Mr. Ernest McMillan, Founder

Mr. Ernest McMillan was born in Dallas, Texas, and is a veteran human rights activist with a history of working through the 60's in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Mr. McMillan conceived and implemented the Fifth Ward Enrichment Program (FWEP) in June 1984 as a department of the Urban Affairs Corporation. FWEP became a free standing agency of June 1, 1996 with Mr. McMillan as the executive director. FWEP is a school-housed, community based primary prevention program. It is designed to pre-empt negative environmental influences and promote the positive development of high-risk, inner-city boys. FWEP has served as an effective support and intervention system for young African-American and Hispanic males.

Mr. McMillan received an Associate of Arts degree in History and Government at Brazos Junior College in Texas and has completed further study in history, government, and political science at Morehouse College in Atlanta, UT Arlington, and the University of Houston at Clear Lake City, Texas.

He has extensive experience in counseling of both youth and adults. Additionally, he has worked successfully in management positions involved with the delivery of social services, organizing and planning resources, and coordinating activities to meet specific objectives. Mr. McMillan initiated the first Drug Prevention Program for African-American youth in Houston in 1981. He has developed support systems for ex-offenders and drug abusers as founder of People United for Justice for Prisoners in Dallas, Texas, and as an outpatient counselor for the Alternative Drug Abuse Program of VGS, Houston, Texas. Mr. McMillan also served as project manager for three years at the Communities-In-School program in the Wesley Elementary school, Houston.

Mr. Charles Savage, Executive Director

Charles Savage is the Executive Director for the Fifth Ward Enrichment Program Incorporated (FWEP). Mr. Savage manages and coordinates the staff and daily program activities that comprise the service components of FWEP. The staff consists of 14 full-time employees, 15 part-time employees, and a yearly list of 50 volunteers. The service components are the School-based Projects, the Young Fathers in Families Project, the Peer Health Educators, the Teen Enterprise Center, the Juvenile Mentoring program, an Education Coordinator, and a Parent/Family liaison. The FWEP yearly operating budget is in excess of one million dollars.

Mr. Savage has also served as the FWEP project manager for the high schools and as the first director of the Teen Enterprise Center, the after-school component for youth business activities and entrepreneurial training.

He has been a consultant to the City of Houston, was a founding executive member of a small business firm, and is a former Shell Oil Company employee with more than 20 years of domestic and international corporate experience. He has been designated as a "visiting professor" by the National Urban League's Black Executive Exchange Program (BEEP) for his years of mentoring and counseling students at historically black colleges and universities.

Mr. Savage is a native of St. Louis, Missouri and has been a resident of Houston since 1977. He has three adult children - sons, Damon and Evan, and daughter, Audra. He has served in the United States Air Force Reserve and attended school at the United States Air Force Academy Prep School, St. Louis Community College, Houston Community College and the University of Houston.

Consuella Whipple, Fiscal Manager

Ms. Consuella Whipple manages and coordinates all fiscal affairs and financial reporting for the agency. She shares budget control and monthly oversight management responsibility with the Chief of Operations.

Ms. Whipple is a native of Plaquemine, Louisiana, located west of Baton Rouge and the Mississippi River. Ms. Whipple is a 1986 graduate of Southern University in Baton Rouge. She began her professional career in the oil and gas industry after relocating to Houston shortly after graduating. She later became Fiscal Manager at the Harris County (Texas) treatment facility in the Community Supervision and Corrections Department. Ms. Whipple has owned, and partnered in, an accounting and tax service that focuses on the accounting and financial services needs for non-profit organizations.