Betty Massey
Executive Director / The Mary Moody Northen Endowment
Betty Massey serves as the executive director of the Mary Moody Northen Endowment, a private foundation based in Galveston, Texas, that works in both Virginia and Texas. Among her responsibilities are the operations of two historic properties, the 1895 Moody family home in Galveston and Mountain Lake Lodge, a landmark resort near Blacksburg, Virginia.
Following the September 2008 landfall of Hurricane Ike, Massey, then chair of the Comprehensive Plan Committee for the City of Galveston, was appointed chair of the City’s Long-Term Recovery Committee. This 330-member citizen committee developed Galveston’s “roadmap for recovery.”
She served as the first chair of the Galveston County Recovery Fund (GCRF), a coalition of private foundations, United Way agencies, the City of Galveston, and Galveston County, formed to solicit and distribute private charitable resources post- Ike. In those first years of post-disaster recovery, Massey also served as a member and chair of the Board of Commissioners of the Galveston Housing Authority. In the fall of 2017, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, she resumed her role as chair of the Galveston County Recovery Fund as that entity reactivated post-storm. In the spring of 2020, she again assumed the role of GCRF chair in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before joining the endowment in September 2000, Massey served 11 years as executive director of Galveston Historical Foundation, the second-largest locally-based preservation group in the United States. The foundation’s program of work included museum operations, educational programming, commercial redevelopment, and neighborhood revitalization. Prior to joining the Endowment in September 2000, Massey served 11 years as executive director of Galveston Historical Foundation, the second largest locally-based preservation group in the United States. The Foundation’s program of work included museum operations, educational programming, commercial redevelopment, and neighborhood revitalization.
With nearly forty years of involvement in the Galveston Island community, Massey has held leadership positions in various civic and business organizations ranging from the Chamber of Commerce to the Galveston National Lab on the University of Texas Medical Branch campus. In 2016 Massey led the formation and currently serves as president of the Moody Early Childhood Center, a public/ private partnership offering high-quality educational opportunities to Galveston’s youngest citizens. Since 2017 she serves on Vision Galveston and currently chairs that group’s Community Development Corporation Action Committee. In 2019 she returned to the Galveston Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners.
Massey has served on the executive committee of ArtSpace Projects, Inc., the largest nonprofit developer of artist live/workspace in the U.S., for more than ten years. Massey is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. She enjoys running, reading, tennis, hiking, biking, kayaking, traveling and spoiling her grandchildren in her spare time.