All For Business

We sat down with Kelly Mirt, publisher of The News & Advance, to discuss his experience in writing, advertising, and news reporting, as well as how the world of print and digital is changing.

About Kelly Mirt

Kelly is a veteran newspaper executive who joined The News & Advance in 2018. He is a graduate of the University of Kansas and has also served in top advertising leadership positions at the Messenger Inquirer in Kentucky, the Daily Camera in Colorado, The State in South Carolina, The Augusta Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, and the Charlotte Observer. Before joining The News & Advance, Mirt was the president and publisher of the Wichita Eagle.

The News & Advance is the daily newspaper of record in Lynchburg. Its primary circulation area consists of the city of Lynchburg and the surrounding counties of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, and Campbell. The News & Advance is owned by Lee Enterprises. 

Welcome to Part 2 of our Around the Table with Leadership Lynchburg. We're bringing leadership to REAL conversations about REAL topics of our day. Leadership Lynchburg is the nationally award winning community leadership program in Lynchburg, Virginia offering programming for college students, emerging and mid-career managers, leaders, executives, and alumni. In this series, we’ll sit down with leaders, everyday citizens and subject matter experts to “go there” on uncomfortable topics.  

Why: 

• To help bring awareness, understanding and appreciation for the experiences of underrepresented populations. 

• To expand a leaders emotional and social intelligence with regard to diversity, equity and inclusion. 

• To lessen the tension in the community by appealing to our audience to bring positive action to issues of race, bias and inequity. 

Our Foundations: 

Leadership Lynchburg believes that creating opportunities for healthy conversation builds awareness, trust and ultimately relationship. Relationships can create productive action. Relationships enable you to “go there” on difficult topics trusting that the benefit is greater awareness and mutual understanding. Relationships create community.  

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Mark Hine at Liberty University. Dr. Hine is a long-term resident of the Lynchburg region and in this episode you'll hear him describe just how much has changed after the last four decades. You'll also hear his thoughts on the new student life and mental health awareness, leadership styles, and lessons-learned from his life experiences.

About Dr. Mark Hine

Dr. Mark Hine, Senior Vice President for Student Affairs, oversees the Office of the Dean of Students, Office of Residence Life, Student Health and Wellness Services, Office of Student Affairs Assessment, Student Government Association and Army and Air Force ROTC. He ensures that these offices provide guidance, programming, counseling, orientation, and support to students. Through extensive planned activities, students participate in spiritual, social, recreational and cultural activities that enhance their personal development.

Dr. Hine began working for LU’s Division of Student Affairs in 1979 when he became a Resident Director. Since that time, Dr. Hine has served as Associate Dean of Men, Dean of Graduate and Commuter Students, acting Dean of Men, Dean of Students, Associate Vice President for Student Development, Vice President for Student Affairs and now, Senior Vice President for Student Affairs.

Dr. Hine graduated from Liberty University in 1978 with a B.S. in Youth Ministry. In 1983, he earned his M.Div. from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and completed his D.Min. in May 2003.

We met with Ryan Zuidema, Chief of Police at the City of Lynchburg Police Department at the Skyline on top of The Virginian Hotel to discuss societal issues facing our region and nation and how the department partners with our community to protect our citizens, while respecting the rights and dignity of all persons.

Given that the issues discussed in this episode are timely and societal events change on a daily basis, it is important to note that this episode was recorded on April 16, 2021.

About Chief Zuidema

Prior to his current position, he served in a variety of operational and administrative roles throughout the department. Ryan received his MBA from Averett University and holds a graduate level certificate in local government management from Virginia Tech.

Ryan stays actively engaged with the community through serving on several boards and participating in a variety of local initiatives. If you see him in the month of November, turn the other way, as he joins a bunch of other guys growing mustaches as a part of the Mustaches for Kids fundraiser.

Ryan and his beautiful wife of 24 years, Jenna, moved to Lynchburg in 1996 from the Buffalo, NY area. They keep busy raising their two boys, Connor and Jack. Ryan is an avid hockey fan and roots for the Buffalo Sabres.

