Bass, Berry & Sims has appointed Lillian M. Blackshear from the firm’s Nashville office to its executive committee.

The seven-member committee includes attorneys from the firm’s Memphis, Nashville and Washington, D.C., offices. Members oversee strategic priorities of the firm, including client service, diversity and inclusion, growth and pro bono initiatives.

Blackshear practices in the firm’s public finance practice group and has represented clients in public finance transactions totaling more than $10 billion since 2010. She counsels governments and banks to secure financing for development projects and debt refinancings.

She is a member of Nashville’s Metropolitan Planning Commission and serves as secretary of the Women in Public Finance Tennessee Chapter. Nationally, she is a member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers.

Butler Snow’s Carrington joins defense group

Kathleen Ingram Carrington, an attorney at Butler Snow LLP in Nashville, has accepted an invitation to join the International Association of Defense Counsel, an invitation-only global legal organization for attorneys who represent corporate and insurance interests.

Carrington focuses her practice on personal injury and product liability litigation related to recalled products and allegations of product defect. She represents clients in a wide range of industries, including manufacturers of recreational vehicles, industrial machinery and automobiles. Her experience includes serving as lead trial counsel and as a key trial team member in several significant trials. She also maintains an active appellate practice in state and federal courts across the United States after having served as a law clerk to the Hon. Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Carrington was her firm’s 2019-20 Fellow for the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity. In addition, she is actively involved with DRI, the leading organization of defense attorneys and in-house counsel, and is a frequent speaker and author on products liability topics.

She is a graduate of Louisiana State University and earned her J.D. from the University of Mississippi School of Law.

Cooper moving to Bone McAllester Norton

Veteran Metro government attorney Jon Cooper is leaving his post to join Bone McAllester Norton PLLC, and will work with the firm’s administrative and regulatory law practice, and land use and zoning practice.

Cooper will begin his new role in July. He will also work with counties and municipalities on issues surrounding regulatory and administrative law where he will use his legislation and policy drafting and review skills.

Cooper became the assistant director of the Metro Council office in 2001 and continued to serve as assistant director and attorney for the Council after his graduation in 2004. He was the director of the Metropolitan Council office and special counsel to Metro Council 2008-2015 and 2019-2021. He served as the Metro director of law 2015-2019.

His accomplishments within the Nashville area also include negotiating the Nashville Predators’ long-term lease extension at Bridgestone Arena, the stadium lease and development agreement for the Nashville SC Major League Soccer team and the redistricting of political boundaries.

Cooper is a member of the Nashville Bar Association and previously served as president of the Tennessee County Attorneys Association. He was a member of the inaugural Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative class of 2017-2018.

Pinckley to receive TBA’s top legal writing honor

Nashville lawyer Todd Pinckley will be presented with the prestigious Justice Joseph W. Henry Award for Outstanding Legal Writing June 18 during the Tennessee Bar Association’s annual convention in Memphis.

The award was established nearly 40 years ago and is given each year to the lawyer “who writes the most outstanding article that is published in the ... Tennessee Bar Journal for the preceding year.”

This year’s winning article is “The Right to Remain Silent: Law Enforcement and the Duty to Intervene,” which was published in the November/December 2020 issue.

Pinckley is an in-house counsel for the National Association of State Boards of Accounting in Nashville, where he focuses on regulatory and administrative law. A native of Huntsville, Alabama, he relocated to Nashville after graduating from the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis.

Since law school, he has held positions with multiple agencies in state and local government across Tennessee, including serving as a prosecutor for the Tennessee Department of Health and as an administrative judge with the Division of TennCare. He also served as the first attorney-adviser for the Metro Nashville Community Oversight Board which investigates allegations of police misconduct.

Utility welcomes new general manager

Roger Goodson assumed leadership of Consolidated Utility District of Rutherford County. Goodson was formerly the senior operations manager for the Western Division of Illinois American Water.

Goodson’s role with CUD begins as the current general manager, Bill Dunnill, transitions to a consulting capacity. Dunnill has led CUD since 2012.

