Events

Rob Christensen wrote about North Carolina politics for The News and Observer for 45 years before retiring in December. He has appeared as an analyst on more than 600 TV and radio programs including CBS Evening News, ABC's Nightline, CNN's Inside Politics, MSNBC's Chris Matthew program, Fox News, NPR and the BBC.

In 2008, his book, The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics was named the best work of fiction by a North Carolinian by the N.C. Literary and History Society. His latest book, The Rise and Fall of the Branchhead Boys, was published by UNC Press in May. He is currently working on a history of the Daniels Family and The News and Observer.

UNCpress.org

Frank Buckless was named the Stephen P. Zelnak Jr. Dean of the Poole College of Management at NC State University on July 1, 2019.

Under his 18 year leadership of the Department of Accounting, the undergraduate and graduate accounting programs experienced significant growth and recognition, and the department received initial accreditation from the AACSB. During that time, the department also generated support for impactful academic research –– engaging with organizations such as the Bank of America Foundation to support the Enterprise Risk Management Initiative, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support product and technology commercialization.

A member of the NC State accounting faculty since 1989, Buckless received his doctorate in accounting from Michigan State University. He brought valuable corporate experience to Poole College from his tenure as auditor with Arthur Andersen and Company and is often invited to educate and train auditing professionals.

www.poole.ncsu.edu

https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-buckless-64449a9/

Sommer Wisher is a proud Tarheel, graduating with her BS in Dental Hygiene from UNC School of Dentistry. Prior to being in the dental profession, Sommer worked for 12 years in the nonprofit sector both locally and globally. Her career in private practice and volunteer work with Wake Smiles is a perfect combination to keep her passion for dentistry and access to care alive and she gets to put this into play in her new role as Executive Director of Wake Smiles, a free non-profit dental clinic in Wake County. Sommer is also an Adjunct Clinical Professor at UNC School of Dentistry in the Dental Hygiene Department, a member of the UNC Dental Hygiene Community Advisory Committee and UNC Dental Hygiene Strategic Planning Advisory Board. Outside of her career, she enjoys her family and seeing her sweet children grow!

Thomas Gorry earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina, where he was a collegiate wrestler. He went on to receive multiple advanced degrees, including a PhD from Walden University.

In May 2013, Gorry was inducted into the NCAA National Wrestling Hall of Fame. A 32-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps, Gorry served as a strategic planner and logistician. During Operation Enduring Freedom, he deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 and served as the Joint Operations Officer for U.S. Forces Afghanistan. Subsequently, Gorry was selected as a Brigadier General. Brigadier General Gorry was named Commanding General of the Marine Corps Installations on the East Coast. Based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Gorry served as the Base Commander of Camp Lejeune and as the Chairman of the North Carolina Commanders Council, engaging with the North Carolina Military Affairs Committee on military family and readiness issues. In July 2013, Gorry was admitted by the Governor of North Carolina into the Order of the Long Leaf Pine for his extraordinary service to the state.

His next assignment was as the Commandant of the Dwight D. Eisenhower School, a college of the National Defense University in Washington, DC. His final assignment in the Marine Corps was as the President of the Marine Corps University. He was recently selected as the Executive Director of the Veterans Life Center of North Carolina.

www.vlcnc.org

www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-gorry-79106387

Dr. Patrick Treuthardt grew up in the Detroit-Metro area and earned his B.S. in physics from The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, NM (about 80 miles south of Albuquerque). He then went on to earn his Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He was a visiting researcher at the University of Oulu in Oulu, Finland and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

He has been the Assistant Head of the Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences since 2013. His research involves studying the shapes and dynamics of galaxies like the Milky Way in order to understand their evolution.

https://treuthardt.weebly.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ptreuthardt

Twitter: @ptreuthardt

Instagram: @ptreuthardt

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/treuthardt

Buck Hunt is Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of HHHunt Corporation and has been with the company since 2003. Prior to his current position, he worked in both the Properties Development and HHHunt Homes divisions of HHHunt, where he sought new land positions for investment, performed due diligence and negotiated purchase contracts with landowners.

In 2013 Buck assumed his current role and along with the executive team, immediately began a focused effort to embrace and leverage the culture of HHHunt as a strategic competitive advantage. A strong focus on the experience that people have with HHHunt, both customers and employees, and a focus on increased brand awareness is now a substantial part of HHHunt’s long-term strategy to guide the organization’s growth and success.

Buck holds a Bachelors of Science degree in History and Political Science from Lynn University and a Masters in Business Administration from The University of North Carolina. He is also a current ULI member. Away from work, he enjoys snow skiing, mountain biking, music and cooking and currently resides in Apex with his wife and son.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hhhuntcorporation

Twitter: @HHHuntCorp

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hhhunt-corporation

Dereck Whittenburg, who achieved national prominence as captain and star guard on NC State’s 1983 national championship team, returned to his alma mater in the fall of 2013 as Senior Assistant to the Head Coach/Director of Player Development. In that role, he serves as a mentor to the Wolfpack and assists with player development. In the two seasons since his return, Whittenburg has helped the Pack to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances and a 44-28 record that includes the team’s Sweet 16 berth in 2015.

