The Nashville chapter of The Entrepreneurs’ Organization recently added 15 members to its group of Middle Tennessee business owners, retaining its standing as the largest EO chapter in the United States and the third largest in the world, behind only Tokyo and Mumbai.

The addition of these new members brings EO Nashville’s total membership to 221. The global EO network contains more than 12,000 members in 173 chapters around the world.

New members are:

• Paine Bone, IV, owner of Wilson County Hyundai and Wilson County Chevrolet Buick GMC dealerships
• Bryan Brinks, co-founder of SSB, a business management consulting firm
• Mike Cerino, president and CEO of Growthwright, a business development services company
• Rebecca Davis, owner of JONDIE, a women’s boutique in downtown Franklin
• Matthew Engesath, president of the Tennessee offices of Renters Warehouse, a residential property management company
• Derek Evans, president and co-founder of Project 615, a philanthropic retail store in East Nashville
• Lee Farabaugh, co-founder and COO of Core10, a financial technology software solutions provider
• Judy Gatena, CEO of REP Interactive, a video marketing and production services company
• William Greathouse, vice president of The Greathouse Company, a residential and commercial landscaping company
• Bo Hanson, principal at Abound Wealth Management, a financial advising firm
• Chris Hefley, co-founder of LeanKit, a visual project delivery tool, and CRO of Retrium, an enterprise-ready solution for agile retrospectives
• Chris Kemper, owner of several franchise units for The Joint Chiropractic
• Joshua Newman, co-founder of ST8MNT, a brand development agency
• Denis O’Shea, founder and CEO of Mobile Mentor, a mobile solutions development company
• James Story, co-founder and president of Wellview Health, a health care navigation company

TNCPE names Parsons as its president & CEO

The Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence has selected Tamera Fields Parsons as its president and CEO.

Parsons succeeds Katie Rawls, who is retiring, effective June 1, after 14 years heading the non-profit group, which is widely recognized as the best state-wide quality performance organization in the United States.

Parsons comes to TNCPE from Ballad Health (formerly Mountain States Health Alliance) where she was most recently vice president for quality and performance improvement.

Parsons will be overseeing TNCPE’s daily operations, continuing its mission to help organizations reach peak performance, making their communities better places to live and work.

Prior to serving as president and CEO, Parsons has held volunteer roles with both TNCPE and the national Baldrige Performance Excellence Program through her tenures on the Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Examiners, the TNCPE Board of Examiners, and the TNCPE Panel of Judges. In 2009, she received the first TNCPE Champion of Excellence Award for her dedication to helping drive performance excellence.

Harris, Smith honored by Professional Educators

Harris

Suzann Harris, dean of the School of Education at Trevecca University, and Connie Smith, State Director of AdvancED Tennessee, have been honored with Friend of the Educator awards from the Professional Educators of Tennessee.

Harris has served as dean of the School of Education at Trevecca Nazarene University since 2012. As an associate professor since 2006, she has taught courses in classroom management, elementary courses in reading, social studies, and science, as well as early childhood courses in reading, writing, social studies, infants and toddlers, and child care administration.

While at Trevecca, she has received the Faculty Member of the Year and Teaching Excellence awards. Before joining Trevecca, she served as professor of education for 12 years in the Teacher Education Department at Welch College. While at Welch College, she was a multiple recipient of the Advisor of the Year award.

Smith

Smith was the only executive director of accountability for the State of Tennessee for 12 years, and prior to the inception of No Child Left Behind, implemented Tennessee’s previous accountability law.

While she was assistant commissioner, she served as the State Department of Education’s takeover agent for Schools/School Systems not meeting federal requirements and has served as an expert witness in several landmark precedent setting cases.

She has a master’s degree, an Ed.S. in Psychology and Special Education from Vanderbilt University, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York City. Smith serves currently as state director for AdvancED Tennessee.

Professional Educators of Tennessee is a statewide professional non-partisan association whose members come from all aspects of the educational systems in the state, including teachers, administrators and non-certified staff from kindergarten to graduate school level, public or private.

