PAG presents annual Swanson regional leadership award
Pima Association of Governments announces that the 2011 Thomas L. Swanson Regional Leadership Award recipient is Sarah Smallhouse, president of the Thomas R. Brown Foundations in Tucson. The award was presented Sept. 27, 2012, during the PAG Regional Council meeting.

“Sarah has worked tirelessly in creating and supporting the Southern Arizona Buffelgrass Coordination Center,” said her nominator Francie McLane Merryman, Vice President, Wealth Strategies, Northern Trust, NA. “The SABCC has been successful in coordinating multijurisdictional efforts to eradicate buffelgrass from the Sonoran Desert.”

Smallhouse also is engaged with other local organizations. She is chair of the University of Arizona Foundation Board of Trustees. She also has served on the TREO Board, where she focused on local governance, transportation and environmental issues. In 2009, Smallhouse received the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce’s Woman of the Year award.

The Brown Foundations are focused on education and community capacity-building and select initiatives in science and health. The Brown Foundations also offer compressed economics workshops for K-12 teachers and organize symposiums and forums to bring expert economic analysis to public policy issues in Arizona.

The Swanson award is given in honor of PAG’s former executive director, the late Thomas L. Swanson, to acknowledge an individual or organization affecting positive change in the Tucson metropolitan region.

Criteria for the Swanson award include: