Thompson

Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, Tennessee’s largest non-profit law firm, has promoted Shaina Thompson to family law lead attorney for its Nashville office.

She will help victims of domestic violence gain independence from abusive situations. Beyond Orders of Protection and divorces, this includes helping victims with issues like denial of benefits, food stamps and/or housing.

Thompson will supervise a staff of six and facilitate community education activities on domestic violence in and around Davidson and Williamson Counties.

Thompson joined Legal Aid Society in July 2016 as an attorney with the firm’s Family Law Section working on several large cases involving domestic violence and sexual abuse. In addition to practicing general family law, she worked with the Civil-Legal Advocate Program to recruit and train volunteer attorneys and law students to represent victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse or stalking on the Order of Protection dockets in Davidson County courts.

Thompson earned her undergraduate degree and master’s in executive leadership from Liberty University. She is a May 2015 graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law. During her law school career, she worked at the Family Violence Clinic and the Probate Court in Athens, Georgia.

Ingram Content Group appoints vice president

Dunbar

Lori Dunbar has been named vice president, Application Services, for Ingram Content Group.

Dunbar will lead the Business Intelligence, Integration Services, Product Systems and Application Development teams. Like the leaders of these teams, she will partner closely with our businesses to ensure alignment with ICG’s strategy.

Dunbar brings more than 20 years of experience developing products involving custom hardware and software solutions in the military, aerospace, defense and health care industries. Prior to Ingram, Dunbar was the chief technology officer at GE Healthcare leading the development of health care devices for use in labor and delivery and neonatal intensive care areas with a purpose of sending moms and babies home healthy. Dunbar joined Ingram on June 11.

She earned her degree in electrical engineering from New Mexico State University.

NCVC’s Ivey elevated to executive vice president

Ivey

Deana Ivey, who has been with the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp for 21 years, has been elevated to the newly created position of executive vice president. she will retain the role of chief marketing officer.

The NCVC Board of Directors recommended creation of the position to assist Spyridon in overseeing and coordinating the organization’s sales and marketing efforts. As executive vice president, Ivey will more closely work with Spyridon in handling the growing demands on the organization as the city’s tourism and convention business continues to boom, visitation and hotel room sales keep setting records and more events come to Nashville. The city’s tourism industry is at an all-time high with 14.8 million visitors in FY 2018 and $6 billion in direct visitor spending.

Ivey started with the NCVC as its first director of international marketing in 1997. In her role as chief marketing officer, she oversees advertising and promotions, research, special events, strategic partnerships, creative services, visitor services (including digital marketing/social media), convention services, membership and public relations. She has also spent the last 15 years leading Nashville in branding itself around the world as Music City.

She has played a key role in several successful marketing initiatives, including being a part of the creation and production of Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th; Music City Midnight: New Year’s Eve in Nashville; Music City Walk of Fame; Music City Connection: Heroes Behind the Hits, a songwriter radio show on Sirius XM; and as one of the producers of two award-winning NCVC documentaries: For the Love of Music and It All Begins With A Song.

Before her work in Nashville, Ivey served the tourism industry in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg for 10 years, including executive director at the Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce, which was a division of the Gatlinburg Visitors and Convention Bureau.

Ivey graduated with a communications degree from Western Kentucky University. She has undertaken graduate work at Chisholm Institute in Melbourne, Australia and at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

MTSU professors lauded for experiential courses

Boyer-Pennington

Five MTSU professors have been honored for their excellence in helping students learn by doing.

Gordon

Matthews

Park

Stickle

The MTSU EXL Scholars Committee chose five recipients for the 2017-2018 “Outstanding EXL Faculty Award,” which acknowledges educators for their commitment to experiential learning. They are:

• Michelle Boyer-Pennington, professor, psychology
• Robert Gordon, assistant professor, media arts
• Lucy Matthews, assistant professor, marketing
• Hanna Park, assistant professor, public relations
• Ben Stickle, assistant professor, criminal justice

With more than 600 course selections, the EXL Scholars Program at MTSU is designed to enhance student learning through practical experiences in their fields of study beyond the traditional classroom setting and engage the students directly in service learning projects.

