Jeff Carter has joined Pinnacle Financial Partners as a senior vice president and financial advisor. He is based at Pinnacle’s Broad Street office in Chattanooga.
Carter brings 15 years of financial services experience to his role. Before joining Pinnacle, he spent eight years with First Citizens Bank, where he was a senior vice president and Chattanooga market executive. Previously, he worked with Regions Bank, where he served as a business banker.
Carter earned a degree in business administration from the University of Memphis. He is a member and sponsor of the Chattanooga Area Dental Society. Carter is also a past board member of March of Dimes of Chattanooga.
GPS alumna is valedictorian
Taylor Pels, GPS alumna from the class of 2014, will deliver the valedictory address at her college commencement ceremony on Friday, May 25. She majored in chemistry in the Health Professionals Advising Program at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Pels is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Honor Society as well as a Sheehan Scholar. The latter awarded her full tuition for her four years at Holy Cross. She plans to spend a year in clinical or biomedical research after graduation before pursuing a degree in pediatric medicine.
For the past two years, Pels conducted research in the Holy Cross organic chemistry lab and participated in toxicology research at the University of Virginia School of Medicine during the summer of 2017.
She served on the planning committees for the Holy Cross Dance Marathon (benefiting the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation) and her college’s Women in Science Day.
Pels was a Peer Assistant Learning tutor, STEM+E tutor, teaching assistant in the introductory chemistry labs, cheerleader and fall orientation leader. She was also involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters Central Massachusetts, where she mentored a Worcester community girl.
Baumgardner Award to Harris
At this month’s Leadership Luncheon honoring the 2017-18 class of Leadership Chattanooga, the Leadership Chattanooga Alumni Association presented the Julie Baumgardner Leadership Award to Ronald Harris, vice president of diversity and inclusion at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
The award honors someone with a laudable record of community leadership who has made special contributions to Leadership Chattanooga.
A Chattanooga native, Army veteran and Leadership Chattanooga graduate (class of 2001), Harris speaks regularly at conferences and businesses nationwide concerning unconscious bias, cultural competence and generational diversity.
Harris has been featured USA Today, Equal Opportunity Publications and African American Career World and is nationally recognized for his records of community leadership and service.