Recently, he served as a college basketball analyst for ESPN from 2011-13 and was a regional scout for the Utah Jazz in 2013. He was also the executive producer of the network’s acclaimed 30 for 30 documentary, “Survive and Advance,” the only two-hour production in the series. “Survive and Advance” has become one of the most-watched pieces of ESPN’s famed documentary series which won an Emmy for Outstanding Sports Documentary Series in May 2014.

www.coachwhittenburg.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dereck_Whittenburg

Twitter: @DWhittNCstate

Melinda took a giant leap of faith and jumped ship from her success in corporate America to follow a dream. Recognizing the gifts she was given and skills she developed over the years in a successful career had a higher purpose, Melinda surrendered to the unfolding of a bigger life vision: to lift women who were less fortunate. In the open space created by that brave jump into the unknown, she began the process of bringing BLOOMHERE – a space and place of empowerment for women survivors— to life. In summer 2019, BLOOMHERE opened the first brick and mortar home where women who’ve been released from prison, are leaving halfway houses, shelters or domestic violence safe houses can come to heal, to learn, to grow their own vision and path to a fresh start and a new life. Under this roof, BLOOMHERE will provide services, classes and training: from resume writing and interview skills to nutrition counseling; yoga and meditation to personal hygiene and beauty guidance. BLOOMHERE seeks to empower women who’ve been challenged by difficult paths, events or life choices to recognize there is always a chance to bloom again, and with the right support, take their own leaps to a better life. Melinda’s long-term vision for BLOOMHERE is to have multiple BLOOMHERE centers in cities across the country to serve women in need. We look to not only provide necessary life skills and self-care tools to those who’ve not been offered them before, but to encourage successful, gifted women to share their knowledge, wisdom and experience to lift and empower others. We only rise when we rise together. Melinda is known for her sense of humor, her passion for life, her ability to talk to anyone, anywhere, about anything and make those who are lucky enough to share space with her to feel loved and at home. She is thrilled to bring this vision to life.

Facebook: bloomhere
Twitter: @Bloomhereorg
Instagram: @bloomhereorg
LinkedIn: bloomhere
 

Cheslie Kryst is a complex civil litigation attorney licensed to practice law in North and South Carolina. Passionate about criminal justice reform, she has worked pro bono for clients serving excessive time for low-level drug offenses. Cheslie was crowned Miss USA in May 2019 and was named a correspondent for the nationally broadcast entertainment news show, Extra, soon after her win. She regularly interviews the world’s biggest names, from Tom Hanks to Oprah Winfrey.

Cheslie is a Dress for Success Impact Ambassador and supports chapters across the country. She also serves on the National Board of Directors for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Cheslie earned both her law degree and MBA from Wake Forest University. She graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from the Honors College at the University of South Carolina, where she also ran Division I track and field.

CEO and Co-Founder of Aware Senior Care Managing and leading the business aspects of Aware Senior Care, Tim is an alumnus of the Villanova University School of Engineering. He served our country as a U.S. Navy Submarine Officer, and spent much of his career as an executive in the technology industry.

His vision for an in-home care organization stems from the struggles following his own father’s stroke and time in a nursing facility. That experience led Tim to ensure his mother could stay in her home, despite difficulties with memory loss and household maintenance. Tim’s intimate understanding of the stresses of a loved one’s need for independence makes him uniquely qualified to recruit only the best caregivers and manage the day-to-day operations at Aware Senior Care.

Since starting Aware with his wife and RN Director Gina Murray in October of 2014, the company is currently the most awarded and reviewed home care agency in the Triangle achieving Home Care Pulse’s highest award as a 2019 Leadership recipient along with best home care from Senioradvisor.com as well as earning a caring star as best home care from caring.com. Tim is currently a board member of the Dementia Alliance of North Carolina and a member of the Cary-Kildaire Rotary Club.

Links to other speaker-related info: https://awareseniorcare.com/aware-senior-care-blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/awareseniorcare/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/murraytim/

Philip was appointed CEO in 2019 and is responsible for overseeing Pharmazam in keeping with its vision of defining and directing the delivery of personal medication management to all its customers, managing all operation and business activity, as well as leading a group of diverse individuals to think beyond their limits. Philip has spent the last 35 years in the financial industry advising entrepreneurs and business owners both domestically and internationally in areas of investment, risk management, and broader institutional and personal wealth management services. His professional career encompasses leading regional efforts for some the world's most formidable financial firms including JP Morgan in New York, Bessemer Trust in Atlanta, to a principal partner in a start-up investment firm. Having grown up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he has enjoyed the opportunity to work professionally with business leaders and institutions in South America and other countries around the world. Philip earned his BA in Finance and Business Management from North Carolina State University.

