CHAMBER LUNCHEON

Join us in August as we welcome Dr. Dottavio, Tarleton State University. Since 2008, Dr. F. Dominic Dottavio's focus has been to turn Tarleton into the premier student-focused university in Texas and beyond. Because of that commitment, Tarleton's enrollment is up more than 69 percent, with four-year graduation rates nearly doubling. A recent report lists Tarleton seventh among the top schools in America in application growth with an increase of 131.4 percent since 2012. 

Thanks to President Dottavio's vision and work with elected officials, Tarleton opened the first building of its new Fort Worth campus on August 1, 2019. Tarleton now serves approximately 2,000 students in Fort Worth and offers more than 40 programs. According to current growth models, the Fort Worth campus could serve 9,000 students by 2030. 

President Dottavio came to Tarleton from the presidency of Heidelberg University, a 169-year-old private college in Tiffin, Ohio. Prior to that, he led the Marion campus of The Ohio State Univerisity and served as chief scientist for the Southeast Region of the National Park Service, director of the Center for Natural Areas in Washington, D.C., and director of the Clemson University Cooperative Park Study Unit for the U.S. Department of the Interior. 

President Dottavio and his wife, Dr. C. Lisette Dottavio, have two children: son Aaron and his wife, Lyndsey, and their two children Dominic and Abigal, of Fulshear, Texas; and daughter Adrea and her husband, Yiannis Papadopoulos, of Boston.