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Speakers' Biographies
Reelected in 2023 with 70% of the vote, Mattie Parker has served as the 45th Mayor of Fort Worth, Texas since 2021. With a pioneering spirit and determination to leave things better than she found them, Mayor Parker has been successful in implementing key efforts and community partnerships to bolster Fort Worth’s development, improve public safety, expand access to education and workforce opportunities, and advance the overall quality of life for all residents.
Understanding that strong public safety is the foundation of any successful city, Mayor Parker has worked to champion historic increases in the number of police officers and firefighters; in 2024, that was an increase 106 new Police Department positions and 76 new Fire Department positions. Mayor Parker has worked with Police and Fire Departments to tackle some of the City’s toughest and longest-standing issues, such as building out plans and partnerships to enhance safety in the West 7th entertainment district and creating the Ad Hoc Committee on Emergency Medical Response to study the best options for a future EMS system that prioritizes high-quality patient care.
She works with Councilmembers and City Management to focus the city budget on basic services that have the greatest impact on residents’ daily lives, while providing property tax relief for homeowners by voting to lower the city’s property tax rate every year and increasing exemptions for those over 65 and with disabilities.
She has helped lead key efforts at the state level on behalf of the City, focused on bolstering workforce and education initiatives, maternal health, and economic development, including increased incentives for the film industry in Fort Worth that has created $655 million in economic impact since 2015. Her leadership efforts extend statewide as she serves as Chair of the Texas Big City Mayors, a coalition of bipartisan mayors representing over 8.5 million Texans.
Development is booming under Mayor Parker’s leadership in the fastest-growing large city in America. In Downtown alone, more than $2 billion in new projects are underway, including Texas A&M University’s expansion. That tremendous growth can be seen across the city, from the Crescent development in the Cultural District, to Mule Alley in the Historic Stockyards, to Hillwood’s AllianceTexas. With limitless opportunities, and its connectivity through DFW Airport and its newest $1.63 billion terminal in partnership with Fort Worth-based American Airlines, the City is solidifying itself as a global force with Mayor Parker at the helm.
Building onto Fort Worth’s ongoing boomtown effect, Mayor Parker has worked to set the city up to continue growing for years to come. She worked with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce in creating the Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership to lead business recruitment and attraction for the city. She is focused on attracting innovative expansion and high-paying jobs to Fort Worth while fostering conditions that help companies and small businesses alike thrive. During her tenure, Parker has seen Fort Worth named both the most pro-growth city in America (Pacific Research Institute) and best large city in Texas for starting a business (WalletHub).
Mayor Parker, who serves as co-chair of the national Mayors for Parks Coalition, is determined on ensuring that all residents have easy access to the city’s expanding parks system, preserving the heritage of Fort Worth’s landscape, and growing the overall health and beauty of the city. In 2023, she created Good Natured, a Fort Worth greenspace initiative and bold investment in natural community spaces. The partnership has set an aggressive goal to add 10,000 acres of open greenspace to Fort Worth in the next five years. Mayor Parker’s tenure also saw the first bond program in City history that included dedicated funds for open space conversation, a $15M investment that voters overwhelmingly supported.
With an eye always on improving Fort Worth for the next generation, Mayor Parker is leading efforts to expand access to education so all students are given the opportunity to succeed. Her Mayor’s Council on Education & Workforce convenes school and business leaders to match students with careers and higher education pathways, ensuring students in Fort Worth are prepared to succeed when they enter the workforce and, importantly, that Fort Worth is prepared to meet the future workforce demand.
She believes the long-term success of our economy is dependent on family-friendly policies. She serves as Vice-Chair of the nation Mayors Alliance to End Childhood Hunger effort, helped pioneer The Best Place for Working Parents® initiative, which originated in Fort Worth in 2020, and formed a Blue Ribbon Action Committee on Childcare to address longstanding childcare issues worsened by the pandemic. At City Hall, she championed an expansion of paid maternity leave for city employees to 12 weeks. She has worked to improve access to quality care and resources for mothers and children locally by convening a coalition of nonprofits and local hospital CEOs working to better streamline services for maternal and infant health care in Tarrant County.
