Nashville law firm Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison has launched a new health care services group focused on dentists, optometrists and veterinarians.

Cornell Kennedy, a partner at the firm, will head the group. Kennedy specializes in representing specialty health care providers by counseling them on various transactional matters that arise with running a practice. Some of those services include navigating providers through the process of startups, practice acquisitions, commercial lease review, drafting partnership agreements, employment agreements and negotiating equity buy-ins.

Kennedy is a frequent speaker throughout Tennessee on topics such as practice startups/transitions, lease negotiation strategies, associate contracts/buy-ins and other employment law matters.

Patent attorney North joins Patterson Law

Nathan North has joined Patterson Intellectual Property Law as an associate of the firm. North, a registered patent agent, will practice in the areas of patent prosecution and litigation.

North most recently severed as a law clerk for the Hon. Raymond Chen of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. He is a 2017 graduate of Emory University School of Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Emory Law Journal, and received the ABA/BNA Award for Excellence in the Study of Intellectual Property Law.

North holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Tennessee.

Birch joins Ingram board of directors

Adolpho A. Birch III has joined the board of directors for Ingram Industries Inc. The privately held company’s businesses include Ingram Marine Group and Ingram Content Group.

Birch is entering his second season with the Tennessee Titans as senior vice president, business affairs & chief legal officer, overseeing the organization’s legal, government affairs and community relations functions.

Before joining the Titans, he spent 23 years with the National Football League at its headquarters in New York City, serving as a senior adviser to commissioners Paul Tagliabue and Roger Goodell while holding senior-level positions.

He previously was an associate at a law firm in Houston and clerked for the Hon. Thomas A. Wiseman, Jr., chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

Birch, a Nashville native and Father Ryan graduate, is a graduate of Harvard University and the Vanderbilt University Law School.

Birch has served on numerous charitable, educational and industry boards, including Vanderbilt University Board of Trust (secretary), Sports Lawyers Association (board of directors), Partnership for Clean Competition (board of governors); Business of Sports School, New York City (industry advisory board) and Why Not Sports? (advisory board). In May, he was appointed to the board of directors for the newly established Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which was formed to develop and ensure national uniform safety and performance standards throughout the industry.

Pinnacle’s Corbett named to insurance hall of fame

Pinnacle Financial Partners captive insurance adviser Michael Corbett has been named to the Captive Review Hall of Fame, an honor given to only a few captive professionals worldwide each year.

Corbett came to Pinnacle in early 2020 with more than 40 years of financial services experience. He previously was the regulatory director of captive insurance for the State of Tennessee’s Department of Commerce and Insurance, where he licensed 669 Risk Bearing Entities made up of 200 captive insurance companies and 469 cell companies, representing more than $1.4 billion in annual premiums. He also led a consulting practice that specialized in captive insurance and was chair of the Vermont Captive Insurance Association.

Corbett was previously named to the Captive Review Power 50 in 2016, 2017 and 2018 and was named the 2015 Captive Professional of the Year.

Cumberland Pharmaceuticals promotes Hamm to CFO

Cumberland Pharmaceuticals Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, has promoted John Hamm to director of finance & accounting and chief financial officer. He will manage all of Cumberland’s finance and accounting activities while continuing to oversee corporate development and legal matters.

Hamm has more than 25 years of finance and accounting experience, including 20 years in health care. He previously served as Cumberland’s director of corporate development.

Before joining Cumberland in 2019, Hamm served in senior executive positions in the health care, broadcasting and telecom industries. Hamm is the former chief operating officer at HealthSpring and chief financial officer for its pharmacy business. HealthSpring, a managed care organization, now operates as Cigna-HealthSpring.

He also is the former vice president finance at Emdeon Business Services and began his executive career as vice president and controller at Viacom.

Hamm is a graduate of Wheeling University and earned an MBA with an emphasis in accounting from West Virginia University. Hamm is a Certified Management Accountant and Certified Financial Manager.

Trevecca board extends contract of president

The Trevecca Nazarene University board of trustees has unanimously voted to extend the contract of Dan Boone, doctor of ministry, lengthening his term as president by four years.

Boone was named Trevecca’s president in 2005. During his tenure, annual enrollment has nearly doubled to about 4,000 students, with graduate program enrollment growing from 850 to nearly 1,900 students over that span.

Progress in academic programs has included the addition of the school’s first Ph.D. program, the formation and development of the School of Graduate and Continuing Studies, the introduction of a doctor of business administration degree and the recent establishment of a School of STEM.

Upcoming or in-progress capital projects include a 33,000-square-foot health sciences expansion of the school’s STEM building, a full renovation of the Jernigan Student Center, the addition of a new residence hall and a golf facility.

Trevecca recently concluded a five-year comprehensive giving campaign that brought more than $84.3 million in total contributions and estate commitments, including significant growth in scholarship endowments.

A Trevecca graduate, Boone earned a degree in religion from in 1974. He has also earned a master’s in divinity from the Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City and a doctorate in ministry from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

Before joining Trevecca, Boone had pastored Nazarene churches for more than 36 years.

Library board elects Searcy as president

The Nashville Public Library board of trustees has elected Joyce Searcy, director of community relations at Belmont University, library board president, the first African American to serve in that position.

Searcy assumes her new role after having served as a library board member since 2012. She succeeds Keith Simmons, a former managing partner at Bass, Berry & Sims and a founding member of the Nashville Public Library Foundation, who remains on the board. Simmons has served as chair since 2011.

Searcy also sits alongside vice president Katy Varney, partner with MP&F Strategic Communications, and secretary Robert K. Oermann, music journalist and author in Nashville.

In addition to Simmons and the officers, the other board members include Kate R. Ezell, owner of Ezell Consulting, Dr. Adriana Bialostozky, assistant professor of pediatrics and clinical physician at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, and Charvis Rand, head of business and innovation at the Urban League of Middle Tennessee.

Alliance Residential taps Nashville director

Alliance Residential Company is pleased to announce the promotion of Stephen Keller to Nashville development director. Keller will be moving from Alliance’s SE headquarters in Atlanta to Nashville this month to join Alliance’s established Nashville team.

Keller is responsible for sourcing and executing new development opportunities throughout the state of Tennessee to further expand Alliance’s portfolio in this market. His duties include site selection, negotiating land purchases for development, capitalization, and managing the entitlement and design processes.

Since joining Alliance in 2019, Keller has been involved in the execution of more than 1,000 multifamily units in the Atlanta area.

The company has two developments under construction in Nashville, Broadstone SoBro and a 6.32-acre development in The Nations, Broadstone Nations. It has completed five deals in Nashville, with a sixth in the works.

Before joining Alliance, Keller was a part of the debt and structured finance team at CBRE in Atlanta. He is a graduate of the University of Alabama, where he earned a B.B.A. in finance with a concentration in real estate.