By Scott Robertson The 300-plus leaders in the fields of education and business who gathered on the campus of East Tennessee State University May 27 and 28 for the Tennessee Valley Corridor National Summit heard academicians and healthcare industry experts explain how their education, health and economics affect each other. Dr. Randy Wykoff, founding dean of the ETSU College of Public Health, explained how ...

By Jeff Keeling Production shutdowns; unpaid employees; a capital shortage – it wasn’t supposed to be this way when a group of glass industry veterans opened Heritage Glass in Kingsport’s former AGC North America Blue Ridge glass plant. But as the Business Journal prepared to go to print June 5, production at the plant was shut down temporarily as President Eric Kerney and other company directors sought fin ...

By Jeff Keeling Jim Green strides through the nearly complete athletic fieldhouse at Johnson City, Tenn.’s Science Hill High School, stopping to check with valued employees of his third-generation contracting business. It’s a family atmosphere even on the job site of a J.E. Green Co. project, and Green is clearly comfortable with his men. Like many other small, family-owned businesses around the Tri-Cities ...

There haven’t been too many Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame laureates who’ve had their own catch phrases. But if you show Mitch Walters picture to anyone in the Tri-Cities with a television, they’ll probably say, “Oh yeah, It’s the ‘We’re dealin’ man!” Mitch Walters’ is more than just a face on TV, though. His Friendship family of dealerships today has more than 300 employees, and Friendship has ea ...

Roy L. Harmon, Jr.’s roots in business success stretch much further back than his 1980 initiation into the world of banking. They stretch back even further than involvement with Junior Achievement as a Dobyns-Bennett High School student in the early 1970s. In fact, the son of a Holston Valley nurse and a Mead Paper lab technician says, “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a job. “When I was growing u ...

By Scott Robertson This message goes out to all the school age girls living in the Tri-Cities: This summer, enjoy your time off from school. Go to the aquatic center. Have friends over and stay up late. Catch fireflies, roast marshmallows, listen to music and eat lots of pie – apple pie, key lime pie, strawberry pie, chocolate cream pie – whatever pie you want. Let everyone know, “I like pie!” Then, once sc ...