Executive in Residence
The Ferrum College Executive in Residence initiative is designed to bring the real-world business experience of current and retired business professionals to the classroom. Guest executives tour campus, audit classes, interact with students and faculty and are asked to deliver a lecture sharing their personal experiences and philosophies. Speakers offer insight on the knowledge, skills and leadership qualities necessary for a successful business career. Many of the lectures are open to both the College community and the general public.
If you are unable be in attendance for the lecture but would like to view it, livestream can be found here.
2012-13 Fall Semester Speakers
Julie Swanson • September 19, 2012
In July 2005 Julie Swanson became the President/Chief Executive Officer of Lutheran Family Services of Virginia (LFSVA). She has since reorganized the structure of LFSVA by combining corporations and establishing offices and schools in new parts of Virginia. In 2011 she led the agency in the acquisition of a for-profit company and through this strategic decision as well as growth of other division LFSVA has increased from $10 million in annual operating to $25 million with 375 employees. Services have been expanded beyond children to include older adults and individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Services are provided at 19 locations and six group homes.
Swanson served as the Vice President for Programs and Agency Advancement at Lutheran Family Services of Colorado, Regional Director with Lutheran Ministries of Florida in Tampa and for 15 years was the Executive Director of Lutheran Social Services of the Virgin Islands. Throughout her career she has been involved with programs and advocacy efforts for children, families, refugees and the elderly. She served as a national Lutheran Disaster Response Consultant after experiencing and then coordinating the response and rebuilding efforts for Hurricane Hugo when it devastated the island of St. Croix in 1989.
LFSVA traces its roots to the Lutheran Children’s Home of the South founded in 1888 to provide care for orphaned children. The organization is built on the foundation of being born of faith and open to all. Its current mission is providing services and assistance to empower communities, families and individuals in their journey to well-being.
See photos of her visit here.
Patrick Patterson • October 3, 2012
Patrick Patterson, President of Novozymes Biologicals in Salem, Va. will share experiences from his 18 years with Novozymes on balancing Financial, Social, and Environmental goals to create a great place to work and answer the questions such as: What do Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Glenn Close all have in common with Novozymes? How do we replace 50% of our gasoline requirements by 2030? Keep bread from going stale? Make bottles from plants? Produce caviar in the desert? And, things you should consider before getting married in a hot air balloon.
Novozymes is ranked one of the top 25 Best Companies to Work for in America and for the tenth time, Novozymes is the industry leader of the biotechnology sector in the Dow Jones World and STOXX Sustainability Indexes. Population growth, resource scarcity, and climate change create a growing need for companies to make more from less. Novozymes applies Biology to business to develop new solutions for conserving water, energy and raw materials. Working together with customers in over 130 countries and 40 industries, Novozymes aims to reduce global CO2 emissions 75 million tons by 2015.
See photos of his visit here.
Nancy Howell Agee • October 31, 2012
As President & Chief Executive Officer of Carilion Clinic, Agee oversees the not-for-profit healthcare organization which serves nearly one million people in Virginia through hospitals, outpatient specialty centers and advanced primary care practices. She was at the forefront of the successful initiative to reorganize the Roanoke-based hospital services into a patient-centered clinic with a leadership infrastructure of physicians.
Agee has more than 30 years of service to Carilion and holds degrees with honors from the University of Virginia and Emory University. She began her career in nursing at Carilion, serving in various management roles over the past 20 years. In 1996 she was appointed Vice President Medical Education. In 2000 she became Senior Vice President of the organization, advancing to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in 2001.
See her full remarks here.
See photos of her visit here.
Jeffrey A. Marks • November 14, 2012
Jeffrey Marks is president and general manager of WDBJ7, a prominent television, Web and mobile information and entertainment service in southwest Virginia.
Marks is active in community affairs, serving as president of the board of trustees of Opera Roanoke Board and presiding over that organization during a remarkable rebound from the effects of the slow economy. He was chairman of the 2010 United Way campaign and currently serves as chairman of the United Way board of directors. He also serves on the boards of the Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Better Business Bureau, the Serve First children’s tennis foundation and the Western Virginia Foundation for the Arts and Sciences board, the governing entity of Center in the Square. Marks has coached journalists at the Poynter Institute and has traveled to Romania and Ukraine on numerous occasions to train broadcasters.
Marks began his career working at radio stations in Lexington, Kentucky while earning his bachelor's degree in telecommunications from the University of Kentucky. He went on to work as executive producer of news at WJLA-TV in Washington, and a producer and reporter for WHAS Radio and Television in Louisville, Kentucky.
Before his move to southwest Virginia, Marks worked under the same ownership as general manager of WDBJ7's sister company, WAGT in Augusta, Georgia. He also served as general manager of WLBZ-TV in Bangor, Maine, and News 12 New Jersey, an all-news regional cable channel. As news director of WCSH-TV in Portland, Maine, Jeff oversaw the station's growth to first place in news ratings, a position it still holds more than 25 years later.
Marks was elected chairman of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the international organization of journalists in electronic media, and served eight years on the RTNDA board.
As Executive Chairman of the Board of Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. Quillen’s significant coal company experience has enabled him to develop expertise and insight into the business challenges uniquely relevant to coal companies, particularly in the areas of risk management and the design and implementation of coal mine safety processes and procedures.
Michael W. McColl '93 • April 10, 2013
For 11 football seasons and counting, McColl has been the voice of “the NFL on FOX” (the one that tells you who your team is playing and who sponsored the day’s games). For the past decade, up until last year, it was his voice we heard on E! Entertainment television. And, if you’ve paid attention to ABC Dancing with the Stars, CW’s Gossip Girl or CBS game shows, The Price Is Right and Let’s Make a Deal, you have heard him there as well.
Add to this hundreds of movie trailers for the FX network, documentaries and series narration for the Discovery Channel and NatGeo, and that spells McColl’s remarkable career in voice acting.
A native of Greensboro, North Carolina, McColl’s first job after graduating from Ferrum in 1993 was managing a small AM radio station and local cable channel in Stuart, Virginia. While there he worked with a talent agent in Charlotte and began a series of on-camera auditions. He was eventually accepted at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles and graduated in 1998. His “big break” came in 2000 when he was chosen to voice the movie trailer for a Spike Lee film entitled Love and Basketball followed shortly afterward with the contracts as the voice of E! Entertainment Television and the NFL on FOX.
McColl currently resides in Studio City, California with Gwyn, his wife of 10 years, and their daughters Scarlett and Tullah. He serves as a board member of Hollywood Young Life and Random Acts and is a partner in Dogwood Cellars, a boutique winery that produces award-winning, handcrafted wines in Sonoma County, California.