Paul W. McCallum shares Texas with the world through his leadership in the tourism industry. As Executive Director of the Grapevine Convention & Visitors Bureau, he used Historic Preservation to develop Grapevine as a hospitality destination attracting the Gaylord Texan, Grapevine Mills mall, SEA Life and LEGOLAND®. He initiated a Sister City program connecting Grapevine and Texas to the world’s great wine regions. To promote tourism, he developed exciting products for Texas destinations, created festivals and events such as GrapeFest® and the Christmas Capital of Texas®, while preserving historic structures. He brought to life exciting excursion train experiences by building Grapevine Vintage Railroad into a national and international Texas railroading icon.

Before coming to Grapevine, he worked in Fort Worth where he set up the Cutting Horse Heritage Foundation with Philip Schutts, Charlie Moncrief and others. He established the Chisholm Trail Round-Up and Comanche Pow Wow, and was a founding member of Cowtown Goes Green. He served on the fundraising committee for the Omni Theatre with Bill Davis. He restored the ticketing building at the Cowtown Coliseum for the first Stockyards Visitor Center. When his daughters attended Bruce Shulkey Elementary School, McCallum founded the Bruce Shulkey Sugar Daddies volunteer organization to serve as a clean-up crew at Fort Worth festivals and events to earn money for the school. Today, some 40 years later, the Sugar Daddies are still going strong.

McCallum grew up on a station (ranch) in the Australian Mallee. He came to Texas and first worked on the J.T. Ranch. He became an American citizen who is patriotic and celebrates, embraces and promotes all the qualities Texas is known for around the world. He is a supporter of American Indian people, Texas history and public art. He was the Director of the Peace Circle public art project, a $1 million bronze installation on Peace Plaza in Grapevine, that has the support of the modern American Indian nations portrayed there. He has received many accolades including the “Tall in Texas Award” from the Texas Travel Alliance.