I.D. ‘Nash’ Flores III

I.D. Nash Flores III-obit photoSurrounded by his loving family, I.D. “Nash” Flores III, age 70, of Dallas, died Oct. 20, 2013, after battling pancreatic cancer.

Nash grew up in Floresville, Texas, a town founded by his family on their Spanish land grant. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame and Harvard Business School. Nash joined the Business School faculty, consulted to the Ford Foundation, and was an investment banker with Dean Witter in New York City.

He moved to Dallas in 1971 as an investment banker with Eppler Guerin & Turner, headed international finance for Dresser Industries, and founded independent energy company KR Companies. For 18 years, Nash was CEO of FGR Foods, the award-winning franchisee of Au Bon Pain and Uno Due Go that he co-founded. He also co-founded Ceres Capital Partners in 1995, a private equity firm in which he was still an active partner at his death. As a director of the SWS Group (Southwest Securities) board, he served on the Audit Committee and Nominating/Governance Committee.

A man of bold visions and a big heart, he was considered an outstanding member of the Dallas, business, art, and philanthropic communities and of the national Harvard community. Nash served on the Advisory Board of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts for more than 35 years. As chair of the $60 million Capital Campaign, he was instrumental in the nationally recognized rebuilding of a proud public school with substantial private funding.

He also served Harvard for more than 40 years as president of both the Harvard Business School and Harvard Clubs of Dallas, local schools committee chair spearheading a modernization of the admissions interview process, national chair of the Harvard Schools Committee, regional director of the Harvard Alumni Association, member of both the Alumni Association and the Board of Overseers nominating committees. Awards include the Dallas Obelisk Award for Individual Contribution to the Arts in 1990, the Dallas Historical Society’s Arts Leadership Award in 2008, the Harvard Hiram S. Hunn Award in 2004, and the Harvard Alumni Award in 2010.

Dedicated for many years to the Dallas Museum of Art, as a trustee he chaired the Membership, Finance, and Public Affairs Committees, and was a member of the Executive, Collections, Education, and Strategic Planning Committees.

Other service included the Board of Trustees of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Foundation, founding member and co-president of the President’s Research Council at UT Southwestern, and member of the Advisory Boards of the Nasher Sculpture Center, SMU Meadows School for the Arts, and University of Texas Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.

Nash was a perfect husband and gentleman to his beloved partner and wife of 45 years, Marion; a loving and enormously proud father to his daughter, Whidden; and a best friend to his sister Carol. Nothing matched his joy watching the ocean with them at his coastal house in Maine, though pursuing contemporary art and good fiction were close seconds. He cherished Monticello Book Club meetings and friendships.

Survivors in addition to his wife, daughter and sister noted above include sisters Susan Crissy of San Antonio and Monica Flores of Floresville, nieces Angela Crissy of New Braunfels and Nicole Crissy of Austin, and the beloved “California cousins” of his childhood and their children.

A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. on Nov. 3 in the auditorium of Booker T. Washington High School. In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested to the Nash Flores Faculty Enrichment Fund or the Nash Flores Student Enrichment Fund at Booker T. Washington High School, the Nash Flores Harvard Club of Dallas Scholarship Fund ([email protected]), or the Nasher Sculpture Center.  Sparkman Hillcrest logo

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