Medical Center announces new board members
Eight new members have joined the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Board, an impressive group of Vanderbilt alumni and community leaders who have contributed significantly to both Vanderbilt and the communities in which they live and work. The Medical Center Board is a committee of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust.
“These eight individuals bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise that will enhance our Medical Center Board,” said Dr. Harry R. Jacobson, vice chancellor for Health Affairs. “They are exemplary citizens, highly recognized for their contributions to Vanderbilt, their professions and their communities. I am very pleased they have agreed to serve in this leadership capacity at an exciting time for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, when we’re well on our way to being acknowledged as one of the 10 best medical centers in the country.
The eight new members are:
Thomas F. Cone. A Board of Trust member since 1996, Cone received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Vanderbilt University in 1960. He has served as president and chairman of the board of Cone Oil Company, Inc. since 1969. He is also chairman of the board of Cone Solvents, Inc. and Tennessee Adhesives Company. In 1964 he earned an LL.B. from the Nashville School of Law and earned his J.D. from the same school in 1971.
Cone is chairman of the board of trustees of Battle Ground Academy and is on the board of directors of Bank of America. He is past president of the Vanderbilt National Alumni Association and served as the 1985 National Reunion Chairman for Vanderbilt. He has served on the executive board of the Boy Scouts of America and on the boards of directors for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Nashville, the Rotary Club, the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, the Tennessee Bar Association, the Founders Club of the Petrochemical Industry, the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels and Woodmont Baptist Church.
He and his wife, Charlotte, have two children, Susan and Thomas Jr.
Brownlee O. Currey Jr. A Board of Trust member since 1968, Currey graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1949. He is president of Currey Investments in Nashville and has extensive experience in the local and national financial communities.
He began working for Equitable Securities Corporation the day after graduation, then in 1952 left to become a fighter pilot on active duty for the U.S. Air Force. He returned to Nashville and worked as a securities broker for Equitable Securities until 1957, then transferred to the company’s New York Office. He helped run the company’s eastern division, then continued with the company when it was sold to American Express Company in 1968. In 1970 he became vice chairman of Commerce Union Corporation in New York, which became Sovran Bank Corporation, then C & S, then NationsBank. He resigned as vice chairman and in 1980 purchased the Nashville Banner where he served at different times as chairman, chief executive officer, and publisher between 1980 and 1998. In 1995, he co-founded Osborn Communications and served as chairman of that company until it was sold in 1997.
Currey currently serves on the boards of Thomas Nelson Publishing Company, One Sutton Place South Corporation of New York City, the United States Equestrian Team, the International Tennis Hall of Fame, the National Foundation for Facial Reconstruction and many others.
In 1984, Currey received Tennessee’s Outstanding Achievement Award from Gov. Lamar Alexander. He and his wife, Agneta Akerlund, are the parents of three children, Christian Brownlee, Stephanie Currey Ingram, and Frances Currey Briggs, and have nine grandchildren.
L. Hall Hardaway Jr. A Board of Trust member since 1990, Hardaway graduated with a civil engineering degree from Vanderbilt in 1955. He has been with Hardaway Construction Company since 1956, first as a field superintendent during his final year of school, then working in all phases of the construction field. He currently serves as chairman of the board of the company.
He has served on the Board of Governors for the Nashville Area Chamber of commerce and was president and director of the Nashville chapter of Associated General Contractors. Hardaway also served on the boards of Dominion Bank of Middle Tennessee, Davidson Academy and First Baptist Church of Hendersonville. He has been director of the Trust Board of Sovran Bank, director and vice president of Citizens Bank in Hendersonville, and director of Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee, Inc.
He is a member of the School of Engineering’s Lewis Society and the National Commodore Club and is a former president of the Nashville Vanderbilt Club.
He and his wife, Linda, have three children, Cathy, Stan and Kay.
H. Rodes Hart. A Board of Trust member since 1979, Hart graduated from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor’s degree in 1954. In 1974 he completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
He is principal owner, chairman and chief executive officer of Franklin Industries Inc. where he has been employed since 1956. Franklin Industries consists of Franklin Industrial Minerals and Franklin Brick Company. Franklin Industrial Minerals is the largest producer of high-calcium chemical limestone in the country. Franklin Brick Company is the largest distributor of brick in the United States, with 20 distribution centers.
He is a director of Franklin Industries Inc. and Murphy Oil Corporation and serves on the advisory council of Bank of America. He and his wife, Patricia, have three children, Henry Rodes Hart Jr., Kevin Ingram Hart, and Patti Rodes Hart, and eight grandchildren.
