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• September 4th - Luncheon

  • When
    04 Sep 2025
  •  
    12:00 PM - 1:15 PM
  • Location
    Maggiano's Post Oak (2019 Post Oak Blvd)

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  Kiwanis Club of Houston
  

  September 4th Luncheon

  This luncheon will be at Maggiano's!!
  

  Speakers: Francisco J. Monaldi, Ph.D.

  

  Francisco Monaldi is the Director of the Latin America Energy Program and the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Latin American Energy Policy at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. He is also a Lecturer at Rice’s Economics Department and Jones Graduate School of Business; and a member of the International Faculty at IESA School of Management in Venezuela and Panama, where he was a Professor and the Founding Director of the Center for Energy and the Environment. He is a member of the International Advisory Council of Global Americans, the Atlantic Council’s Venezuela Solutions Group, the Education Advisory Board of the Association of International Energy Negotiators, and the Board of Directors of Mercantil Servicios Financieros Internacional (a financial services multinational, headquartered in Panama). He has held academic positions at the Harvard Kennedy School, Stanford’s Hoover Institution, Tufts’ Fletcher School, Columbia’s Center for Global Energy Policy, Tecnológico de Monterrey (México), Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), and Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (Venezuela). He has consulted several governments, multilateral agencies, and corporations; and authored numerous academic publications on the political economy of energy and resources policy. Monaldi holds a Ph.D. in political economy from Stanford University, an M.A. in international economics from Yale University, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, in Caracas.

  
  

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• October 2 - Luncheon

  • When
    02 Oct 2025
  •  
    12:00 PM - 1:15 PM
  • Location
    Maggiano's Post Oak (2019 Post Oak Blvd)

  Register

  Kiwanis Club of Houston
  

  October 2nd Luncheon

  This luncheon will be at Maggiano's!!
  

  Speakers: Bob Stokes

  
  

  Bob Stokes is President and General Counsel of the Galveston Bay Foundation in Kemah, Texas. He has served in that role since June, 2004. The Galveston Bay Foundation’s mission is to preserve, protect, and enhance the natural resources of Galveston Bay and its tributaries. Bob had served on the board of the Foundation for five years prior to taking over as President and had served as the board’s chair for the previous two years. Prior to that, Bob practiced law for 10 years, most recently in the Environmental Division of the Harris County Attorney’s Office. Bob is a 1990 graduate of Yale University and a 1994 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law.

  Bob has served on the Board of Directors for Restore America’s Estuaries since 2004. He is a past member of the board of directors of the Texas Land Trust Council and EarthShare of Texas. He was awarded the “Environmental Professional of the Year” award in 2011 by the Texas Association of Environmental Professionals.

  
  

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• November 20 - Luncheon

  • When
    20 Nov 2025
  •  
    12:00 PM - 1:15 PM
  • Location
    Brennan's Houston (3300 Smith Street)

  Register

  Kiwanis Club of Houston
  November 20th Luncheon

  This luncheon will be at Brennan's!!

  Speaker: James P. Bevill
  

  
  

  James P. Bevill is an independent historian and award-winning author. His love and passion for history inspired him to write three books, so far, and which form the basis for his evolving presentations. They have been so well received, that he is frequently invited to be a keynote speaker for annual fundraising efforts for various history and academic organizations.

  Now that Bevill is phasing out his financial services career this year, he has masterfully created and delivered the presentations shown at the end of the summary for each of his books, and over time, he will create other original and spellbinding presentations for a fortunate audience.

  Bevill’s first book, The Paper Republic: The Struggle for Money, Credit and Independence in the Republic of Texas, Bright Sky Press, 2009, shows the role of money in establishing a new country, The Republic of Texas, from the Spanish Colonial period, its establishment in 1836 until it was annexed by the United States, becoming the state of Texas in 1846. Bevill chronicles how the government was financed, including its two navies. The book offers a sober recognition of what can happen when fiscal responsibility is not taken seriously. Along the way, there are many riveting stories about battles, mutinies, subterfuge, heroism, relationships, and the challenges of living in that period. It received four literary awards.

  Bevill’s next book, Blackboards and Bomb Shelters, The Perilous Journey of Americans in China during World War II. Schiffer Publishing Company, 2021. This is a riveting coming-of-age story about three Yale graduates who taught middle school in the Hunan province in Nationalist China. They were educating civilians, driving medical supplies on the Burma Road, healing the wounded, and later, gathering intelligence and supporting the Chinese military resistance against Japanese aggression during World War II. It is the untold story of life on the ground in Free China during the Japanese occupation. The book received outstanding academic reviews in the October 2022 editions of the American Journal of Chinese Studies, and Journal of Chinese Military History.

  Bevill’s latest book, already submitted to Schiffer Publishing and forthcoming in the Spring of 2026: Spies in Saigon: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Covert Operations in Vietnam 1950-1963. It is a thriller about the CIA’s secret intelligence missions in French Indochina during the early 1950s, and the multi-year effort to check the spread of global communism in Vietnam by supporting the nationalist regime of Ngo Dinh Diem as a buffer against Communist aggression. Parts of this historical drama include author recorded interviews with CIA officers and their wives recounting some of the earliest experiences of American intelligence work and life in Vietnam.

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