Rex Sinquefield

President & Chairman of the Board

Raised in St. Vincent Home for Children in St. Louis, Rex graduated from Saint Louis University with a business degree before pursuing an MBA from the University of Chicago. Along with associate David Booth, Rex formed Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) in 1981, which today oversees more than $158 billion in assets worldwide. Rex's wife, Dr. Jeanne Sinquefield, who has an MBA and a Ph.D. in Demography from the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the achievements of DFA as well.

Through the Sinquefield Family Foundation, Rex and Jeanne support organizations that are focused on music, children and education. Rex recently provided the seed capital for the creation of The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, which is a destination for both new and seasoned chess players in Saint Louis.

Rex Sinquefield is a life trustee of DePaul University and serves on the boards of the Missouri Botanical Garden, Missouri History Museum, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis Symphony and Saint Louis University. He is also a member of the Investment Committee of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis and the recipient of numerous awards for scholarship and service.

Rachel Keller Brown

Treasurer

Rachel Keller Brown is president of Keller Capital Group, LLC, a fundraising and political consulting firm and co-founder of Pelopidas, LLC, a comprehensive, influence management firm that offers issue advocacy, non-profit fundraising, capital campaign development, and government and public affairs. She also is chief of staff for Missouri based philanthropist, Rex Sinquefield, for whom she advises and directs political and philanthropic giving programs, manages issue advocacy in the areas of education reform and tax policy and oversees daily operations and special projects. Prior to these positions, Keller Brown’s distinguished career covered every corner of the State of Missouri, and included issue, candidate, and capital fundraising; organizing statewide grassroots campaigns and developing coalition strategies. Throughout the years, Keller Brown has forged strong relationships with business and civic leaders and elected officials in Missouri and throughout the United States.

Susan Barrett

Secretary

Susan Barrett is Director of Art and Culture for Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield. She is the president of RKL Consulting, which oversees the partnership of a Saint Louis art gallery and plans to open in the city of Saint Louis. In addition, Ms. Barrett is the art consultant to a private collection that focuses on American Regionalism.

Prior to this fortunate opportunity, Ms. Barrett worked at Metro’s Arts in Transit managing the Cross County art projects and installations. With a budget of over $1.1 million, this was the largest commitment Arts in Transit had made to permanent, site-specific artworks.

Ms. Barrett has almost twenty years of experience in the art world in Saint Louis and New York, including art publishing, gallery work, and education and continues to work on and display her own art.

Ms. Barrett is a board member on Metro’s Art in Transit, Belas Artes Multicultural and Art Gallery and was recently elected to Landmarks Association.

Ms. Barrett holds a Masters of Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis, a BA in Comparative Arts and French and a BFA from the same university.

Bob Jacobs

Director

Born in Pittsburgh in 1928, Bob learned chess from a neighbor about age seven. He discovered chess books at the local library as a teen-ager and has been at it ever since. Bob was named to one of the small groups of original U.S Life Masters by the USCF. He has won tournaments in every decade since the '40's in a dozen states including the California championship in the '50's and the Missouri championship five times. An International Correspondence Senior Master, he won the first U.S.C.F Absolute Correspondence Championship in 1976. He was elected to the Missouri Chess Hall of Fame in 2002.

In between chess activities, he was educated at the University of Michigan & UCLA and worked in the contracting and financial side of the aerospace industry, retiring from McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) in 1988 as Corporate Director Of Government Contracts. Bob lives with his beautiful wife Irene on a small lake in Lake Saint Louis.

Bill Wright

Executive Committee

Bill served in the U.S. Marine Corps and graduated from Macalester College with a B.S. in Business Administration. He holds the Chartered Life Underwriter designation from the American College of Life Underwriters and devoted his career to employee benefits, where he held various management positions. Bill learned to play chess in 1942 and first entered tournament play in the 1980's. His USCF rating places him in about the middle of the pack of all tournament players. He has taught chess in several elementary and middle schools and currently teaches at Solomon Schechter Day School, where his teams have won a number of trophies in the Gateway Chess League. He is a Director and Treasurer of the Missouri Chess Association and has a small chess business: CHESS/WRIGHT, which operates mainly at scholastic tournaments. He is a collector of chess sets and a member of Chess Collectors International. Residents of Kirkwood, he and his wife Ann have four adult children and six grandchildren.

Jim Voelker

Executive Committee

Jim was born in Akron, Ohio, and had some successes in Ohio chess, winning the Cincinnati Championship and tying for first in the Ohio Championship. Jim moved to Missouri in 1992 and was Missouri Champion in 1994, 1998, and 2004. He placed second in last year's Missouri Invitational Championship. Jim tied for first in the Senior Master section of the 1998 U.S. Class Championships (thanks to some luck and a low turnout), losing a tie-breaker game to IM Michael Brooks. Jim has dabbled a bit in correspondence chess and has a USCF correspondence chess rating of 2378. Jim is a former member of the Missouri Chess Association Board of Directors and is a former editor of the Missouri Chess Bulletin. He has maintained a website for Missouri chess news since 1998. Jim has BA, MLS, and JD degrees and works as a law librarian. He and his wife Joan live in Kirkwood with their son Andy, who is three.