Mayor Parker embraces modern mobility solutions and champions the needed infrastructure projects that spur economic development and to improve the connectivity for residents throughout Fort Worth and into the North Texas Region. In 2024, she established the Mayor’s Urban Rail Committee Supporting Economic Development & Tourism to explore urban rail as an innovative transportation solution and in her time in office has seen infrastructure investments increase including more than $369 million in bond funds for streets and pedestrian mobility improvements.
She recognizes the complex issues around housing and homelessness and is committed to ensuring the City invests in long-lasting solutions. Under her guidance, the City has invested more than $41M in projects to support permanent supportive housing, deeply affordable housing, and permanently affordable housing since 2022, largely funding with one-time American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars and leveraging partnership funds with Tarrant County. This includes a new project in which, for the first time in Fort Worth’s history, the City is partnering with a community land trust.
Mayor Parker is a licensed attorney, with more than twenty years of experience in national, state and local public affairs, including her service as the chief of staff for Mayor and the Fort Worth City Council where she helped shape major policy decisions on a variety of complex issues. She was the founding CEO of Fort Worth Cradle to Career and the Tarrant To & Through (T3) Partnership.
She and her husband David are the proud parents of one daughter and two sons. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Arts in Government and has a law degree from Texas A&M University School of Law, where she was awarded the prestigious MacLean & Boulware Endowed Law Scholarship.
Reelected in 2023 with 70% of the vote, Mattie Parker has served as the 45th Mayor of Fort Worth, Texas since 2021. With a pioneering spirit and determination to leave things better than she found them, Mayor Parker has been successful in implementing key efforts and community partnerships to bolster Fort Worth’s development, improve public safety, expand access to education and workforce opportunities, and advance the overall quality of life for all residents.
Understanding that strong public safety is the foundation of any successful city, Mayor Parker has worked to champion historic increases in the number of police officers and firefighters; in 2024, that was an increase 106 new Police Department positions and 76 new Fire Department positions. Mayor Parker has worked with Police and Fire Departments to tackle some of the City’s toughest and longest-standing issues, such as building out plans and partnerships to enhance safety in the West 7th entertainment district and creating the Ad Hoc Committee on Emergency Medical Response to study the best options for a future EMS system that prioritizes high-quality patient care.
She works with Councilmembers and City Management to focus the city budget on basic services that have the greatest impact on residents’ daily lives, while providing property tax relief for homeowners by voting to lower the city’s property tax rate every year and increasing exemptions for those over 65 and with disabilities.
She has helped lead key efforts at the state level on behalf of the City, focused on bolstering workforce and education initiatives, maternal health, and economic development, including increased incentives for the film industry in Fort Worth that has created $655 million in economic impact since 2015. Her leadership efforts extend statewide as she serves as Chair of the Texas Big City Mayors, a coalition of bipartisan mayors representing over 8.5 million Texans.
Development is booming under Mayor Parker’s leadership in the fastest-growing large city in America. In Downtown alone, more than $2 billion in new projects are underway, including Texas A&M University’s expansion. That tremendous growth can be seen across the city, from the Crescent development in the Cultural District, to Mule Alley in the Historic Stockyards, to Hillwood’s AllianceTexas. With limitless opportunities, and its connectivity through DFW Airport and its newest $1.63 billion terminal in partnership with Fort Worth-based American Airlines, the City is solidifying itself as a global force with Mayor Parker at the helm.
Building onto Fort Worth’s ongoing boomtown effect, Mayor Parker has worked to set the city up to continue growing for years to come. She worked with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce in creating the Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership to lead business recruitment and attraction for the city. She is focused on attracting innovative expansion and high-paying jobs to Fort Worth while fostering conditions that help companies and small businesses alike thrive. During her tenure, Parker has seen Fort Worth named both the most pro-growth city in America (Pacific Research Institute) and best large city in Texas for starting a business (WalletHub).
