Helen Risch grew up in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Jewish parents and grandparents who fled the pogroms of Poland and Russia in the early 1900s. They instilled in Helen a love of Judaism that she has carried with her throughout her life and shared with others through her professional and philanthropic service.
At B’nai Israel Synagogue in Shamokin at the time of her bat mitzvah, girls were not allowed to read from the Torah. However, in 2017, Helen chanted eight verses at her adult bat mitzvah at Temple Emanu-EI.
Helen holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in child and adolescent development, developmental psychology and counseling psychology. She is an authority on child development. Upon completing her graduate work, she created pioneering educational and training programs for childhood centers and high schools in the Pittsburgh public school system. Later living four years in London and then three years in Athens, Helen actively served in volunteer roles working with children. Upon the family’s return to the US, she taught college-level Adolescent and Child Development in Seattle and later served as an administrator of a Head Start program in Connecticut. Following the completion of her national certification, she worked as a school psychologist in the Stratford, Connecticut school system. When she and her husband, Frank, moved to Dallas, Helen began an active private practice in school psychology which, for 17 years, assisted students with troubling learning difficulties.
Helen has been an active leader and volunteer in community organizations in every city the family has lived in. In Dallas, she has served in leadership roles for the former Wise Academy, Ann and Nate Levine Academy, Dallas Jewish Women's Philanthropy Center, Visiting Nurse Association of Dallas, Jewish Family Service, Dallas Children's Theater and Meadows School of the Arts at SMU. Largely for her leadership of the Dallas Jewish Federation-Center for Jewish Education, Helen and Frank received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
One of her greatest joys is to administer the Helen E. Risch Jewish Preschool Scholarship Fund, which helps families send their children to Jewish preschools. Helen believes that bringing kids into Jewish preschool connects both the children and their parents more deeply to Judaism.
Helen and Frank have two children, Jonathan (and his wife Alisha) and Jolene (and her partner Eric), and six adult grandchildren--all of whom attended Jewish day schools in Dallas and Houston--Aaron (and his wife Talia), Eli (and his fiancée Naomi), and Jake, Rebecca, Jeremy and Maddie.
As a business professional and community leader, Frank Risch has led and participated in some of the most influential organizations in North Texas, making special contributions to the arts and Holocaust education. Frank’s parents, Irma and Herbert Risch, had lived in the heart of Nazi Germany into the 1930s and experienced antisemitism firsthand. Narrowly escaping the start of the Holocaust, they fled to Baltimore just before Kristallnacht where Frank and his late brother Norman were born.
Frank attended Penn State University (where he and his wife Helen met over 60 years ago), and he earned a master's degree from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. Frank and Helen have two children, Jonathan (and his wife Alisha), Jolene (and her partner Eric), and six grandchildren—Aaron (and his wife Talia), Eli (and his fiancée Naomi), and Jake, Rebecca, Jeremy and Maddie—all of whom attended Jewish day schools in Dallas and Houston.
Upon completing his master’s degree in 1966 Frank went to work for Standard Oil Company of New Jersey - now Exxon Mobil Corporation - enjoying a distinguished 38- year career with the company. He held positions of increasing responsibility, in finance, planning, operations and general management - in New York, London, Athens, Seattle, Connecticut and Dallas - where the company moved its headquarters in 1990. Following his retirement from ExxonMobil in 2004 as Vice President, Treasurer and Principal Financial Officer, Frank served for 18 years as a member of the Board of Directors of Pioneer Natural Resources Co.
Together with Helen, Frank has supported numerous nonprofit organizations. He has dedicated much of his time to leadership positions, serving as board chair and now Life Trustee of the Dallas Theater Center and as board chair of Communities Foundation of Texas. Additionally, he served on the boards and the executive committees of the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Dallas CASA (where he is now an Emeritus Director), the Dallas Zoological Society, ADL Texoma, HIAS, the Jewish community-supported international refugee resettlement and assistance agency, and the Business Board of Advisors of the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon. He served as President of Temple Emanu-EI from 2005 to 2007.
Frank played a central role as board chair of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum in opening the acclaimed 55,000-square-foot museum in 2019. He continues his service to the Museum as a Lifetime Director. Helen and Frank are especially proud of the work of the Helen and Frank Risch Family Library & Archive in preserving and growing a
significant regionally focused collection of original documents, artifacts, photographs, and testimonies on the Holocaust and human and civil rights.
In honor of his parents, in 2007 Frank and Helen established in Baltimore the Herbert H. and Irma B. Risch Memorial Program on Immigration which is dedicated to understanding the immigrant experience in America. They are also passionate about the importance of Jewish day-school education and feel fortunate that all six of their grandchildren were able to attend Jewish day-schools in Dallas and Houston. To provide financial assistance to enable more Dallas children to attend Jewish preschools they established the Helen E. Risch Preschool Scholarship Fund which, over the past 20 years, has benefitted families at Jewish preschools across the community.
In recognition of his achievements, Frank has been honored with the Henry Cohn Humanitarian Award presented by the Anti-Defamation League, the Hope for Humanity Award of the Dallas Holocaust Museum, and the TACA Silver Cup Award for his leadership in the arts community. In 2023 he became the 94th recipient of the Linz Award, a civic honor presented to individuals "whose community and humanitarian efforts have created the greatest benefit to Dallas during the last decade."
In the Spring of 2026, it was announced that Helen and Frank would on December 3rd receive the Milton I. Tobian Award for Community Relations.