Philip has enjoyed multiple community leadership positions including Vice-Chair of the Impeesa Scout District, Trustee and Chair of Development and Governance Committees of both the Atlanta and NC Symphonies. He served on the Woodruff Arts Center Long Range Committee, was a founding member of the Cox Family Enterprise Center Advisory Board. He resides in Raleigh, NC with his wife and two sons.

Facebook                             https://www.facebook.com/Pharmazam/

Twitter                                   https://twitter.com/PharmazamApp

Instagram                             https://www.instagram.com/pharmazam/

LinkedIn                               https://www.linkedin.com/company/pharmazam/

Jamie Vernon is executive director and CEO at Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society and publisher of American Scientist magazine. From 2014 to 2017, he served as Sigma Xi's director of science communications and publications and editor-in-chief of American Scientist. He was also Sigma Xi's co-director of operations from 2014 to 2015. Earlier, Jamie spent more than a decade conducting cell and molecular biology discovery research as a student and research fellow developing genetic engineering tools, designing and analyzing HIV-neutralizing antibodies for vaccine production, and studying the effects of gene duplication on vertebrate evolution and development. An award-winning science educator, he started communicating science to non-academic audiences in 2004 as a public speaker and independent blogger. While pursuing a career in biotechnology, he regularly contributed articles to The Intersection, a Discover magazine blog about science and policy. He changed his career emphasis from research to science policy and communications by serving as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Policy Fellow and subsequently as an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). His primary role at DOE was to improve the measurement and communication of the economic impacts of the Department’s $2.7 billion annual investment in clean and efficient energy technologies. In 2011, he helped launch the DOE's National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition. He was co-chair of digital media, from 2012 to 2013, for an interagency climate communications working group within the White House’s U.S. Global Change Research Program. In 2014, he co-founded Potential Energy DC, an energy business startup accelerator, based in Washington, DC. Jamie holds a B.S in Zoology from North Carolina State University, an M.S. in Biotechnology from East Carolina University, and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.

https://www.sigmaxi.org/news/news-archive/2017/05/25/sigma-xi-names-a-new-executive-director-and-ceo https://www.sigmaxi.org/about/contact-us/staff-directory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlvernon/

Twitter: @SigmaXiCEO

Burke Koonce has been an analyst and investor for more than two decades, focusing on serving value-focused investors and long-short equity hedge fund investors. He joined Raymond James as a financial advisor in 2017.

Burke was the founder and owner of Helicon Research, a provider of investment research to institutional asset managers. Burke founded Helicon in 2010 before serving one year in 2011-2012 as Executive Vice President of the North Carolina Bankers Association. Prior to starting Helicon, Burke was the senior research analyst at Oak Value Capital Management in Chapel Hill, NC, where he worked from 2005 to 2010. Before joining Oak Value, Burke was a credit analyst at Silverback Asset Management, also in Chapel Hill. Prior to joining Silverback, Burke was a senior equity analyst covering the leisure sector at Merrill Lynch in New York City for four years. Burke started his career in investments and banking as an associate with Trident Financial Corp. in Raleigh. He has also worked as a newspaper reporter.

Burke received a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1992 and received his MBA from Kenan-Flagler Business School in 1998.

Burke was an executive producer of the award-winning financial documentary film Betting On Zero, which debuted at TriBeCa Film Festival in 2016 and is now licensed by Netflix.  Starting this month, Burke is a contributing writer for thestreet.com, the financial website founded by Jim Cramer.

A native of Raleigh, Burke is an elder at White Memorial Presbyterian Church and serves on the board of trustees at Transitions Life Care (formerly Wake County Hospice). Burke and his wife Adora have been married since 1998 and have two children.

@burkekoonce

Justice Mark A. Davis was appointed to the Supreme Court of North Carolina in March 2019. Prior to that, he served as an Associate Judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals for over six years. He worked as a Special Deputy Attorney General in the North Carolina Department of Justice for five years. He spent thirteen years as an attorney at Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice where he was a Member of the firm in the Litigation Section. He also served as General Counsel in the Office of the Governor for approximately two years. Justice Davis received his law degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law and served on the North Carolina Law Review. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Upon graduation from law school, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Franklin T. Dupree, Jr. in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Justice Davis has been active in the North Carolina Bar Association, serving as a Vice-President and as a member of the Appellate Rules Committee and the Bench-Bar Liaison Committee. In 2018, he received a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in Judicial Studies from the Duke University School of Law. He is also a recipient of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine. Justice Davis has given presentations at numerous Continuing Legal Education seminars in North Carolina on the subject of appellate advocacy. Justice Davis is the author of a book on the North Carolina Supreme Court titled A Warren Court of Our Own: The Exum Court and the Expansion of Individual Rights in North Carolina. He and his wife Marcia have been married since 1992 and have three children.

Twitter@JudgeMarkDavis

Facebook: JudgeMarkDavis