The Last Word

Emerging stars shine brightly

By Steve Darden

This column is being used pursuant to permission granted by the Business Journal of TriCites TN/VA.

This year’s 40 Under Forty honorees have the potential to do great things for our region. Since it began saluting these “Emerging Stars of the Business Community” in 1993, the Business Journal of Tri-Cities has now recognized 1,320 such leaders. That’s a lot of collective impact by individuals who have helped make our area a unique place to live, work, worship and recreate.

I found Lisa Carter’s keynote remarks at this year’s gala spot on. Ms. Carter, an accomplished leader who has served as CEO of the Niswonger Children’s Hospital and currently serves as CEO of Ballad Health’s Southern Region, urged the honorees to view their recognition as a launch point, rather than the pinnacle of their careers. She also reminded them to remember those who had mentored them and to likewise serve as a mentor to the recipients, but for everyone.

As a member of the second 40 Under Forty class, along with my law partner at Hunter, Smith & Davis, Jimmie Miller, I was keenly aware that many mentors at the firm and elsewhere had put me in a position to make an impact with clients and in the community. Those experiences and the Business Journal’s recognition helped give me confidence to seek local office, thus being elected to the City Commission of Johnson City in May 2001 and becoming mayor in a second term. I was honored to serve as our firm’s Managing Partner for eight years while practicing law and helping support over 50 families who depend on our small business for their livelihoods. Our firm’s people and culture have allowed it to endure for nearly 110 years.

This year, one of our firm’s rising stars, Jordan Richardson, was recognized. Jordan was propelled by his teachers and coaches at Science Hill High School and his Young Life leaders, and he became a Young Life Leader himself. Jordan was also the beneficiary of the strong management development program devised by Tom Seaton at the Firehouse Restaurant where he worked during his years at ETSU and then more recently by mentors at our firm.

The observation attributed to Alex Haley is when you see a turtle on top of a fence post, it’s safe to assume it had help getting there. We ALL have had help getting there, wherever “there” might be.

The willingness to accept help is not only wise, but also a leadership trait that demonstrates confidence on the leader’s part and an embodiment of Aristotle’s ancient principle that “the whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts.” In modern times, it is recognized that a team/organization is more likely to achieve or exceed its goals when participants are mindful of the acronym “TEAM”: Together Everyone Achieves More.

I experienced this reality firsthand with the Tweetsie Trail, which evolved from dream to reality to become the most popular project of the decade. No surprise, as it was supported by the largest and broadest-based coalition of individuals and organizations—not the least of which was a determined city staff—that I can recall.

Thanksgiving, which recently passed, is a national holiday rooted in an Executive Order issued by President George Washington in 1789 in which he directed the citizenry to pause and give thanks for our collective good fortune as a nation. The preamble to our Constitution makes clear that we have the personal opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty, but also the duty to secure such blessings to ourselves and our posterity. These are calls to not only be grateful for our blessings, but to lead—when and where we can—so that others prosper as well.

I will close in concert with Ms. Carter’s message: Don’t try to do it all yourself and be willing to both accept and give help. Recall that the Pilgrims left England, where they tired of religious intolerance, and spent a decade in Holland preparing for the New World. In Massachusetts, they survived by relying on their faith and their tenacity but also by building relationships with the Natives, who taught them much about farming and surviving the New England winter. Sometimes the help we need most may come from an unexpected source.

Congratulations and Godspeed to each of this year’s 40 emerging stars of the business community!