2021 Board of Directors
For a Board Member’s description, please click on their name. Individual members may serve two consecutive, three year terms. Board responsibilities include: fundraising, policy making, long range planning, land protection, and a range of specialized volunteer activities.
Steve ArnettFLC Treasurer
Steve Arnett currently serves as FLC’s Treasurer and prior to that served on FLC’s Foundation Board for several years. Steve retired as the Senior Vice President of The Trust Company in 2018. He graduated with honors and received his Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Tennessee. Steve is a former member of the University of Tennessee Chancellor’s Associates and the Pellissippi State Technical Community College Foundation Board. Other boards Steve has been a part of include the Boys & Girls Club of the Tennessee Valley, Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Tennessee Valley Employee Benefit Council. He has also held executive committee positions for East Tennessee Foundation, Nucleus Knoxville board and served as president of Knoxville Estate Planning Council. Steve is also involved in supporting Boy Scouts of America (Great Smoky Mountain Council,) Florence Crittenton Agency, Cancer Support Center, and Leadership Knoxville (class of 2007). He is a Southern Trust School graduate and has 26 years of trust management experience.
Dan BarnettFLC President
Dan Barnett serves as the President of FLC’s Board of Directors and also as a Board Member of the FLC Properties Foundation. Dan is the founder and principle of Blue Ridge Development, LLC and Blue Ridge Realty, Inc. Dan received his Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and his Masters in Business Administration from the College of William and Mary. Dan is a member and past president of the Farragut Rotary Club and serves on their Board’s Foundation. He has held leadership positions in local, state and national offices of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. Dan was a member of Leadership Knoxville’s Class of 2004.
Sherry Browder
Sherry Browder is the Senior Vice President & Deputy Chief Operating Officer at Pro2Serve. Prior to this position, Sherry served as the President of Government Services for Management Solutions, LLC and as UCOR’s Reindustrialization Manager at the East Tennessee Technology Park (the former Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant) in Oak Ridge. She has more than 30 years of leadership and project management experience in engineering, environmental restoration and compliance, and has worked with multiple state and federal agencies including the DOE, DOD, DHS, EPA and NASA. She plays a key role in leading Management Solutions’ Government Services sector as it continues to grow its market position and expand the services offered to new and existing customers. Prior to joining UCOR, she served in many roles at SAIC/Leidos in Oak Ridge for almost 20 years, including Division Manager of its nationwide remediation business and Fed/Civ Account Manager for the Environmental and Civil Infrastructure Operation.
Active in her community, Sherry supports several local organizations. Her previous experience includes alumni of Leadership Oak Ridge, Chair of United Way of Anderson County, Chair of the Oak Ridge Economic Partnership, Chair of the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee (CROET), and Chair and Treasurer of the East Tennessee Economic Council (ETEC). Currently she serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Committees for both ETEC and CROET. Sherry graduated from Leadership Knoxville as a class of 2017 participant and is a member of their Curriculum Committee. She’s the proud recipient of ETEC’s 2018 Muddy Boot Award. She is also on the Board of Directors for the Farragut High School Education Foundation.
Edward Caudill
Edward Caudill served as an FLC Board Member from 2005-2007, returning to the Foothills Board in 2019. Edward is a Professor Emeritus at UT Knoxville’s College of Communication and Information – School of Journalism and Electronic Media. Edward received a B.A. in English literature from the University of Cincinnati, a M.A. in journalism from Ohio State University, Columbus, and a Ph.D. in mass communications from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He worked in newspapers for about seven years in Ohio, most of those years at the Columbus Citizen-Journal. He has written several books on Darwinism, the Scopes trial, and creationism. He has co-authored with Dr. Paul Ashdown, a former colleague at UT and now a professor emeritus of the same program, books on several Civil War figures, including Nathan Bedford Forrest, William Tecumseh Sherman, and George A. Custer.
Dr. S Craig JarvisMember at Large
Dr. Jarvis is a long-time Foothills supporter. He has served on FLC’s Board of Directors and also has a conservation easement with Foothills. In conjunction with the City of Maryville and FLC, Dr. Jarvis recently led the successful completion of Maryville’s newest municipal park— a 10 acre natural area named Jarvis Park. Future plans include an additional 37 acres to adjoin the preserved acreage. Both of these tracts are permanently protected with several FLC conservation easements.
