Staff
Patrick Schaefer
Executive Director
Patrick is the founding Executive Director of the Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness, an innovative strategic research platform that produces actionable quantitative and legal analysis of critical markets and international trade and investment flows across North American, transatlantic, and transpacific spheres.
In addition to producing these customized, client-facing analyses, Patrick also advises senior private sector and government leaders on trade and investment facilitation, and the impact and outlook that financial and political decisions will have on future market conditions.
During his work at the Hunt Institute, Patrick has collaborated closely on a variety of projects and analyses with institutions and clients including the US Departments of Commerce, Treasury, State, and Homeland Security, Joint Task Force North, Mexico’s Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores and Secretaría de Economía, and Comisión Nacional Bancária y de Valores, the Canadian Consulate in Dallas, the New Mexico Legislature and Economic Development Department, the Texas Legislature, the City of El Paso, the El Paso Chamber, the City of Albuquerque, the New Mexico Trade Alliance, Wells Fargo, the Shanghai International Shipping Institute, the Pacific Council on International Policy, the Wilson Center, the Aspen Institute, Aspen Institute-México, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, among others.
Prior to founding the Institute, Patrick held positions with the World Bank Group and the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., where he advised client-states on legal reforms to improve their commercial and financial sectors.
He received his J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law, where his work centered on the comparative commercial, financial, and natural resource laws within the Ibero-American context, with a special emphasis on Mexico, Spain, Brazil, and Portugal. He then received his LL.M. from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa as a Fulbright Scholar focusing on EU trade and foreign direct investment policy. He has also studied at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, the Universidade de São Paulo, the Université Paris 1: Panthéon-Sorbonne, the Hague Academy for International Law, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, graduating magna cum laude, and St. John’s College, where he received his undergraduate degree.
Patrick regularly speaks at national and international conferences, as both a keynote and a panelist, and hosts international delegations particularly with regard to North American investment and trade. His publications have dealt with international bankruptcy and trans-boundary natural resource management. He is an adjunct professor of International Trade and NAFTA Law at the College of Business Administration at the University of Texas at El Paso and has coached two teams from the Law Faculty of the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez to two international investment arbitration competitions in Vienna and Los Angeles.
Patrick is an Eisenhower Fellow and Marshall Memorial Transatlantic Leadership Fellow, as well as an active member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, the Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas, and the New York and New Mexico State Bar Associations.
Mayra G. Maldonado
Associate Director
Mayra is a Research Economist who leads the Institute’s work on binational, comparative commercial and financial analysis. She has worked as an Economist at the Central Bank of Mexico, where she led the economic and financial analysis of Mexico’s northeastern border region, and its linkages with the rest of Mexico and the U.S. Mayra has also worked for Morgan Stanley Capital International, where she led the Americas Index Research and Corporate Actions teams based in Mumbai, India, and Monterrey, Mexico. During her time at MSCI, she specialized in analysis of Inter-American financial markets inequities. She received her BA in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM Campus Monterrey) and her MA in Economics from New York University (NYU) through CONACYT and Fulbright scholarships. During her BA studies, she participated in an exchange program with the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP). Born and raised in a dynamic cross-border region (Texas-Nuevo Leon), Mayra is personally and professionally invested in contributing to the economic development of the Paso del Norte region.
Roberto Ransom
Operations Director
Roberto serves as the Operations Director for the Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness, in his role he oversees the institute's projects, ensuring that tasks and resources advance according to objectives and guidelines. Roberto provides efficient use of resources and management to strengthen regional and binational cooperation for the institute.
In previous roles, Roberto established a keen working knowledge of the Paso del Norte Region through developing, directing, and administering businesses outreach efforts in recruitment, retention, and expansion. These efforts contributed to the strong economic growth of the Southern New Mexico’s Borderplex region, generating hundreds of jobs and attracting numerous industries by developing close and lasting partnerships with businesses owners from small, medium, and large companies.
Subsequently, Roberto enjoyed working at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), first, in envisioning and building the success of the UTEP Centennial Year project for the Office of the President, and then, in implementing and administering the nation’s first Department of Engineering Education and Leadership in the College of Engineering.
Roberto obtained his BA in International Business and Computer Information Systems from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2005. Having worked in the private, public, and academic sectors, Roberto has extensive experience in the representation of binational affairs for the Paso del Norte Region.
José Ángel Moreno
Research Economist
José Ángel Moreno was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and grew up in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, for the greater part of his life. By virtue of these life experiences, he became intimately aware of the Paso del Norte’s economic structures and practices. In fact, José Ángel refined this knowledge and regional economic analysis skills first by acquiring a BA Economics and then, most recently, an MS in Economics, both from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Throughout his graduate studies, he contributed to various major projects at the Institute as a Research Assistant, most notably to the Regional Economic Sector Reviews. There, he collected, analyzed, and harmonized regional economic data while also overseeing the creation all of the energy sector infrastructure maps that showcase the region’s crude oil, refined gasoline, and natural gas infrastructure, as well as its renewable energy potential and associated infrastructure. As a Research Economist at the Institute, José Ángel continues this work by overseeing the Regional Economic Sector Reviews and is currently in the process of finalizing a Regional Banking Sector Review and Water Sector Review.
Joshua Rayner
Executive Assistant
Joshua joined the Hunt Institute in April of 2015 as an administrative assistant. An El Pasoan and former student of the University of Texas at El Paso, Josh graduated in May of 2014 with a B.B.A. in Economics. He is excited to be assisting the Hunt Institute in its mission to foster the economic and social well-being of the communities in the Paso del Norte Region, with a special interest in the Social Policy and Economic Development.