While with Illinois American Water, Goodson managed operations for seven districts in that state. He began his career in the water industry in 1992 with the City of Aurora, Illinois, where he worked for more than 14 years. His career includes management of operations for a large-site development company and project management in the housing sector.

Goodson holds a degree in management and an MBA, both from Aurora University. He also has earned certifications in water operations.

Ascend promotes Feldhaus to CFO

Ascend Federal Credit Union, the largest credit union in Middle Tennessee, has promoted David Feldhaus to chief financial officer. Feldhaus, who previously served as vice president of internal audit, succeeds Sandra Gregory, who is retiring after 25 years with the company.

A licensed certified public accountant, Feldhaus has more than 12 years of accounting experience. Before joining Ascend, he was senior assurance associate at KraftCPAs in Nashville and senior accountant at Edmondson Betzler & Dame in Brentwood. Feldhaus is also a member of the Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Feldhaus earned a degree in business administration and master’s degrees in finance and accounting from Middle Tennessee State University.

Dusetzina tapped for Medicare commission

Stacie B. Dusetzina, Ph.D., associate professor of Health Policy and Ingram Associate Professor of Cancer Research at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, has been appointed to a three-year term on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

MedPAC’s 17 members advise Congress on issues affecting the Medicare program, including access to care, quality of care and other pressing issues affecting Medicare and its beneficiaries.

Dusetzina brings to the commission a track record of policy-relevant research and analysis related to drug pricing and coverage for Medicare beneficiaries, which has become a prominent policy topic on Capitol Hill.

She has authored or co-authored 150-plus peer-reviewed articles contributing to the areas of health insurance coverage for and affordability of prescription medicines. Her work has provided important findings relevant to health care leaders, policymakers, clinicians and patients. She also has contributed to the President’s Cancer Panel’s recommendations on Access to Cancer Drugs and to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s report on Ensuring Patient Access to Affordable Drugs.

Belmont appoints Crook, Cates to vice president

New Belmont University President Dr. L. Gregory Jones has announced two additions to his senior leadership team with the appointments of Amy Crook, Ph.D., and Sarah Cates as vice presidents.

Crook, an associate professor of management in Belmont’s Massey College of Business, will assume the role of vice president for transformative innovation, character and purpose. Cates, a Belmont alumna who previously served as director of development and industry relations as well as in a variety of roles within Belmont’s Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business, will serve as vice president for special projects and strategic partnerships.

Crook will work closely with the president while collaborating with other senior leaders, college deans and faculty/staff in focusing on internal relationship building and transformative interdisciplinary collaborations while fostering an entrepreneurial mindset across the campus to integrate student learning, scholarship and opportunities for social innovation. Responsibilities will include facilitating curricular and co-curricular efforts to enhance students’ sense of purpose and character formation and removing barriers that tend to stifle worthy but nontraditional projects/partnerships within academic institutions. Additionally, she will continue to teach one course per year to stay connected to the faculty and student experiences in the classroom.

Crook, who recently completed a term as president of Belmont’s Faculty Senate, has been a faculty member in the Massey College of Business since 2012 teaching courses in management and organization behavior, as well as in study abroad programs.

Cates will also work closely with the president and senior leadership to identify high-impact opportunities that will set the university apart and serve students in unique ways while bringing the institution local, national and global brand attention.

Before her work in development, Cates worked within the Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business since its inception in 2003, most recently as senior director overseeing all elements of external relationships, student enrichment, extension programs and partnerships.

Talbert named executive editor for Nelson Books

Janet Hill Talbert has been named executive editor for Nelson Books, a nonfiction imprint of Thomas Nelson. Talbert is a publishing veteran, having worked in the industry for 25 years, with most of her tenure in senior-level editorial roles.

Talbert spent 22 years at Doubleday serving in various editorial roles, including vice president and executive editor. During her time at the company, she edited seven New York Times bestsellers including the #1 New York Times bestselling book The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell. While at Doubleday, she also launched Harlem Moon, a paperback imprint and division of Broadway books.

She most recently served as senior editor for Guideposts Books and Inspirational Media, where she edited the devotionals Mornings with Jesus and Pray a Word a Day, as well as oversaw licensing for Bibles and nonfiction titles.