Dr. Jarvis received a Bachelor of Arts from Vanderbilt University in 1971, graduating Magna Cum Laude and seventh in a class of 700. He received his medical degree from Duke Medical School in 1975. Dr. Jarvis then completed an Internal Medicine Internship and Residency at the Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He remained in Ohio to complete his Fellowship in Gastroenterology in 1980. Dr. Jarvis is Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology. He is the Founding Chairman of the Maryville City School Foundation and has participated in Leadership Blount in 1998. He has served on the boards of Boys and Girls Clubs, New Hope Children’s Advocacy Center, and Shannondale. He is a member of the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, American Gastroenterologist Association, American Medical Society and Blount County Medical Society. Dr. Jarvis lives in Maryville with his wife, Debbie; he has five children. In his leisure time, Dr. Jarvis enjoys tennis, boating, hunting and spending time with his family.
Mark JendrekSecretary (FLC & FLC Properties Foundation)
Since 1989, Mr. Jendrek has held the position of Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee – College of Law. He currently teaches one course per semester, alternating between Contract Drafting for third year law students and Legal Research and Writing for first-year law students. Mr. Jendrek also is in private practice in Knoxville, Tennessee, with a focus on real estate and other transactional matters, and enjoys creative problem solving of difficult legal issues. He served 25 years on the Tennessee Supreme Court Regional Investigating Committee -Region 2, and in the past served as Chairman of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee with the Knoxville Bar Association. From 2003-2005 he served as Commissioner of the Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission. Mark Jendrek currently serves as the Secretary for both the FLC Board of Directors and the FLC Properties Foundation.
Billy Minser
Billy Minser has been involved in wildlife and wild land management since 1966. Formerly a wildlife biologist and wildlife refuge manager for the state of Georgia, Mr. Minser was a teacher and researcher in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, at the University of Tennessee from 1972-2012. While at UT he focused on wildlife research and taught a variety of wildlife management and land management courses. In 2008, Mr. Minser received the Regional Director’s Conservation Honors Award from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Billy has been an active participant with a variety of conservation organizations in Tennessee and the region during the past 47 years, particularly in relationship to conservation of public land. Here are just a few conservation highlights that Mr. Minser has been involved with over the years:
- During the past 25 years, aided in the protection of nearly 500,000 acres in the Tennessee Valley. This was part of many different initiatives in collaboration with several organizations resulting in 8 new wildlife management areas, a 300 acre addition to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) and protection of TVA public shoreline property.
- Helped spearhead an effort in 2006 to protect 292,000 acres of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) public lakeshore property around TVA lakes in 8 states.
- Led an effort through the Foothills Land Conservancy (FLC) to buy 4,600 acres that became the Foothills Wildlife Management Area (FWMA), in Blount County, TN. This land was donated to Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) in the 1995. Two years later FLC, along with Billy’s help, completed the Cochran Campaign which raised $500,000 to purchase an additional 1,500 acres. To date, FWMA has increased to 10,000 acres, providing a significant wildlife corridor with GSMNP and the Cherokee National Forest.
- Facilitated efforts between FLC, TWRA and Ducks Unlimited to acquire 524 acres of wetlands and uplands, now called Kyker Bottoms Wildlife Refuge, located in Blount County, TN. Kyker Bottoms, managed by TWRA, is open to the public, and includes fields, forests, wetlands and thickets. It is managed primarily for waterfowl and shorebirds as well as for diverse nongame, and especially songbirds.
- Worked with FLC, The Conservation Fund, TWRA and many other organizations to acquire a 2,500 acre refuge, called Yuchi Wildlife Management Area on Chickamauga Reservoir near Chattanooga, now owned and managed by TWRA. This area includes wetlands, uplands and riparian habitat and is one of a string of nearby refuges and natural areas providing feeding/resting habitat for migrating waterfowl and sandhill cranes.
- Placed multiple FLC conservation easements on his land and cultivated the interest of several neighbors to place CE’s on their own properties.
- Partnered with Carpenter’s Elementary School in Blount County, TN, to create a one-of-a-kind ‘Outdoor Classroom’ that includes a 1.7 mile nature trail, wildlife habitats, interpretive signage and teacher lesson plans. This project has caught the attention of several schools throughout the region that are also looking to implement a similar learning opportunity in their schools and communities.
- Assisted in the education and graduation of more than 1,000 Wildlife & Fisheries professionals at the University of Tennessee, who are now making their own impact on conservation across the United States.
Steve Polte
Steve Polte is the Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Earthadelic, a construction and landscaping company based in Knoxville, TN. Steve oversees the operations and financial management of the business. Prior to Earthadelic, Steve was a co-founder and Managing Partner of Inobis. Before selling the company, Inobis became the market leader in medical supply data content, analytics, and related consulting services. Steve received a Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Science/Ag Economics from Cornell. He received an MBA from the University of Tennessee.
