Crider

The law firm of Baker Donelson has named Christy Tosh Crider chair of its Health Care Litigation Group.

Crider is a shareholder located in Baker Donelson’s Nashville office where she will continue to serve as chair of the Firm’s Long Term Care Group, as well as the Firm’s Women’s Initiative. She manages a successful practice concentrated in the long-term care and behavioral health industries, managing the litigation of numerous long term care facilities around the country as well as serving as outside general counsel.

Since 2008, Crider has been listed in Mid-South Super Lawyers and was listed among the top 50 female attorneys in the Mid-South, the top 50 attorneys in Nashville and the top 100 attorneys in Tennessee in the publication’s 2016 edition.

Frost Brown Todd picks 2 new Nashville members

Austin

Frost Brown Todd has selected former managing associates Tonya Austin and Jason Bergeron in Nashville as firm members. The firm appointed a total of 11 new members across its eight-state footprint.

Austin practices in the firm’s Business Litigation and Employment Practice Groups. She was recently appointed to the firm’s Women’s Initiative and has served on the American Heart Association’s PULSE Board since 2015.

Austin is licensed to practice in Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. She earned her J.D. from the University of Dayton School of Law in 2007.

Bergeron

Bergeron is a member of the firm’s Bankruptcy and Restructuring and Business Litigation Practice Groups and advises lenders, companies and creditors in loan workouts, commercial foreclosures and bankruptcy litigation matters.

He has served on the Board of Directors for the Nashville Opera since 2013 and currently serves on its executive committee. He is active with Vanderbilt Alumni Association programs, having previously served on the National Commodore Club’s young alumni board. Bergeron was also recently appointed by Mayor Megan Barry to serve on the Metro Nashville Board of Fair Commissioners. He attended Vanderbilt University Law School, earning his law degree in 2004.

Bibb honored for distinguished service

Bibb

Stites & Harbison, PLLC attorney Julian Bibb has earned the 2017 Elizabeth Collins Award for Distinguished Service by the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program (TLAP). The award was supported by the Tennessee Supreme Court and the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners.

The award bears the name of Elizabeth Collins, a Memphis-area attorney who served as a TLAP Commissioner and Volunteer. Collins was a fierce proponent of TLAP values and programs. She passed away in 2013.

Bibb was recognized for his longstanding service to his local community, the Board of Law Examiners, and the administration of justice. Bibb is a member of Stites & Harbison based in Franklin and Nashville.

Former CoreCivic CLO Groom joins Butler Snow

Groom

Steve Groom, former chief legal officer of CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America, and long-time executive, has joined Butler Snow’s Nashville office, where he will serve in a dual capacity as a principal in the firm’s business advisory subsidiary, Butler Snow Advisory Services, and practice in the law firm in an of counsel role.

Groom will continue to serve as special counsel to CoreCivic.

Groom’s experience includes corporate governance and strategy, risk management and compliance, banking and finance, leadership training and development, as well as a significant involvement in mediations and arbitrations. He is a Rule 31 listed general civil mediator.

NFL names VU’s Sills its first chief medical officer

Sills

Vanderbilt’s Allen Sills, M.D., has been chosen by the National Football League to be its chief medical officer, a newly created position.

Sills is the founder and co-director of the Vanderbilt Sports Concussion Center, professor of Neurological Surgery, Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation, director of the Neurosurgery Community Practice and a neuro-oncologist with Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

Barry announces new class of rising Creatives

Mayor Megan Barry signed a proclamation last year officially declaring Saturday, October 22nd as Creatives’ Day in Nashville. Creatives’ Day is a time of recognition dedicated to individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit and passion for innovation. It includes, but is not limited, to musicians, songwriters, visual artists, film art professionals, makers, journalists, photographers, dancers, and creative entrepreneurs living and working in Nashville and surrounding counties.

This year the Creatives Day Committee of Nashville launched its first-ever “Creatives on The Rise” social media award campaign. The goal of this annual campaign is to honor the those rising above their creative counterparts in various industries.

Residents of Nashville and surrounding counties nominated their favorite Creative within a two-week timeframe. More than 125 names were submitted for consideration, but only 23 Creatives were selected. Each winner will be featured in a YouTube campaign that will highlight their creative process in partnership with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library as well as the Nashville Public Library.

