1980 and worked as a Chartered Accountant for Arthur Young. Then in 1986, Murray moved to the United States to attend the New Orleans Baptist Seminary where he graduated with a Master’s Degree in Biblical Studies, a PhD in New Testament Greek, and served on the faculty.
In 1993, Murray was called to be the senior pastor at Southside Baptist Church in Huntsville. “During those 14 years, God used my business expertise and ministry calling to identify with the pressures of the business world and provide wisdom for decisions encountered on a daily basis.”
In 2007, Murray established Wilton Ministries, a nonprofit corporation, to provide a vehicle for ministry to the marketplace using his business expertise and ministry calling to identify with the pressures of the business world and provide wisdom for decisions encountered on a daily basis.
Murray Wilton is also a member of C-12, a national corporation, which under the guidance of local chairman Tom Rains, encourages business executives to take time from working in their business to working on their business.