John G. ProffittFLC Vice-President
John Profitt currently serves as FLC’s Vice President and is a member of the FLC Properties Foundation Board of Directors. Born in Maryville, Tennessee, John Proffitt grew up on the family farm and has lived in Blount County the majority of his life, where he currently resides with his wife, Janet Isenberg Proffitt. John retired from the Tennessee D.O.T. in 2009 where he worked some 20 years as an appraiser, review appraiser, and estimator for right-of-way planning and acquisition. Prior to that, he worked for the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury, Division of Property Assessments, doing appraisals on mainly commercial and industrial properties. Earlier, John worked for the Hugh F. Parker Company in Knoxville as a real estate appraiser and property development and management trainee. John holds a bachelor of science in Agriculture from the University of Tennessee, and upon graduation John entered the U.S. Navy Flight program, where he interred flight training at NAS Pensacola, Florida. After serving in the Navy, he did graduate work at UT, taking courses in business, finance and real estate. Since 1989, John has served on the Board of Directors for Citizens Bank of Blount County and Twin Cities Financial.
Sara Fortune Rose
Sara Rose and her late husband Jack have been supporters of the Foothills Land Conservancy since its inception. As a community volunteer, Sara also serves on the Board of Directors of the FLC Properties Foundation, the University of Tennessee Medical Center, and the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra. Prior to her retirement, Sara led Government and Industry Affairs at Bush Brothers & Company, where she was also a company officer. She was also a Partner at Whittle Communications, a Knoxville-based media company. Sara graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelors of Arts from Vanderbilt University and holds a Masters in Business Administration from Indiana University. She is a member of the 1989 class of Leadership Knoxville.
Ashley Saunders
Ashley H. Saunders is UCOR’s End States and Federal Land Reuse Manager, responsible for all aspects of reindustrialization and closure of the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), which includes remaining soil and groundwater remedial actions. She also oversees the new Heritage Center Enterprise, which includes Environmental Management to Legacy Management transfer and National Historic Preservation.
Ashley previously served as UCOR’s Chief of Staff, responsible for coordinating the resources required to deliver the President’s operational vision and support achievement of DOE-related corporate goals and missions.
Ashley joined UCOR in 2015 as Government & Stakeholder Relations Manager. Her work included activities and strategies to strengthen existing relationships and foster new alliances with government officials and stakeholders at all levels. In September 2016, she assumed the role of External Affairs, Communications & Community Programs Manager—directing internal and external communications as well as the company’s community advocacy program.
Prior to joining UCOR, Ashley served as Program Director for the East Tennessee Economic Council (ETEC), where she worked with other organizations, elected officials, and businesses in Knox, Anderson, Roane, and Blount counties to promote the values and impact of ETEC membership through weekly meetings, member orientations, member communication, and community involvement.
She was also a Communications Graduate Assistant at the Y-12 National Security Complex, where she wrote and edited publications and led internal campaigns for the Technology Transfer organization.
Ashley has a bachelor of arts degree in Communications from the University
of Tennessee. She was a recipient of East Tennessee Economic Council’s 2019 Postma Young Professional Medal, which honors the accomplishments of young professionals who have made an impact on the community. She has also been selected to serve a three-year term as a University of Tennessee Chancellor’s Associate.
Mike Suttles
Mike Suttles is the Owner of Suttles Land Surveying located in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Mr. Suttles received a B.S. from the University of Tennessee in Forest Management and is a registered land surveyor. He is an active member of the Tennessee Association of Professional Surveyors and is also a farm and cattle producer.
John Wilbanks
John Wilbanks is retired after 45 years in the parks & recreation profession and lives in Alcoa, TN with his wife Kathy. He holds a B.S. from West Virginia University (WVU) and an M.S. from The University of Kentucky. Upon graduation from WVU, John served two years as an officer in the U.S. Army. He worked as a Park & Recreation Planner for the consulting firm of Edwards and Kelsey in Newark, NJ. John then went on to receive a master’s degree in Parks and Recreation from the University of Kentucky. John served as the Board Director of Lee’s Summitt Park, located in Missouri, before relocating to East Tennessee as the Executive Director of the Maryville-Alcoa-Blount County Parks and Recreation Commission. John retired after 22 years and was hired to establish the first parks and recreation department for the City of Pigeon Forge and worked there until his retirement in 2015.
John has served on many boards and councils over his career including as President or Chairman of the following organizations: Governor’s Council on Greenways and Trails, TN Recreation & Parks Association, TN Recreation and Parks Educational Foundation, NC State University’s School of Sports Management and Leadership Blount. John has been a longtime financial supporter of the Foothills Land Conservancy, Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, and Friends of the Smokies.