The mission of Wright on the Park, Inc. is to own, restore, preserve and maintain the Frank Lloyd Wright designed properties across from Central Park in Mason City, Iowa.

---

Learn how to support the rehabilitation project.

---

---

Web design by Full Swing Solutions

NORMAN W. RAY

Before joining The SPECTRUM Group, a corporate consulting firm based in Alexandria, VA, in 2007, Vice Admiral Norman W. Ray (USN, retired) was President of Raytheon International, based in Brussels, Belgium and Roslyn, VA.    He was responsible for all Raytheon business planning and development in Europe and held this position for eight years.

Raytheon, headquartered in Waltham, MA has over 80,000 people and is one of the world’s largest defense contractors. The company provides state-of-the-art products and services in the areas of commercial and defense electronics, technical services, and business and special mission aircraft. Raytheon has operations throughout the United States and serves customers in more than 80 countries around the world.

Prior to joining Raytheon, Norman Ray was NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Support, and the senior American civilian serving NATO. Prior to assuming this post he retired from the US Navy with the rank of Vice Admiral, having served from 1992-1995 as Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. Vice Admiral Ray’s more than thirty-one years of service included a broad range of operational, command, and technical assignments throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. He was a naval test pilot and a leader in anti-submarine warfare.

In addition to his operational Navy assignments, where he commanded both a squadron and a major Naval Air Base, Norman Ray spent much of his career involved with technical, procurement planning and programming activities. He served on the Naval Staff, as Director of Naval Air Anti-Submarine Warfare, as the Navy’s long-range planner, as Executive Assistant to the Navy Acquisition Executive and as Executive Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. In his final Pentagon assignment, he was Director, Office of Program Appraisal for the Secretary of the Navy.

As NATO Assistant Secretary General, Mr. Ray was responsible for NATO Armaments Cooperation, NATO C3 Policy and Interoperability.

Mr. Ray is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy class of 1964 and a Naval Test Pilot school graduate.

CHUCK OFFENBURGER

Iowa writer Chuck Offenburger got his start in journalism at the age of 13 in his hometown of Shenandoah, and he’s now been covering the state for 45 years.

After more than two decades as a feature columnist and co-host of RAGBRAI for the Des Moines Register, he is now writing from his farm home near Cooper (pop. 30) in southern Greene County, Iowa, 55 miles west and a little north of Des Moines.

Besides his columns on the Internet site www.Offenburger.com he also is a regular in the monthly Iowa Farm Bureau publication “Family Living.” He also does freelance writing for other publications. A graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, he has been a visiting instructor at colleges and high schools in Iowa, teaching journalism or courses on state history.

Since leaving daily newspaper work, Offenburger has written three books and is completing another. Those include the biography of Bill Krause, the Kum & Go and Liberty Bank co-founder, completed in 2001; the history of Iowa high school girls’ sports, completed published in 2003, and the biography of Bernie Saggau along with the history of the Iowa High School Athletic Association and boys sports, published in the fall of 2005. Offenburger is now working on the biography of one of Iowa’s greatest sports heroes, Gary Thompson, of Ames, who starred in basketball and baseball for little Roland High School in the early 1950s and then was a two-sport All-American at Iowa State. Thompson also served more than 30 years as a commentator on TV coverage of college basketball.

In 1999-2000, Chuck Offenburger served on Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack’s Strategic Planning Council, a 37-member panel the governor charged with the responsibility of coming up with a vision of what the state should be like by the year 2010 and an action plan of how to get there. He served on the board of directors of a successor group, Iowans for a Better Future, and led statewide discussions on the state’s progress toward the “Iowa 2010” goals and on the future of higher education here.

Chuck and his wife Carla Offenburger are still avid bicyclists, and in fact purchased their farm home in 2004 because it is adjacent to the Raccoon River Valley Trail. They also lead occasional tours of Iowa – some by bicycle but most by bus. The Offenburgers have a step-daughter Janae Learned, who is in real estate sales in Scottsdale, Arizona, and a son Andrew Offenburger, who is in graduate school at Yale University.

RICHARD GUY WILSON

Richard Guy Wilson holds the Commonwealth Professor's Chair in Architectural History at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. His writing and research as focused on American architecture from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Wilson is a frequent lecturer for universities, museums and professional groups. He has authored, co-authored or edited more than a dozen books.

 

 

 

WILLIAM ALLIN STORRER

William Allin Storrer, PhD is an Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion, the only complete, single volume reference that includes plans. Also, he is the author of The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, the only catalog of Wright's built work.

 

 

 JONATHAN LIPMAN

Mr. Lipman is the director of the Institute for Maharishi Vedic Architecture in Fairfield, Iowa. He is an award-winning architect who has spent the last decade designing buildings according to the principles of Maharishi Vedic architecture in his work throughout the U.S. Mr. Lipman is a past president of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and has done historic preservation work on some of the nation's most distinguished landmarks. He is widely published and is a frequent speaker at national architectural conferences. Mr. Lipman is also chief architect of Maharishi Global Consruction.

Back to Top