Birmingham-Southern Board Gets New Trustees

BIRMINGHAM, AL - Birmingham-Southern College has appointed eight new members to its Board of Trustees. The new members will begin their roles on the board July 1.

According to a report by the Birmingham Business Journal, six of the new trustees are BSC alumni.

The new board members are:

• Daniel Coleman, a private investor, is the former chief executive officer of KCG Holdings and GETCO. He has currently a director of Circulogene and BuildUp and is an advisory board member for Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. This is his second term on BSC's board of trustees.

• Elizabeth Dunn, community investor who was most recently business development director for Ray & Poynor Properties and previously was program director of Heart Gallery Alabama. She is on the board of United Methodist Children’s Home, president of the Mountain Brook Board of Education, a lay leader for Canterbury UMC, and is a member of the 2019 class of Leadership Birmingham.

• Courtney French, ’95, is a partner with Fuston, Petway & French LLP and is president/CEO of radio station V94.9 FM (WATV). He is past president of the Alabama Association for Justice and is an active member of the American Association for Justice, National Bar Association, Alabama Lawyers Association and the Magic City Bar Association.

• Ashlyn Hines Meneguzzi, ’85, is a founder and real estate development executive with Bristol Development Group. She is also co-owner of Juel Salon in Franklin, Tennessee, as well as a private investor in several other ventures. She serves on the BSC Alumni Board and is involved at the board level in several nonprofit organizations in the Nashville area.

• Andy Newton, ’94, is president of infrastructure and operations at Uniti. He previously led the overall operations, strategic guidance and culture of Southern Light since its 1998 founding in Mobile, and during that time, the company became one of the top 10 largest pure fiber optic providers in the country. He is currently active in the Gulf Coast area, including serving on the Downtown Mobile Alliance board of directors.

• Keith Thompson, ’83, became senior pastor at Canterbury United Methodist Church in July. Previously he served as senior pastor of First United Methodist Church of Birmingham, worked as associate vice president for institutional advancement at BSC and served a three-year term on the college’s Board of Trustees. He also was recently accepted into the Living School, a two-year program taught through Richard Rohr’s Center for Contemplation and Action in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

• Sandra Barker Thurmond, ’84, vice president of primary care services for Children’s of Alabama, oversees operations and development of Pediatric Practice Solutions, the center’s primary care network, as well as for maintains and improves relationships with pediatricians around the state of Alabama. She also is a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and is president of the BSC Alumni Board.

• Vickie Lee VanValkenburgh, ’88, is real estate specialist with Van Valkenburgh & Wilkinson Properties Inc. Previously, she was a digital marketing consultant at WebDarter LLC and as a staff attorney for the U.S. District Court in Birmingham. She is active in the United Methodist Church and serves on BSC’s Alumni Board.

Photo courtesy of Birmingham-Southern College