Suzanne joined the team in September 2020 and is responsible for managing the overall governance of The USAA Educational Foundation and mitigating legal and regulatory risks.
Suzanne has over 20 years of experience as an attorney and a strong background in tax law, nonprofit governance, and policies and procedures. Before this role, Suzanne served as the vice president of legal affairs at the Council on Foundations.
She also served as the executive director of the Community Foundations National Standards Board (CFNSB), a charitable organization that administers a national accreditation program dedicated to teaching and promoting the highest standards of ethics and integrity among U.S. community foundations.
Before joining the Council, Suzanne spent nine years at the Pennsylvania law firm, Nauman Smith Shissler & Hall. As an associate and then as a partner, Suzanne chaired the firm’s tax, trusts, and estates practice group.
She graduated cum laude from Widener University Delaware Law School in 1997, serving on the law review and earned a master’s of tax law from Georgetown University Law Center in 2005. Suzanne has been a member of the Texas bar since 1998 and the Pennsylvania bar since 2005.
Suzanne earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and is proud to call San Antonio her hometown. As an Air Force spouse for most of the 1990s, Suzanne spent time in Del Rio (Laughlin Air Force Base), Dover and San Antonio (Randolph Air Force Base). She and her husband Jerry are the proud parents of a grown daughter, Michelle, a nurse practitioner and midwife who lives with her husband Nick in New Mexico.