7 compete for 3 seats on ACC board
Trustees serve six-year terms for no pay and are elected at large.
Three of nine seats on the Austin Community College Board of Trustees, which oversees 11 campuses and a vast taxing district, are being contested in the Nov. 6 election.
Trustees serve six-year terms for no pay and are elected at large in the district, which takes in the city of Austin — including portions of the Eanes and Pflugerville school districts within the city — as well as the Austin, Del Valle, Elgin, Hays, Leander, Manor and Round Rock school districts. Registered voters throughout the ACC taxing district are eligible to vote for a candidate for each contested seat or place. Seven people, including two incumbents, are running for election.
Place 7
The incumbent, Barbara P. Mink, 73, was first elected to ACC’s board in 2000 and re-elected in 2006 and 2012. A Northeast Austin resident, she is serving her third stint as board chairwoman, having been elected to that position by her fellow trustees. Mink is a professor and program director at California-based Fielding Graduate University and former director of the community college leadership program at the University of Texas. She has been a board member of the Arc of the Capital Area. She has a bachelor’s degree in math, a master’s in teaching and a doctorate in educational administration, all from Duke University.
Mitch Fuller, 50, is a business development consultant from Cedar Park. Fuller, who ran unsuccessfully for ACC’s board in 2016, is a Texas Army National Guard veteran who previously served on the Cedar Park City Council. He is a member of the Leander school district’s bond oversight advisory committee, the Leander Chamber of Commerce board and the KLRU community advisory board. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Southwestern Oklahoma State University and a master’s in public administra-
tion from the University of Oklahoma.
Place 8
Betty W. Hwang, who was elected in 2012, is not seek- ing another term.
Douglas Gibbins, 51, is a commercial real estate broker who lives in Austin’s Brentwood neighborhood. Gibbins, 51, ran unsuccessfully for ACC’s board in 2016. He serves as chairman of ACC’s Highland campus advisory committee. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, a master’s in engineering and a master’s in business administration, all from the University of Texas.