Caltech Elects Three New Members to Board of Trustees, Including former U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham

Three new members — Spencer Abraham, Rebecka Belldegrun and alumna Ann Stimmler Johnson — have been elected to the Caltech Board of Trustees. Abraham and Belldegrun will serve as trustees and Johnson (BS ’99, MS ’00) as a young alumni trustee.

Spencer Abraham is the former U.S. Secretary of Energy during the first term of President George W. Bush (2001–05) and also a former U.S. Senator from Michigan (1995–2001).

Abraham led the cabinet agency with a $23 billion budget and over 100,000 federal and contractor employees. The Department of Energy is a diverse agency that includes 17 National Laboratories; the National Nuclear Security Administration, which operates the nuclear weapons complex and non-proliferation programs; a Science program that is the nation’s single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences; and a $7 billion environmental cleanup program, which is the largest on the planet.

Abraham is currently chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of The Abraham Group, an international strategic consulting firm focused on the energy sector, based in Washington, D.C. He is also a principal at Blank Rome Government Relations, also based in Washington, D.C.

Abraham holds a BA from Michigan State University and a JD from Harvard University, where he cofounded the Federalist Society.

Rebecka Belldegrun is a physician, entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist, and the founder of several companies and a cable television network.

Born in Finland, she earned her MD at the Sacker School of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University and completed a residency in ophthalmic surgery in Israel. She then moved to the United States for a postdoctoral fellowship in corneal surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Her career path ultimately pivoted toward business and in 1986 she became president and founder of Intertech Corporation Inc., a New York-based real estate and acquisitions company. In 2004 she founded BellCo Capital LLC, a management consulting and investment company in Los Angeles, where she serves as president and CEO. Two years later she became the founding investor of BabyFirstTV, a global cable channel dedicated to babies and their parents.

She previously served on a variety of boards, including the Board of Visitors at Columbia University. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Ann Stimmler Johnson is cofounder and CEO of Interana, which describes itself as the leader in behavioral analytics for the digital economy and was formed in 2012.

Interana provides a self-service, behavioral analytics solution that seeks to help every employee across an organization explore the digital behavior patterns of people and things in order to make well-informed business decisions. Interana’s vision is to put the power of interactive data exploration in the hands of everyone to help businesses realize a successful digital transformation.

While earning her degrees in electrical engineering at Caltech, Johnson was selected for the Intel scholarship program. She served as new product manager and integration engineer at Intel from 2000 to 2003 and from 2005 to 2006.

The Board of Trustees is the governing body of Caltech. The Board is led by Chair David L. Lee (PhD ’74) and Vice Chair Ronald K. Linde (MS ’62, PhD ’64). It is currently composed of 40 trustees, 28 senior trustees, 19 life members, and one honorary life member.