Maruchy Cantu is the Executive Vice President of Administration at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. Her areas of responsibility include Human Resources, Communications and Marketing, Community Engagement, Enterprise Risk Mgmt., Safety, Business Diversity Development, and Board, City & Government Relations. In this capacity she provides vision, strategy, direction, and execution of all people related policies and programs, development of small, minority and women owned businesses, internal and external communications, community engagement, and marketing. She also provides vision, strategy, direction and execution of the Airport’s risk register and safety programs. She has more than 20 years of related experience across multiple industries, holding Leadership and Executive level roles for companies like Northrop Grumman, Grainger, PepsiCo/Frito Lay, and Reece USA. Ms. Cantu holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of North Texas and a Master of Business Administration from Dallas Baptist University.
Heather Garboden is Senior Vice President of Regionals and Cargo. She oversees American's cargo team and the airline's American Eagle regional operation made up of several contracted carriers and American's three wholly owned airlines Envoy, Piedmont and PSA.
Most recently, Heather also assumed leadership of the customer experience organization. In this capacity, she will oversee the airline's efforts to create and deliver a world-class customer experience.
Previously, Heather served as Vice President of Financial Planning & Analysis and Corporate Development, overseeing American's capital and operating budget, long-range financial planning, forecasting systems, labor analysis, financial analysis, fleet planning, and the strategy and negotiation of important business opportunities for the airline. Prior to that, she served as Vice President of Financial Analysis and Corporate Development and Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis. She has also served as Managing Director of Finance, where she was responsible for labor analysis, corporate real estate finance and capital planning, and Director of Financial Analysis, where she oversaw labor analysis and fleet analysis. She joined America West Airlines in 2003 in revenue management and held various management roles in yield management and domestic and international pricing.
Heather was named a Woman Worth Watching by Profiles in Diversity Journal in 2016. From 2011 to 2014, Heather served on the Board of Directors for The Phoenix Suns Charities, which provides grants and scholarships to children and charities in the Phoenix area.
Heather earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from Villanova University.
Kimberly Bizor Tolbert was appointed Interim City Manager (ICM) in May 2024, previously serving as a Deputy City Manager, and Chief of Staff since rejoining the City of Dallas in 2017, after nearly a decade with the North Texas Tollway Authority.
As the Chief Executive Officer, ICM Tolbert oversees a budget that exceeds $4 billion and a workforce of 13,000+ City of Dallas team members. She currently has the distinct honor of serving as the sole female City Manager amongst the ten largest cities in the United States with a Council-Manager form of government. ICM Tolbert brings to this role her business acumen and resolute dedication to making the City of Dallas more responsive, transparent, accountable, and welcoming for its 1.3 million residents.
She began her tenure with an ambitious 100-day plan to address critical areas for immediate improvement. Within her first forty-five days, she led a citywide realignment, grouping departments by shared attributes to build a Safe, Vibrant, and Growing Dallas, by transforming its Foundational Structure to become a more Livable, Sustainable, and Fiscally Sound city, with strong, aligned systems at its Core. ICM Tolbert’s bold leadership decision to streamline and reimagine functions, resulted in savings of over $13 million, while strengthening cross-departmental collaboration, and enhancing operational efficiency, and effectiveness.
She is championing the organization's cultural evolution to elevate customer-centricity by leveraging three principals: Connect, Collaborate, and Communicate. This has empowered the City team to deliver on its commitment to Service First with the urgency of Now! She is also passionate about her responsibility to Dallas as a global city while preserving its inclusive community. This is demonstrated by her ability to drive economic growth and social vibrancy.
Several of ICM Tolbert’s recent major accomplishments include delivering a balanced budget, realizing the City of Dallas’ largest single year property tax rate reduction in modern history, and closing a $38+ million revenue shortfall, all at the same time (FY 2024-25). She was at the helm of the negotiations to secure the Dallas Wings and first-ever all women professional soccer team, Dallas Trinity, transformed contracting requirements for minority and women-owned business enterprises in prime roles for the $3.2B Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center Masterplan project, and successfully navigated a path forward to retain the Dallas Police Department’s Police Chief through May 2027.
A Texas native who has lived in North Texas for over 40 years, ICM Tolbert has 30+ years of public sector experience, twenty-one of which has been dedicated to working for the City of Dallas. She has a Master of Public Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, both from the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas, and is a credentialed manager through the International City Manager Association.
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