This year’s list of “Creatives on The Rise” include Lily C. Hansen, Jake Elliott, Omari Booker, Donna Woodley, Katie Wolf, Jamal Jenkins, Michael B. Hicks, Emoni Wilkins, Jason Eskridge, Rashad Rayford, Mike Floss, D’Llisha Davis, Jama Mohamed, Ciona Rouse, Anasa Troutman, Kristen Chapman Gibbons, Kelly Huddleston, Dj Jazzy T, Matt Kenigson, Joshua Lewis, Tammy O’Connor, Alyx Walker, Zach and Dorinda Walker.

NPT’s Curley retiring, Crane to become CEO

Curley

Beth Curley is retiring as president & CEO of Nashville Public Television, with Kevin Crane, NPT’s vice president of content and technology, having been selected by the board of directors effective July 6, 2017 as her successor.

Curley, who has served as NPT’s CEO since 2005, is a national leader in public broadcasting with a career that spans more than 40 years. During her time at NPT she refocused and revolutionized the way that the station serves the Middle Tennessee community by developing large, multi-year projects that encompass documentaries, robust digital content and extensive community engagement. She spearheaded projects including NPT Reports: Aging Matters, Children’s Health Crisis and Next Door Neighbors that have won national acclaim for the unique deep-dive approach to storytelling that all of these series employ.

Curley has been at the helm of the national PBS distribution of major productions such as Gershwin at One Symphony Place; The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken (American Experience); Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues (American Masters); Christmas at Belmont and Aging Matters: Living with Alzheimer’s & Dementia. She also managed the national presentations of No Going Back: Women and the War; Wessyngton Plantation: A Family’s Road to Freedom; Music City Roots; Civil War: The Untold Story; and Buffalo Bill’s American West.

Curley’s successor has played a key role in the creation and production of local programs including Aging Matters, Children’s Health Crisis, Tennessee Civil War 150 and the American Graduate project. In addition, he has overseen all of NPT’s broadcast and IT technology during a period of massive technological changes including the transition from analog to digital broadcast technology.

Prior to NPT, Crane worked at the WGBH Educational Foundation. He holds a master’s in educational technology from the University of Massachusetts and a B.A. in filmmaking from SUNY Binghamton.

DeCoster named principal at Civil Site Design Group

DeCoster

Sean K. DeCoster, PE, has been named principal at Civil Site Design Group, PLLC. DeCoster, who has been with Civil Site Design Group since 2012, was previously an associate principal for the firm.

DeCoster earned a degree in civil Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and a master’s in engineering management from Lipscomb University. With more than 20 years of engineering experience, he has worked on projects throughout the state; among his projects in the Nashville area are oneC1TY, Twelve|Twelve Condominiums, Stacks on Main Apartments, East Greenway Park Residential, Soar Adventure Tower, and the Williamson County Performing Arts Center.

DeCoster was a member of the Tennessee Leadership PE Class of 2015.

Pietenpol named Komen chief scientific advisor

Pieterpol

Jennifer Pietenpol, Ph.D., executive vice president for research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and director of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), has been named a chief scientific advisor for the nonprofit breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen.

She joins George Sledge Jr., M.D., professor of Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center, in the CSA role, including responsibility for guiding the Komen Scientific Advisory Board. The Scientific Advisory Board, whose members are global leaders in research, clinical practice and patient advocacy, helps guide Komen’s research programs and priorities.

Since 2010, Pietenpol has served as a Komen Scholar, an advisory group of distinguished leaders in breast cancer research and advocacy who are chosen for their knowledge and leadership within the scientific, research and advocacy communities, and for their own contributions to breast cancer research.

Pietenpol, the Benjamin F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Oncology at Vanderbilt, is a leader in molecular genetics and triple negative breast cancer. She and her colleagues were the first to identify subtypes of TNBC and are spearheading clinical research trials to determine the best potential therapies for each subtype.

VICC is among a group of 47 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and the only such center in Tennessee serving both adults and children.

First Farmers announces 2 appointments

Holland

First Farmers recently has named Craig Holland its senior operations officer and Harvey Church its senior retail banking executive.

Church

Holland and Church will focus on enhancing the customer experience at each of the bank’s 21 current locations and its new Brentwood location slated to open later this year.

Holland will oversee the bank’s deposit and loan operations as well as the credit administration. He has been with First Farmers for over 10 years, most recently serving as Williamson County president.

Church will be responsible for the bank’s retail branch network, which now spans 21 locations in eight Middle Tennessee counties. Church has been with First Farmers for more than 10 years.