Governance

Toni Mizdal was born and raised in El Paso Texas, and is a proud Irvin High Rockets Alumna. Following her high school passion, she attended the Art Institute of Phoenix to pursue Art and Graphic Design. With her B.A. in hand, she returned home in 2003 to pursue her passion as a career. Her unwavering dedication to her career has directly led to success of Lara Creative, where she is currently an Art Director.

Toni has used the last 17 years to invest in her community the best way she knows how-by volunteering her heart and time. She has served as a Girl Scout troop leader, Service Unit Leader, and various other positions throughout her daughters elementary, middle and high school’s extracurricular events. Additionally, she has volunteered countless hours toward the PTA/PTO’s, and most recently proud Marching Band mama.

Toni’s hobbies and interests are her volunteering endeavors where she lives by the mantra, “if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life”-this includes never turning down an opportunity that involves glitter, a glue gun, or both!

Allan Lindstrom has spent all of his life involved in some aspect of education.  His first six years of schooling occurred in a one-room schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania.  After completing high school, he worked at a full-time job in a grocery store to save enough money to enroll in college. This evolved into his earning three degrees plus completing post-doctorate studies:  a bachelor’s degree in business education from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a master’s degree in counseling and guidance from Western Illinois University, and a doctorate in education from the University of Denver.  Postgraduate studies included school administration certification courses at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee.

His professional employment encompassed a variety of education positions beginning as a business education teacher, followed by serving as a school counselor; Director of Pupil Services; professor and graduate coordinator of education at South Dakota State University for 16 years; a 19-year tenure with the Kenosha Unified School District in Wisconsin involving several different central office positions including Director of Guidance and Testing, Administrator of School Management, and Executive Director of Special Projects.   At Kenosha Unified School District he oversaw the day-to-day operations of 31 schools as well as six charter schools which were operated through the school district.  His final position was Superintendent of Schools at Trevor, Wisconsin where he was able to provide leadership resulting in substantial student academic improvement with particular emphasis on the development of an early education charter school.

As a capstone of his education career, he agreed to come out of retirement in 2005 to serve as a Coordinator of Strategic Planning for the Education Service Center – Region 19 at El Paso, TX.  In signing his initial contract, he committed three years to this position.  Ten years later he retired from the position.  A signatory accomplishment in his work for Region 19 was assisting the organization in the development of a Quality Management Program that qualified for ISO: 9001 certifications.

A native El Pasoan, Matt graduated from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin with both his Bachelor’s of Business Administration in accounting and Masters in Professional Accounting in 2006.  Upon graduation, he worked as an associate in the Assurance and Advisory Business Services practice of Ernst & Young located in Austin, Texas. As an associate, he assisted with financial statement audits of companies, both public and private, across several industries including real estate, semi-conductor design, insurance, and software development. In 2008, Matt joined Stonelake Capital Partners, a real estate-focused private equity firm in Austin, Texas, where he worked as an analyst performing financial due diligence on various real estate acquisitions.

Matt moved home to El Paso in 2009 and joined the tax practice of Lauterbach, Borschow & Company where he became a shareholder in 2016, and elected managing partner in 2019. In his practice, Matt has experience serving a variety of clients across a broad range of industries including real estate, financial services, manufacturing, retail sales, and automobile dealerships. Matt is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in the State of Texas.

A native of El Paso, Texas, Manny Jemente is the owner of and broker for Acala Investments, LLC. The company is dedicated to real estate financing, brokerage, and investments.

In 2001, Manny received a B.A. in Public Policy from Stanford University. At that time, this major was the most quantitatively rigorous social science discipline.  Within the Public Policy program, he concentrated in Social Entrepreneurship with the mentorship and teaching of his advisor Professor Greg Dees, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant and previous faculty member of the Harvard Graduate School of Business. Manny remained at the university until April 2002 to conduct empirical research on the statistical consequences of the mergers between commercial and investment banks after the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1934.

Manny returned to El Paso shortly after completing his research.  At that time he started his real estate career with one of the El Paso area’s most accomplished commercial real estate developers.  Manny helped invest in and develop retail strip centers and office buildings, among other property types, by being directly responsible for land acquisition, financing, project analysis, construction management, leasing, property management, and real estate brokerage.

In 2006 Manny started to personally develop commercial real estate in El Paso, TX and Las Cruces, NM.  He continues to identify acquisition targets and form partnerships and joint ventures to invest in and develop real estate investment opportunities.

In spring of 2007 Manny helped form a national Regulation D mortgage-pool fund. He managed the fund’s ongoing operations for several years until recently wrapping up the fund.  However, he has continued to create other investor partnerships to invest in 1st Lien mortgage notes.

Manny Jemente is a licensed Texas Real Estate Broker and a licensed NMLS Texas Loan Originator.

Manny was formerly a member of the Sunturians and served as the chairman of the Pasoport Scholarship committee.  He was also a former member of the Cathedral High School Advisory Board.  He is currently a board member for the El Paso Leadership Academy.

Manny lives in the Upper Valley of El Paso with his wife Adeline and their two dogs.  He is passionate about wine and has attained the Level II – Certified Sommelier certification from the Court of Master Sommeliers.