The
University of Arkansas at Monticello will honor six alumni for their
achievements in business, industry and public policy as well as
their contributions to the university as part of UAM’s homecoming
celebration on Friday, Oct. 12.
UAM will present the Alumni Award for Achievement and Merit to
Dana Brooks, national affairs coordinator for the Florida Farm
Bureau; James Brown, president and publisher of Capital Gazette
Communications, Inc.; Jerry Hubbard, president of FTN Financial
Capital Assets Corporation; Tommy Maxwell, president and chief
executive officer of Maxwell Hardwood Flooring; and Dr. Steven C.
Moss, director of the Department of Microelectronics Technology at
The Aerospace Corporation.
In addition, the university will present the Continuing the
Connection Award to Classie Jones-Green, the first African-American
graduate of the nursing program of what was then Arkansas A&M
College.
The awards will be presented during the A&M-UAM Alumni Dinner at
7 p.m. in the John F. Gibson University Center. Tickets are $15 per
person and may be purchased by contacting the UAM Office of
Advancement at (800) 467-8148 or (870) 460-1028. Tickets will also
be available at the door.
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| Courtesy of
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Dana Brooks |
Dana Brooks is a Portland native who graduated from UAM in
1996 with a B.S. in agriculture. Prior to her current position with
the Florida Farm Bureau in Gainesville, Brooks spent seven years in
Washington, first as agriculture legislative assistant for U.S.
Representative Marion Berry of Arkansas, then as trade and agriculture
legislative assistant for Representative JoAnn Emerson of Mo. In
2002, she was named director of congressional relations for the
American Farm Bureau Federation. While working for the Farm Bureau,
Brooks lobbied for the farm bill and disaster assistance.
In 2006, she was one of four U.S. recipients of the McCloy
Fellowship, an agricultural exchange program that allowed her to
tour Germany and Belgium.
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Courtesy of Media Services |
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James Brown |
James Brown became president and publisher of Capital
Gazette Communications, Inc., the oldest newspaper publisher in the
United States, in 2007. A native of Warren and a 1971 graduate of
Monticello High School, Brown was part of the first freshman class
at UAM after the school’s merger with the University of Arkansas. He
received a degree in accounting from UAM in 1975 and earned an MBA
from La. Tech.
Brown began his career as a staff accountant for Georgia-Pacific
Corporation, taught accounting at Ouachita Baptist University, then
became accounts receivable manager and later accounting manager at
the Arkansas Gazette. He worked as both a plant and division
administrative manager for Burlington Industries before joining
Capital Gazette Communications in 1985 as assistant controller.
Brown climbed the corporate ladder at Capital Gazette, becoming
chief financial officer in 1995, general manager in 2001, president
in 2005, and chief executive officer in 2006 before becoming
president and publisher.
Brown and his wife, the former Eddie Brewster of Wilmar, live in
Arnold, Md. The couple has four sons – Cory, 31, of Annapolis, Md.;
Casey, 27, of Glen Burnie, Md.; Dustin, 24, of Arnold; and Daniel,
18, a freshman at the University of West Virginia.
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Courtesy of Media Services |
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Jerry
Hubbard |
Jerry Hubbard is an Arkansas City native and a 1969
Arkansas A&M graduate who serves as president of the Memphis-based
Financial Capital Assets Corporation, a subsidiary of First
Tennessee Bank.
Hubbard began his career as a cotton buyer and manager of the
Southeast Arkansas operations for Staple Cotton Coop Association of
Greenwood, Miss. He left the cotton business in 1975 to pursue a
career in finance, joining the South Arkansas Savings and Loan
Association as an assistant vice president and branch manager. In
1977, he joined Leader Federal Savings and Loan Association of
Memphis, eventually becoming vice president for lending and head of
loan production and operations.
Hubbard worked for Federal Mortgage Services and Securities
Corporation before moving to UMIC, a regional investment banking
firm located in Memphis. He became UMIC president and began
developing what would become one of the most innovative and
lucrative secondary market financial services organizations in the
region.
