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Thursday, November 13, 2025

Coq Au Vin with Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Chicken thighs braised with red wine, mushrooms, carrots, and garlic.

OR

Chickpea & Lentil Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

Vegan & Gluten Free

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Thursday, December 11, 2025

Chicken Francese with Lemon Orzo

Crispy, golden chicken breast simmered in a velvety lemon butter sauce

OR

Cauliflower Steaks with Romesco Sauce and Lentils

Vegan & Gluten Free

Dietary preferences may be communicated when making the reservation.

Pat Frost - speaker for November 13, 2025

President, San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo - Chair, Texas Cultural Trust Board of Directors

Pat Frost is a respected business and civic leader in the San Antonio region, currently serving as President of the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo and Chair of the Texas Cultural Trust Board of Directors.

A longtime arts advocate and community champion, Pat assumed leadership of the Stock Show & Rodeo in 2024 following more than a decade of service on its Executive Board. In this role, he emphasizes the organization’s mission to support youth, agriculture, and education across Texas while advancing its growth and community impact on San Antonio’s East Side.

In 2025, the Texas Cultural Trust (TXCT) named Pat as Chair of its Board of Directors. With deep Texas roots and a visionary approach to leadership, he brings decades of executive experience and a strong commitment to ensuring that the arts remain a vital and accessible part of every Texan’s life.

Before his transition to nonprofit and civic leadership, Pat enjoyed a distinguished 40-year career in financial services, retiring in 2023 as President of Frost Bank and Frost Insurance, and as Vice President of Cullen/Frost Bankers. Throughout his career, he has chaired more than 40 community boards and played a leading role in major initiatives, including the NCAA 2025 Men’s Final Four Local Organizing Committee.

Heidi Marquez Smith, CEO of the Texas Cultural Trust, describes Pat as “an extraordinary advocate for the arts — whose passion for accessibility, inclusion, and community makes him a powerful voice for Texas’ cultural future.

Larry S. Schlesinger, MD - speaker for October 9, 2025

Larry S. Schlesinger, MD, is an internationally recognized authority in infectious diseases with a particular interest in tuberculosis and lung biology. He took the reins of leadership as President/CEO of Texas Biomed in 2017 and has led a transformational strategic planning process that is currently being implemented.

Since coming to San Antonio, Dr. Schlesinger has made a huge impact on the San Antonio biomedical research community, particularly building stronger relationships and innovative partnerships with UT Health San Antonio, Southwest Research Institute, the University of Texas at San Antonio, other colleges and universities in the region and the private sector biomedical landscape. He serves on the Boards of Biomed SA and the SA Medical Foundation and has spoken in several city wide venues discussing the virtues of working together to achieve great things.

Dr. Schlesinger also serves as a Professor at Texas Biomed and is Principal Investigator of several ongoing research grants. He serves as PI for the Southwest National Primate Research Center Base Grant. In 2018, Dr. Schlesinger was named a Healthcare Hero by the San Antonio Business Journal in the area of Outstanding Medical Researcher.

Dr. Schlesinger earned a BA in Biology from Cornell University and MD from Rutgers Medical School. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan and clinical and research fellowships in Infectious Diseases at UCLA. He joined the faculty at the University of Iowa in 1991 where he served as Fellowship Director for the Division of Infectious Diseases and Associate Chair of the Department of Medicine. He moved to the Ohio State University in 2002 where he served as Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine until 2011 when he became first chair of Microbial Infection & Immunity. He also founded the university-wide Center for Microbial Interface Biology (now Infectious Diseases Research Institute).

Dr. Schlesinger is a leading physician scientist whose studies focus on the pathogenesis of tuberculosis and other airborne infectious agents that subvert lung immune mechanisms. His discoveries have led to greater insight into the unique attributes that soluble and cellular components of the innate immune system of humans bring to the microbe-host interface, translating them into drug discovery platforms. He is a prolific scholar, having authored more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, reviews and chapters in leading textbooks on tuberculosis and lung biology. He is also editor of 2 books. He has been continuously funded by the NIH and a number of other agencies for 30 years, a member or chair of several NIH study sections (recent NIAID council member) and other private and federal agencies, and a Fellow of the AAAS, American Academy of Microbiology, AAP, and IDSA. He has served on many advisory boards for universities, NIH, and FDA among others.

Dr. Schlesinger has placed great emphasis on education and mentoring throughout his career, particularly in clinical and translational research, and has been committed to building strong interdisciplinary academic programs through his leadership on training grants and as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program.

Cory Hallam, Ph.D. - speaker for October 9, 2025

Cory Hallam is the Executive Vice President of Applied Science and Innovation and a Professor of Innovation Management at Texas Biomedical Research Institute. He has extensive experience in driving research funding for innovation and entrepreneurship in both academic and business environments, including proven success in creating technology commercialization education, business development, partnerships, funded research programs, university policies and commercialization ecosystems. He holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has served as advisor and board member for many new ventures.

Cory maintains active research streams in Entrepreneurship, Technology Management and Innovation. He previously held the Jacobson Distinguished Professorship of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at The University of Texas at San Antonio and served as the University’s Inaugural Chief Commercialization Officer, establishing IP policy, company incubation, a technology development seed fund and the Presidential Innovator of the Year Awards. This work led to the creation of the first NSF I-Corps Site in Texas, and the first student-led and faculty-led companies incorporating, incubating and raising over $1 million in early-stage funding. Cory’s early career involved Lean Enterprise Transformation and Program Management roles in the aerospace and defense industry, including programs like the E2-D, EA-6B, F/A-18, F-35 and Global Hawk. He led efforts on multi-year acquisition programs that reduced overall acquisition cost while accelerating program deliveries ahead of schedule. Cory has over 60 peer-reviewed publications, two books on engineering the high-tech startup and has been involved in building several medical, health and pharma-related companies.

Suhail Arastu - Chair, Speaker's Bureau

Suhail Arastu was raised in San Antonio, Texas and studied Neurobiology & Classics at The University of California, Berkeley where he competed as a gymnast. In Philadelphia he began graduate studies before moving to a small Japanese mountain village for a year of contemplation, deep sea fishing, hiking, skiing and teaching. He then traveled the world by ship under the auspices of the United Nations Economic & Social Council before returning home in 2008. Suhail works in Institutional Advancement for Musical Bridges Around the World, a non-profit performing arts company charged to unite, educate and inspire through culturally diverse visual and performing arts.

Arastu served two terms as a Trustee of The Mind Science Foundation, one term on the Board of Directors of Gemini Ink, and is the Arts & Culture Chair for Anuja San Antonio – the organization that manages San Antonio’s Sister City Relations with Chennai, India. Arastu is the Mayor’s appointee to the Public Art Commission and enjoys serving on the Board of Directors of Constitution Cafe & The Lone Star Art Alliance.

He was elected to Class XL of Leadership San Antonio and completed a Marshall Memorial Fellowship in Spring of 2018; in August of the same year he was appointed to serve on the Board of Sister Cities International, a Washington DC based organization that grew out of the League of Cities under President Eisenhower. Arastu was named 40 Under 40 by the Business Journal in 2020. He leads Yoga privately and at Yoga in Motion and serves on the Advisory Council of International Yoga Day – a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2014. A collection of Arastu’s photographs from seven continents was shown at PechaKucha Volume 5.