Cece Cox (pictured), associate executive director for the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender (GLBT) community services, has been named the Resource Center Dallas’s new executive director starting Saturday.
As associate executive director for GLBT community services for the Center since 2007, Cox was directly responsible for creating and maintaining programs at one of the largest GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) community centers in the United States.
Cox led the Center’s diversity training program, providing curriculum and training for education, business and public sector clients. Last fall, Cox spearheaded a team to provide diversity training for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission — the first state agency in Texas to institute GLBT diversity training for all of its employees. This spring, she was also instrumental in working with Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) to expand its nondiscrimination policies to include gender identity.
Reid Ainsworth, chair of the Center’s board of directors, said, “Cece’s passion and leadership shone during the interview process and will serve as an inspiration as she leads this amazing organization.”
Cox added, “I am both humbled and honored by the board’s decision, and I am eager to continue working with the talented staff and volunteers that have made Resource Center Dallas such an integral part of the North Texas HIV/AIDS and LGBT communities.”
Cox is also a former president of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance. During her tenure, she was instrumental in the passage of the City of Dallas’s nondiscrimination ordinance and the adoption of nondiscrimination policies at DART, DISD and the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department. She is also a former co-chair of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation/Dallas, and a board member of Black Tie Dinner. Earlier this year, she was named to the advisory board for SMU’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development. In 1999, Cox received the Kuchling Humanitarian Award from the Black Tie Dinner.
She is an alumna of both Leadership Dallas and Leadership Lambda, a former board member of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identification Issues Law Section for the State Bar of Texas, and an attorney licensed in the state of Texas. Prior to joining the Center, Cox was an attorney focused on commercial litigation, bankruptcy, municipal law and commercial transactions. She is a volunteer attorney for Legal Hospice of Texas.
Cox is also a former professional photographer whose national, regional and local clients included Frito-Lay, Phillips Petroleum, TGI Friday’s, American Greetings, the American Heart Association and D Magazine. She also co-authored a book chronicling the 1993 March on Washington for gay and lesbian rights. Cox earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a law degree from SMU. She is the mother of a 10-year-old son, Mateo, and the partner of the Hon. Barbara J. Houser.
She succeeds Mike McKay, who left the Center in May to accept a job with the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C.