Boyer-Pennington requires each student in her general psychology class to identify a group to which he or she shows “implicit bias” and do a service project involving that group to learn more about it.

Daniels

Gordon provides his students with real-world, hands-on experiences in classes on television production. These classes enable students to produce, create, manage, direct and serve as crew members for live sports events, dance events, musicals and other television presentations.

Matthews’ EXL courses have included professional selling, advanced selling, promotion and Dale Carnegie courses, which are designed to help students improve their “soft skills.”

Class projects in Park’s public relations courses include oral presentations, research reports, campaign books and peer evaluation.

In one of Stickle’s courses, students are required to search for and analyze crime statistics, conduct a home-security check and visit a local retail store to identify objects that could be stolen easily.

Daniels to run media arm for Freeman Webb

Freeman Webb Company has hired Frank Daniels III to oversee the management, strategic direction and tactical operation of its recently acquired news media outlets, which include the Nashville Scene, Nfocus and the Nashville Post.

Daniels will join existing leadership at the three media outlets, which will include publisher Amy Mularski, CFO Todd Patton, Scene editor D. Patrick Rodgers, Nfocus editor Nancy Floyd and Post editor Geert De Lombaerde.

Daniels has served most recently with The Tennessean as Metro columnist and member of the Editorial Board.

He was formerly executive editor of The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina). After the NandO was sold to McClatchy Newspapers, Daniels co-founded two Internet-based media companies. When those companies were sold, he joined Vital Source Technologies, a software company that provides digital publishing and curriculum solutions to schools and universities, as president and CEO.

Freeman Webb Company acquired the Nashville Scene, Nfocus and the Nashville Post in May.

Barge Design taps new electrical dept. manager

Harrington

Barge Design Solutions, Inc., has named Paul Harrington as Electrical Department Manager in the company’s Facilities Business Unit.

Harrington joined Barge Design Solutions in 1991 and has built a 27-year career at the company focusing on power, controls, lighting, telecommunications, and fire alarm design. His experience includes domestic and international project delivery for aviation, commercial, industrial and municipal clients.

Harrington graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a degree in electrical engineering.

Pinnacle hires Newby as mortgage advisor

Newby

Craig Newby has joined Pinnacle Financial Partners as a senior vice president and mortgage advisor. He is based at the firm’s Belle Meade office.

Newby comes to Pinnacle from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, where he spent eight years as a private mortgage banker. In this role he worked with many in the music, entertainment and sports industry specializing in complex mortgage financing. Previously he was with JP Morgan Chase for 14 years, where he was a branch manager.

Newby is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University.

Arnold named state forester, assistant commissioner

Arnold

David Arnold, a 28-year veteran of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture Division of Forestry, has been named state forester and assistant commissioner for forestry.

The state forester and assistant commissioner is responsible for running the Tennessee Department of Agriculture’s Division of Forestry. The division manages more than 168,000 acres of state-owned forests, oversees wildfire prevention and suppression, reforestation, landowner assistance programs, forest health initiatives, urban forestry programs and forest inventory.

Arnold most recently worked as assistant state forester, overseeing as much as $4 million in federal grants annually, contributing to the development of the division’s short- and long-term strategic and tactical plans, and supporting budgeting, planning, and hiring within the division.

He also supervised the administration of the division’s forest health and sustainability unit, as well as the reforestation unit. Previously he served as forest management chief, forest inventory and analysis coordinator, forest products marketing coordinator, and area forester for Union County.

Arnold succeeds Jere Jeter, who retired in June after nearly six years in the position.

Arnold earned a degree in forest management from Auburn University and a master’s in forestry from the University of Tennessee.