Meet Alan Steinberg
With the job title of President and CEO of the West Houston Association, you could easily think that Dr. Alan Steinberg would be too busy to volunteer or get involved in the community — but it is the exact opposite! Alan, is one of the most civically involved individuals you will ever meet. He embodies the profile we showcase at HOUnited because his personal philosophy is as follows:
“I don’t buy into the whole work/life balance concept. I actually believe in work/life integration.”
He points out: As Mark Twain once said, “find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never work a day in your life.” So he knows the challenge is finding a job with a mission and vision similar to your own. Then what you spend time doing will benefit both yourself and your employer. Alan spends his time improving the quality of life in the Houston region. He does this all day every day, but some days he’s more productive than others.
“If you have time outside of working hours to do something you will enjoy, then why not - even if it's ‘work related’. The way I see it, if I have time to watch TV, then I have time to do something more productive, and if it will help me grow, learn, and contribute to my community, then I will always say yes.”
That attitude is more than apparent with his contributions to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (HLSR). If you ever see Alan on the NRG grounds before, during or after Rodeo season, you’ll definitely hear someone say ‘Hello Mr. Rodeo!’ His enormous contributions and time spent within different volunteer committees is admirable, exceptional, and almost physically impossible. At times, it seems that Alan is in two places at once, and both places are within the show. What’s interesting is that he doesn’t actually remember going to the Houston Rodeo as a kid, but he does have fond memories of dressing up at school for Go Texan Day. Even though he is from the Alief area of Houston, he didn’t become aware of the Rodeo fanfare until he was pursuing his undergrad degree at Texas A&M University. He recalls one day noticing his roommate transform from his normal punk rocker blue spiked hair look into a cowboy with the hat, jeans, buckle, and boots. The invite to attend the Rodeo from his roommate created an interest and a few years later led to volunteering.
Fast forward to today, he is now part of eight committees, which if you know anything about being a Rodeo volunteer, your jaw has now hit the floor. He somehow is also in leadership roles on most of them. He started with the Transportation Committee, where his college roommate was a volunteer. After volunteering for a team that only worked the three days of BBQ, he felt he had time to do more. Building off his experiences helping organize Comicpalooza he branched to the Events & Functions Committee. A few years later he was invited by a friend to join two more committees that worked during the ‘off season’: Membership Committee and Western Heritage Community Challenge (now Houston General Go Texan). Keeping in mind his aforementioned ‘Work/Life Integration’ model, he joined the Communications & Special Services Committee in 2017 due to the connection with survey research, a subject he enjoyed teaching and ended up being Rookie of the Year. Through circumstances of helping out a friend on another committee, he ended up on the Sheep & Goat Committee and was recognized as the 2018 Outstanding Rookie. Then after moving back to the Alief area, he joined the Alief Metro Go Texan Committee and raised his hand at his first meeting to help co-chair the annual fish fry. Most recently he was recruited to join the School Art Auction Committee and in his second year was asked to lead a sales team. This year (2021) marked the 13th Rodeo season for Alan as a volunteer and he is looking forward to the years ahead.
This tells you the type of servant leader that Alan is — but wait, there’s more. In addition to all this Rodeo volunteer time, Alan serves as a Mayoral appointee to the City of Houston’s Clean City Commission, as well as on the board of directors of the Memorial Management District, Plant It Forward Farms, Keep Houston Beautiful, and on the NEXTGen Leadership Committee for the Holocaust Museum Houston. He also volunteers with the American Red Cross Texas Gulf Coast Region, the HAY Center for foster youth, and serves on the Advisory Council for University of Houston - Katy, UH Victoria’s Business School, and Volunteer Houston.
Despite all of this, it is through his service as a Vice Chair of the Alief Super Neighborhood Council where he recognized that it is not as easy to get involved in the community as one would think. Coordinating clean ups or tree trimming and planting activities seems simple enough, but people are sometimes overwhelmed with all that one can do to be involved. His biggest agenda item, across multiple organizations, is to figure out a way to make it easier for people to find out about opportunities to become involved and reduce the barriers to participating.
But when simply asked ‘Why Houston’, his answer was inspired and very timely.