Joanne F. Hayes. A Board of Trust member since 1997, Hayes received her bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University in 1968. A civic leader and active fund-raiser for numerous community projects, she has served as chair of many local events such as the Kappa Alpha Theta Bal d’Hiver, The Swan Ball, Applause ‘81 (benefiting the Tennessee Performing Arts Foundation) and the Heart Gala for the American Heart Association.
Hayes has served on the boards of the Nashville Vanderbilt Club, the Nashville Humane Association, the Tennessee Dance Theatre, and the Nashville Opera Association. She also worked with the Nashville-area YMCA to develop the Academy for Women of Achievement program. She has also served on the board of directors for Third National Bank, now SunTrust Bank. She is the daughter of the late Sam Fleming, former chairman of the Board of Trust, and is married to Michael Hayes.
Kenneth L. Roberts. A Board of Trust member since 1976, Roberts graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1954, spent two years as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Chemical Corps, and then earned the Founder’s Medal when he graduated from Vanderbilt Law School with his LL.B. in 1959.
Following graduation, Roberts spent a year as an assistant professor of law before practicing with Waller, Lansden and Dortch. In 1966 he moved to Commerce Union Bank where for five years he served as vice president, senior vice president, executive vice president and a member of the board. In 1971 he became president and chief executive officer at Central National Bank and Central National Corporation in Richmond, Va.
After transferring in 1976 to First American Corp., he eventually assumed the position of chairman of the board and chief executive officer of First American Corporation and First American National Bank. He now serves as president of both the Frist Foundation and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and as executive director for The Frist Foundation.
Roberts has served as president of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the board for the Salvation Army and as a board member for Genesco, Inc., the United Way of Middle Tennessee, and the Nashville Symphony. He has been secretary of the Board of Trust from 1991 to 2003.
He is the father of Kenneth Lewis Roberts Jr. and Patrick Hagan Foster Roberts. He is married to the former Delphine Sloan.
Julie C. Stadler. A community member of the Medical Center Board, Stadler is a 1981 graduate of Hollins University in Roanoke, Va. She is a member of the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital Board and is the daughter of Ann and Monroe Carell Jr. He is a member of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust.
She is currently the chair of the 2003 Swan Ball, the major fund-raising event for Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, and has served on the board of Friends of Warner Park for the past three years, currently serving as the board secretary.
Stadler has chaired Sunday in the Park, a benefit for Warner Parks, and the Trees of Christmas Gala, a benefit for Cheekwood. She is a past board member of the Dede Wallace Center and the Friends of Children’s Hospital.
Stadler has also served on the board of directors of Central Parking Corp. for the past five years. She is married to George Stadler. They have two children, Claire and Monroe.
Dr. Levi N. Watkins Jr. A new Board of Trust member, Watkins, in 1970, was the first African-American graduate of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Watkins, a member of Vanderbilt’s Canby Robinson Society, is professor of cardiac surgery and Associate Dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Watkins served a surgical internship at Johns Hopkins and in 1978 became the hospital’s first African-American chief resident in cardiac surgery.
He has received numerous honors for his pioneering work on the automatic defibrillator as well as his civic involvement. In February 1980, at Johns Hopkins, he performed the world’s first implantation of the automatic implantable defibrillator in a patient and subsequently developed several techniques for implanting the device. He has also helped developed the cardiac arrhythmia service at Hopkins where new open-heart techniques are performed to treat patients at risk of sudden cardiac death.
Watkins has also worked to increase diversity at Hopkins. Four years after joining the medical school’s admissions committee in 1979, minority representation rose by 400 percent. In 1983 he was appointed to the National Board of the Robert Wood Johnson Minority Faculty Development Program, which seeks to increase the number of minority medical faculty nationally.
Watkins, a graduate of Tennessee State University, was awarded the Vanderbilt Medal of Honor for outstanding alumnus in 1998, and was honored again in 2002 when a professorship and associate deanship was established in his name at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in recognition of his efforts for diversity in medical education. George C. Hill, Ph.D. holds the title of Levi Watkins Professor and Associate Dean for Diversity. Watkins’ work has been featured in books, a PBS documentary and in Science, the official publication for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
During the spring 2003 Board of Trust meeting, for the first time, due to a Board of Trust reorganization, the title of emeritus or emerita was bestowed upon all trustees over the age of 70. The board created the Emeritus program to recognize the longest-serving members of the Board of Trust for their contributions to the University.
Members of the Medical Center Board who became emeritus were Frank A. Godchaux III, Dr. Judson G. Randolph, James A. Webb Jr., and David K. Wilson.
Also, in the reorganization, board committee chairmanships were limited to one-year terms, renewable up to three terms.
Edward G. Nelson, who has chaired the Medical Center Board for 20 years, since August 1983, stepped down as chair but will continue on the board for another year, until he achieves emeritus status; Orrin H. Ingram II, president and CEO of Ingram Industries in Nashville, succeeds him as chair.