If you expect flash and swagger when you meet David Freeman, you’ll be sorely disappointed. The majority owner of the Nashville Predators looks like—and is—just a regular guy: a regular guy with a lot of money to invest in a National Hockey League franchise.
Red flashing lights get our attention. Very bright red flashing lights, even more so. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that if your brake lights flash brighter than normal when you’re forced to stomp the brakes, the guy in the car behind you is likely to notice them more quickly. But it does take a genius—or at least people with a generous dollop of entrepreneurial know-how—to develop and market such a next-generation brake light—or to make a go of any innovative product or service. Entrepreneurs are a special breed, but they aren’t necessarily born with all the skills to succeed at the innovation game. Entrepreneurial talent can be nurtured, and inventions can be brought to market with a combination of knowledge and hard work.
The excitement continues to build in Chattanooga since the announcement in July that Volkswagen will build its North American assembly plant in that Tennessee city. UT Chattanooga was involved early on in wooing the German automaker to Tennessee.
An update on the Campaign for Tennessee, a new Warhol exhibit at UTC, A look at this year’s Haslam Scholars—these stories and more in the latest installment of UTopics.
When you ask them about their careers, twins Wes and Ches Jackson are quick to point out that no one really graduates from college and aspires to sell hot dogs. But in 1982, with UT Martin business degrees in hand, that’s exactly what they sold—along with other Reelfoot Packing Company products. Their father, Billy Joe, had worked for the Union City, Tennessee, Reelfoot plant most of his career, and his sons naturally gravitated there for jobs during high school and college to help finance their college educations.
Anna Maria Horner is a homemaker in the oldest, and newest, sense of the word. She spends her days sewing, folding socks, and devising activities to occupy her brood of five children. But unlike homemakers of the past, she doesn’t hang over the fence sharing recipes and mending tips. Instead she invites friends in for a virtual cup of coffee and a chat through her blog, “Anna Maria,” at http://annamariahorner.blogspot.com.
Pearl is the “Cow of the Month” at the Hatcher Family Dairy. Her hobbies are sunbathing and chewing cud. The 2-year-old Holstein is pregnant for the first time and spends her time relaxing on the farm. Since 1831, five generations of the Hatcher family have lived on and worked its almost-500-acre farm in College Grove, Tennessee. When Dr. Jennifer Hatcher graduated from the UT College of Veterinary Medicine in 2005, she became the third generation of UT graduates to join the family business that includes a dairy, a milk store, and Rock-N-Country Animal Clinic, a mixed animal practice her father, Dr. Charlie Hatcher, started when he graduated from veterinary college in 1984.
Bristol Motor Speedway, the AT&T (Batman) Building in Nashville, the Knoxville Convention Center, and UT’s Neyland Stadium are familiar Volunteer State landmarks. As different as they are, the structures share at least one important common denominator—the entrepreneurial Jim Powell of tiny Limestone, Tennessee, whose company built these facilities.
Educating students to succeed in the global workplace isn’t just a lofty slogan. Today it’s a necessity. Hundreds of UT Knoxville alumni work in China or travel there frequently. Tennessee Alumnus thanks the many alumni who sent information about their experiences. Unfortunately we couldn’t feature all of them. Here are a few that represent just what a small world our planet has become.
Three UT alumni, Carl Wolfson, Leanne Morgan, and Dale Henry, are making their livings by making others laugh.
America’s palate is becoming more sophisticated, and Alan Wilson is big into the business of supplying the spices to satisfy the nation’s taste buds. Wilson (Knoxville ’80) is the new CEO and president of McCormick & Company Inc., the world’s largest spice producer, headquartered in Baltimore with operations in such diverse locales as India and France.
Wade Tosh put his UT education to work before he even finished it. Tosh was chosen as the new town administrator of Dover, Tennessee, by the Dover Board of Mayor and Aldermen in September 2007, 4 months before he finished his Master of Public Administration degree at UT Knoxville. Tosh had a leg up on a local government career thanks to a distinctive new on-the-job experience: he was the first Gary H. Hensley Municipal Managers Intern during the summer of 2007.
Recently, UT came calling on Ron Turner. Only months earlier, the Ripley, Tennessee, native had retired from the positions of chairman, president, and CEO of Ceridian Corporation, an S&P 500 company formerly known as Control Data Corporation (CDC). Turns out, his alma mater was looking for new ideas and fresh perspectives from top business executives across the country, and Turner signed up for a 3-year term on UT’s Development Council.
As Debbie Ingram, UT Alumni Association president, travels to events, she solicits stories of how education has positively influenced the lives of UT alumni. Though their stories are different, Kayvon Sadrabadi and Paige Pettit credit education with altering their lives.
From my 24th-floor office in northeast Beijing, each day I survey the startling expansion and transformation of the city. Every morning brings either a new high-rise or a vacant lot where an old high-rise once stood, a situation accelerated by the $40 billion Beijing is spending in preparation for the upcoming Olympics. But the changes China is experiencing are far more profound than a few new skyscrapers, and the consequences of those changes reach around the globe.
