Terri Parker – President

Terri is a proud first-generation Republican within her family. She was born on an Army base in Texas but was raised primarily in Mississippi where both sides of her family are from.

She was the first person in her family to attend college. She attended a small, private Baptist school, William Carey College; where she received her Baccalaureate of Science in Nursing. While at WCC she went on a medical missionary trip to Mexico with them. She practiced as a registered nurse for many years in a variety of fields, from a hospital floor nurse, a Home Health nurse, a Cardiac nurse, an Operating Room nurse in a trauma level hospital, and for a defibrillator company. While in Mississippi she was a member of the Garden Club and the Junior Auxiliary, two charity social clubs. But being a nurse was a very rewarding part of her life. She enjoyed taking care of patients and was very fulfilled helping others in all aspects of her life.

She, her husband, and daughters moved to Florida full time about eight years ago into their vacation home in Blue Mountain Beach on 30A. They then moved to Rosemary Beach where they would be closer to their daughters school, Ohana Institute. After their middle daughter graduated and left for Auburn University they relocated to the Bay where they have a large horse farm, barn, and arena for their youngest daughter to train as an English Hunter-Jumper Equestrian rider. She and her family love their peaceful life on the farm. Terri loves to say that she brought country to the beach.

Terri’s joy is traveling. She lived in Cairo, Egypt, when she was in middle school and quickly realized there was so much to see in this World. She and her family have traveled to more than 40 countries together and within the US have visited 22 National Parks. Their passports and luggage are always ready for their next adventure.

Terri joined the WRWF group almost 3 years ago when a friend invited her to a monthly meeting with her. Since that very first meeting, she’s been eagerly available and willing to help spread the word and volunteer to bring others to join the RED Wave!

Vice President Membership

Mary Howard, Vice President – Programs

Mary loves our great Constitution, after God and her family. Raising her three sons was the highlight of her life. For years, her married adult sons were spread out on three different continents, so it took a global pandemic to slow down this grandmother’s travel schedule before she could even consider a board position. Plus, she hates to travel. So after decades of serving on a multitude of boards and teams’ mom, and endless volunteering, she planned to slow it down in Florida.

Mary is a recovering engineer, from the University of Oklahoma, also with a dusty MBA from Louisiana, where she learned to love crawfish while working in the oil & gas sector. Born and raised in Oklahoma, and a descendant of share croppers and ranchers, Mary has traveled the world, but managed to call her home base for over 30 years in Texas with her husband, before coming to Florida. And Mary loves everything about Texas, other than one thing. It’s not Florida.

Mary has been an active volunteer for the Emerald Coast Children’s Advocacy Center for years, after having spent years in Texas working with teen girls rescued from human trafficking. The rescued girls were housed on a secluded ranch, where Mary helped mentoring, tutoring with archaic online schooling, and assisting with equine therapy.

Mary and John serve as Volunteer Beach Ambassadors and active members of The Chapel at Crosspoint Church, after many years of Sunday School teaching at a mega church in Texas and leading Bible Study Fellowship. Mary is also currently active with IMPACT100, serving on grant review committee and annual meeting committee.

Mary is a lifelong Republican, recently becoming much more politically active in response to the growing attacks on our constitutional rights. She loves live music, meaningful conversations, and walking the beach at sunset with a glass of bubbly.

Secretary – Lisa Robertson

Treasurer – Lisa Veiga

Lisa Veiga is an accomplished global technology executive who brings over thirty years of expertise ranging from international strategic sales and operations, building customer success organizations to creating and executing successful partner echo-systems. Mrs. Veiga has developed and deployed many global programs that delivered record revenue to the companies she worked with and established important new dimensions to their business. Lisa was the SVP of Global Alliances for Pitney Bowes Software where she developed the company’s global alliance strategy for Pitney’s Software business. Lisa was the VP and GM of Wipro Retail America’s division where she oversaw sales, operations, delivery and partners. Prior to Wipro Lisa spent over 10 years with Oracle where she was a global VP in numerous roles including solution development, global alliances, strategic sales, and customer success.

Mrs. Veiga recently retired as the Americas CEO of an application development platform for SAP. She currently serves as an advisor to early-stage companies by helping them develop their all aspects of the business from sales strategies, partner eco-systems, customer success, strategic and operational plans. She is an active member of the community and serves as a Board Member of the South Walton Community Council. Mrs. Veiga holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida.

Past President, Christine Zelm

Christine is a retired Senior Vice President of Sales working from offices in San Francisco and China, and interfacing with all the major retail executives around the world selling Disney licensed toys.

Not only did Christine travel for work, she extensively traveled pursuing her passion of skiing, scuba diving, hiking and connecting with people from other countries discovering new cultures and food.

Christine did missionary work in Haiti, works at local good banks, and is active with her church, enjoys bible study and is a garden club member.

Christine grew up in Illinois in a strong Christian and military family, embracing politics at an early age, supporting her father’s local political office, and joining the Young Republicans Club.

Christine relocated to the panhandle from CO moving from mountains to water and immediately became involved in the 2020 election volunteering at the Walton County Republican headquarters.