MD Anderson to honor Houston Texans founder Bob McNair

MD Anderson News Release October 14, 2015

Trailblazer takes center stage with Tom Brokaw at A Conversation With a Living Legend®

MD Anderson News Release 10/14/15

Robert C. “Bob” McNair, founder, chairman and CEO of the Houston Texans, will be honored Nov. 4 at the eighth annual A Conversation With a Living Legend® in Houston benefiting The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Tom Brokaw, special correspondent for NBC News, will lead an exclusive, onstage interview with McNair before an estimated 750 guests. The event begins at 7 p.m. at the Hilton Americas-Houston, 1600 Lamar St. and will benefit MD Anderson’s Moon Shots Program, an unprecedented effort to dramatically reduce cancer deaths and transform cancer care.

MD Anderson Advance Team volunteer Kelli Kickerillo and her husband, Todd Forester, are event chairs. Together, they have led a phenomenal fundraising effort that has already topped $725,000. Major sponsors at the $50,000 level include the Honorable and Mrs. Hushang Ansary, the Vijay and Marie Goradia Charitable Foundation, Kelli Kickerillo and Todd Forester, Mary and Vincent Kickerillo, and the Ralph and Ricky Lauren Family Foundation Inc. in honor of President and Mrs. George H.W. Bush.

Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff serve as the evening’s honorary chairs.

McNair is a leading businessman, sportsman and philanthropist in Houston. The founder, chairman and chief executive officer of the Houston Texans is also known in the business community as the founder of Cogen Technologies (sold in 1999), the largest privately held cogeneration company in the world, with an aggregate capacity of 1,400 megawatts. McNair also serves as chairman of The McNair Group, headquartered in Houston, where he oversees an investment portfolio that includes interests in two cogeneration plants in the eastern United States.

Committed to bringing a National Football League (NFL) team to Houston, McNair formed Houston NFL Holdings in 1998. On Oct. 6, 1999, the NFL announced that the group had been awarded the 32nd NFL franchise, returning NFL football to the city of Houston in 2002. McNair’s efforts brought Super Bowl XXXVIII to Reliant Stadium in 2004 and in 2011 and gave the city its first NFL playoff game in nearly 18 years. He also chairs the NFL finance committee and is a member of the NFL audit and Los Angeles expansion committees.

In 2007, McNair and his wife, Janice, turned their focus to medical research. They gave a transformational gift to establish the McNair Medical Institute at Baylor College of Medicine, as well as funding the McNair Scholars Program, which recruits top physicians/scientists in the fields of juvenile diabetes, breast and pancreatic cancer and the neurosciences. Additional McNair Scholars Programs were established at MD Anderson, Menninger Clinic, Texas Children’s Hospital and the Texas Heart Institute.

Tom Brokaw has spent his entire distinguished journalism career with NBC News, beginning in 1966 in the Los Angeles bureau, where he covered Ronald Reagan’s first run for public office, the rise of the Sixties counterculture, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and the 1968 presidential campaign. From Los Angeles, Brokaw went to Washington as the White House correspondent during Watergate and as the principal backup for John Chancellor as anchor of “NBC Nightly News.” Next stop: New York and the “Today” show, followed by his appointment as anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.”

Brokaw has won every major award in his craft, including the Peabody, Duponts, Emmys and lifetime achievement recognition. In November 2014, Brokaw was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, the highest civilian award given to those who made “meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” Most recently, Brokaw published his seventh book, “A Lucky Life Interrupted: A Memoir,” which details his experience with cancer.

Seating is limited. For more information, please call 713-563-4025 or email events@mdanderson.org.