Hubbard formed First Capital Assets Corporation in 1988, which
was later acquired by First Tennessee Bank, where it became part of
the FTN financial umbrella. Hubbard has four children – David, 35,
of Baton Rouge, La., Douglas, 32, of Cordova, Tenn., Whitney, 23,
and Hallie, 22, of Memphis. Hubbard lives in Memphis with his wife,
Libby Core Hubbard.
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Courtesy of Media Services |
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Tommy Maxwell |
Tommy Maxwell is president and chief executive officer of
Maxwell Hardwood Flooring of Monticello, a company he founded in
1992. Maxwell turned a modest company that began with eight
buildings and 33 employees into one of the largest employers in Drew
County with 11 buildings and 210 full-time workers. Maxwell Hardwood
has undergone three expansions, the first in 1998, a second more
extensive one in 2001, and the latest, the addition of a
600-horsepower fire tube boiler, which has made the company
self-sufficient from the use of fossil fuels and more
environmentally friendly.
Born and raised in Warren, Maxwell graduated from UAM in 1971
with a degree in business. He took a job with the Crossett Chamber
of Commerce after graduation, then moved to Warren to take a
position with First State Bank.
He began a career in hardwood flooring by becoming a salesman for
Sykes Flooring Company of Warren, later worked for Masonite/Sykes
and spent five years in Dallas with Bruce Hardwood. He worked
another five years for Robbins Flooring in Warren before purchasing
a flooring mill owned by P.E. Barnes Company.
Maxwell Hardwood sells high quality solid hardwood flooring to
wholesalers through the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Europe. The
company produces a large variety of unfinished strip and plank
flooring in both glue-down and nail-down types.
Maxwell was named the 1999 Arkansas Small Business Person of the
Year while his company was named Business of the Year by Arkansas
Business Magazine. Maxwell and his wife, former UAM cheerleader
Beth Burchfield, have two children – Kristi Maxwell-Prince and Wil.
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Courtesy of Media Services |
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Steven C. Moss |
Dr. Steven C. Moss graduated from Arkansas A&M in 1970
with a degree in physics and mathematics. He earned a
master’s
degree in physics from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in physics from
North Texas State in 1981.
He was awarded a post-doctoral research associate position to
perform research at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and later
become a visiting professor at the Center for Applied Quantum
Electronics at North Texas State.
Moss joined The Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, Calif. in
1984 as a member of the technical staff in the optical physics
department. In 1992 he became a senior member of the technical staff
and in 1994 was promoted to research scientist. He became a manager
in
the photonics technology department in 1998 and in 1992 was
promoted to his current position as director of microelectronics
technology.
Moss is a member of numerous professional organizations and has
published more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals and
conference publications.
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Courtesy of Media Services |
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Classie Jones-Green |
A familiar figure to generations of UAM students, Classie
Jones-Green will receive the Continuing the Connection Award,
presented annually to the individual who best keeps alive the
connection between Arkansas A&M and UAM. A graduate of Drew Central
High School, Jones-Green attended Pines Vocational Technical School
where she became a licensed practical nurse in 1967. She enrolled in
the first registered nursing class at A&M in 1969 and was the first
African-American nursing graduate of the university.
During her 40-year nursing career, she has worked for Drew
Memorial Hospital, Bradley County Hospital, Jewish Hospital in St.
Louis, and Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff.
Jones-Green was the UAM campus nurse from 1976 to 1987 and organized
the first UAM Health Fair. She also worked with the Affirmative
Action Committee and was advisor to the UAM Soul Society, where she
helped coordinate activities for “Black Awareness Week,” which was
held annually in conjunction with National Black History Month.
Jones-Green worked as an occupational health nurse at
International Paper in Pine Bluff from 1987 until her retirement in
2004. She is a 1992 graduate of Leadership Pine Bluff, a Silver
Lifetime member of the Pine Bluff branch of the NAACP, and a member
of Democratic Women of Jefferson County.
Jones-Green was instrumental in the formation of the
African-American Alumni Association, which has created two
endowed
scholarships in her honor. Jones-Green is married to Clarence Green
and is the mother of three children, Steven, Bonita, and Scott. 