Tuck Hinton Architects makes Lesh an associate

Lesh

Tuck Hinton Architects has promoted Curtis Lesh, previously a senior architect at the firm, to associate.

Lesh has been with Tuck Hinton since 2004 and holds a degree in architecture from the University of Tennessee in 2000. Lesh has been involved in the design of the Music City Center, Country Music Hall of Fame expansion, 35 MSE office building, and offices for SESAC and the Country Music Association.

His current projects include the recently completed office building at 615 Third, the design of 1 Music Circle South, additions to the Music City Center, and offices for Studio Bank.

Project manager joins Barge Design Solutions

Rodgers

TJ Rodgers has joined Barge Design Solutions, Inc., as project manager in the company’s Facilities Business Unit.

Prior to joining Barge Design Solutions, Rodgers worked as senior project manager for Stansell Electric Company in Nashville. Rodgers holds a degree in Industrial Technology from Tennessee Technological University. He is a certified Project Management Professional.

Gilda’s Club welcomes marketing director

Alabed-Olsson

Gilda’s Club Middle Tennessee, a non-profit dedicated to providing social and emotional support to those impacted by cancer, including family members and friends of those diagnosed, has named Laura Alabed-Olsson as its first director of marketing, communications and special events.

Alabed-Olsson brings more than 20 years of experience to the position, including nearly five years with the Nashville Symphony and 10 years of volunteer service with non-profit ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, where she served as both board chair and interim executive director.

Prior to joining Gilda’s Club in April, Alabed-Olsson spent nearly a decade in the technology startup space, leading marketing for PointClear Solutions, an Atlanta-based software consulting company, and InQuicker, a Nashville startup that was acquired by Stericycle in 2015. She was also a part of the legacy team at Change Healthcare before it was acquired by Emdeon.

A resident of Nashville since 2000, Alabed-Olsson holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Alabama.

Ingram Content Group adds, promotes associates

Ingram Content Group has announced promotions and new associates across its businesses.

Bailey Davis has been promoted to publisher engagement manager for Lightning Source. In her new role, Bailey works directly with publishers to identify new ways to interact, educate and help grow their businesses. She also focuses on internal team development and training, customer segmentation and profiles, customer outreach, and identifying additional program and service offerings to support clients.

Josh Floyd is now the senior key account sales manager for IngramSpark, where he promotes the growth, sales, and brand of the IngramSpark platform by providing education, information and best practices for Ingram’s publish-on-demand services.

Kristal Smith has been promoted to manager, Business Ops Support for Ingram Publisher Services. She will oversee the operations support teams for Ingram Publisher Services.

Lori Bowen has been promoted to senior manager, specialty retail for Ingram’s wholesale business. She will lead the strategic planning and business development of retail services and promotions provided to various global sales channels including national accounts, mass merchants and clubs & independents.

Renee Lamine has been promoted to marketing manager for IngramSpark and oversees all marketing initiatives for that business.

Pinnacle hires advisor in Rutherford County

Harrington

Jamie Harrington has joined Pinnacle Financial Partners as a senior vice president and financial advisor for the firm’s client advisory team. She is based at the College Street office.

Harrington joins Pinnacle from First National Bank of Middle Tennessee, where she was a vice president and loan officer. Prior to First National, she was with Farm Credit Mid-America in Shelbyville, where she was a financial services officer.

Harrington earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. In 2017, she was awarded a scholarship by the Tennessee Bankers Association to attend the Graduate School of Banking at LSU, where she just completed her first year.

Newman

Harrington is a graduate of the Southeastern School of Banking at Belmont, and a 2015 graduate of Leadership Bedford. She is a member of Murfreesboro Young Professionals and Rutherford Cable. In 2018, Harrington was named a Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce Diplomat.

Also at Pinnacle, Justin Newman has been hired as a transition and operations specialist, and as a registered representative of Raymond James Financial Services.