We had the opportunity to sit and talk with Gloria Witt, community leader and owner of Define Success Coaching & Consulting. Listen in to hear how she grew up in Virginia, her advice for leading your organization towards success, and how we should be responding to the events of our time.

About Gloria Witt

Gloria Witt, ACC, is the founder of Define Success Coaching and Facilitation Services, LLC. She is committed to developing executives and leaders that are known for their ability to produce defined results whether in a commercial, government, non-profit, or faith-based organization. Gloria launched Define Success Coaching and Facilitation Services following a 32 year career within the energy industry where she specialized in talent management, leadership development, and performance management consulting. Gloria believes that every individual has the power to achieve. She is passionate about serving others and helping individuals transform to create breakthrough measurable results. She is an experienced executive coach, expert facilitator, and trainer.

During her career, Gloria led the transformation of learning and development to enable the company’s objective to grow the business from $180M to $2B in revenue by implementing a talent management strategy that strengthened leadership behaviors to produce concrete business results. She was the force behind several innovative initiatives, including a leadership development strategy to grow high potentials that included strategic business projects, executive mentoring, and coaching. Gloria designed and implemented the organization’s first electronic performance management solution that aligned individual performance with business strategy. The concept was later expanded and launched internationally. In addition, she devised the organization’s six-dimensional Mentoring & Knowledge Management Program addressing aging workforce demographics. She is experienced in Competency Modeling, Change Management, and Succession Management.

We met up with Dr. David Brat, Dean of the Liberty University School of Business, to talk about his experience as a U.S. Congressman and businessman.

Before coming to Liberty, Dr. Brat served in the United States Congress for Virginia’s 7th District. He served on the Budget, Education and Small Business Committees, and Chaired the subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access.

His knowledge base comes from years of experience in business, as an economic consultant with Arthur Andersen and the World Bank and 20+ years of work in higher education teaching economics and ethics. He worked with the Senate side of the Virginia General Assembly for seven years. He also served as the president of the Virginia Association of Economists and was a member of the Virginia Board of Accountancy.

He is passionate about connecting and celebrating the long history between the life of the mind and the Christian tradition. His vision is to advance Liberty’s unique position in higher education as an institution which studies, teaches, knows and lives out the good life and actively puts faith to work in the real world of business and beyond as they train "Champions for Christ."

On this special episode of All For Business, Leadership Lynchburg, the nationally award-winning program of the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance begins to dive into the hard conversations our region and the nation is facing. Listen in to the "Around The Table" series to learn how to have tough conversations on issues such as race, equality, diversity, equity, and inclusion and much more.

We caught up with University of Lynchburg President Dr. Alison Morrison-Shetlar to talk about her experience working around the world in higher education.

About Dr. Morrison-Shetlar

Dr. Alison Morrison-Shetlar is the 11th president of the University of Lynchburg. She most recently served as provost and interim chancellor at Western Carolina University. She has held academic and leadership roles at private and public institutions at several locations in Europe and the United States. She and her husband, Dr. Robert Shetlar, officially joined the University of Lynchburg community in the summer of 2020.

We visited Liberty University's Williams Stadium to talk football, life, and the art of coaching with Head Football Coach Hugh Freeze.

About Coach Freeze

A winning tradition at the highest level of NCAA collegiate football was brought to Liberty Mountain when Hugh Freeze was introduced as the ninth head coach in football program history on Dec. 7, 2018.

Just like the other stops along his storied coaching career, Freeze has quickly elevated Liberty's program to unprecedented success during his short time with the Flames.

Freeze has experienced similar success at each of his head coaching stops: Lambuth University (2008-09), Arkansas State (2011) and Ole Miss (2012-16) and Liberty (2019-20).

Liberty is the second team in NCAA history to win a bowl game during its first two full seasons at the FBS level (2019 and 2020), both coming under Freeze's leadership.

Additionally, Freeze guided the Flames through one of the most unique seasons in NCAA college football history in 2020 where Liberty finished the year ranked No. 17 in the country and tied a program record with a 10-1 overall record.

We sat down in the studio within the state-of-the-art Liberty University School of Music to chat with award-winning singer and songwriter, Charles Billingsley. Charles has sold thousands of records and is currently a professor and local business owner.