NOTE: This release was sent from Coulter & Justus, P.C., a Knoxville Chamber member business.

Sam Coulter, one of the founders and President of Coulter & Justus, P.C., has announced the promotion of Rob Wildi to Audit Principal.

Mr. Wildi serves as the firm’s scheduler for all audit engagements and is responsible for clients from a variety of industries including healthcare, wholesale, restaurants, coal mining and nonprofit organizations.

Mr. Wildi began his accounting career in 1995 after receiving his B.S. degree in Business Administration from West Virginia University. Rob also holds a Masters degree in Professional Accounting from West Virginia University. He joined Coulter & Justus in 1998.

ABOUT COULTER & JUSTUS: The firm that is now Coulter & Justus, P.C. began in the 1930's in Knoxville, Tennessee. From the 1950's to 1993, the firm was the Knoxville office of the international accounting firm of Ernst & Young. In 1993, Ernst & Young partners, Sam Coulter and Ron Justus, acquired the Knoxville practice and changed the name to Coulter & Justus, P.C.

NOTE: This information comes from an advertisement sent by Maaco, a Knoxville Chamber member business.

Maaco Collision Repair and Auto Painting will host a grand opening celebration at their new location at 6130 Western Ave. on Saturday June 21, from 10am to 2pm.

Guests can enter to win a free supreme paint service.

For more information, call 865-212-3299.

NOTE: This release was sent from LBMC, a Knoxville Chamber member business.

LBMC Technologies, LLC, a member of the LBMC (Lattimore Black Morgan & Cain, PC) Family of Companies, is pleased to announce that Ani L. Ehlers, Marie Gray and David Ulrich have been added to its Knoxville office.

Ani L. Ehlers will join the Knoxville team as a technical manger. Ani, previously a project manager with Scripps Networks Interactive, earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Toledo. She is an active member of the Society for Technical Communicators, Usability Professionals Association and Content Management Professionals.

Marie Gray, previously owner of and consultant with The Gray Area, will be a business development consultant in the Knoxville office. Marie has earned degrees from both the University of Phoenix and New York University. Marie is an active member and holds a leadership position in many professional organizations including the Help Desk Institute, East Tennessee Technology Council, American Society of Training and Development and Microsoft Organizational Assessment Team. She has also received a number of accolades for her work including the 2006 National Leadership Award from the National Business Advisory Council and the 2006 Congressional Medal of Distinction.

David Ulrich will join the Knoxville team as a Microsoft SharePoint network engineer. David previously worked as a server analyst with Memorial Healthcare System. He earned an associate’s degree in technical programming from The Computer Learning Center. David has extensive experience architecting and implementing enterprise wide Microsoft SharePoint solutions.
LBMC Technologies, LLC, is a leading technology partner which services the Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, Chattanooga and Birmingham, AL areas. LBMC Technologies is a Microsoft-certified Gold Partner, has been a member of the Microsoft President’s Club for nine consecutive years and was recently awarded Microsoft’s elite Strategic Excellence Award. The firm has the only Microsoft Dynamics certified training center in Tennessee. For more information on LBMC Technologies, visit its Web site at lbmctech.com.

Note: This release was sent from Sandler Training, a Knoxville Chamber member company.

For the seventh consecutive year, Sandler Training, (formerly Sandler Sales Institute) has been ranked No. 1 Training Program category by Entrepreneur’s 29th Annual Franchise 500 Issue for 2008.

Sandler Training is the leading provider of sales and management training and consulting programs for the past 40 years and has approximately 225 licensed franchises in the U.S. and internationally.

Competing companies are judged on the financial strength and stability, growth rate, and size of the system as well as number of years a company has been in business and the length of time it’s been franchising.

The largest Sandler Training center in East Tennessee is owned and operated by Steve Herzog of Herzog & Associates, Inc. Herzog has over 25 years of business sales and management experience and has been providing a full range of sales and management training programs, in Knoxville and surrounding areas for the past 12 years.

Herzog’s firm has helped thousands of professionals and companies learn more effective non-traditional sales and management strategies for their businesses by offering powerful and unique methods in his training.

More recently, Herzog has been recognized in the top ten percent of Sandler’s 225 franchises world wide. To learn more visit firstinsales.com.

Local Famous Dave's Barbeque owners Mike and Tamara Lister and Doug and Laurel Renegar have won the company's first Community Involvement Award for their support of the Knoxville community.

Famous Dave's is a Knoxville Chamber member business.

"Having the change to help others ... that's what being 'Famous' is all about," said the Renegars.

Some of their philanthropic pursuits include working with the Make-a-Wish Foundation and a Memorial Day letter writing campaign.

Power Systems, a Knoxville Chamber member business, is holding total training seminars on March 15, 2008.

Here are the courses offered:

Strength Without Boundaries: Break away from tradition! Discover innovative alternative strength training ideas.

Speed Training – Explosive First Step: Learn how to design and implement a first-step program for any athlete, group, or team!

Agility Development & Group Training: Discover the four major principles of agility development and learn how to train agility for all positions throughout sports.

Balance – Training on the Edge: Don’t be afraid to live on the edge! Learn fun, creative methods for balance training.

Plyo Power for One & All: Develop explosive power for everyone! Learn to incorporate “plyos” into your programs.

Visit totaltrainingseminars.com for times, more information, and to register.

Note: This release is from the University of Tennessee.

UT President John Petersen today announced the promotion of Mary Jinks to vice president of public service for the University of Tennessee.

"In recent years, Mary has worked alongside us to strategically define the university's public service role and to chart a course for increased success in outreach initiatives. Her knowledge and experience in the field of public service will be invaluable as we advance this priority for the university," Petersen said. "We are pleased to recognize her leadership."

Jinks has been with the university for nearly 25 years, with more than 20 years at the statewide UT Institute for Public Service (IPS). Her history at UT includes a master's degree in public administration and an educational doctorate.

Jinks has served as associate vice president of IPS for the past year, and in her new role she will continue to lead and manage the institute.

Hank Dye, UT vice president for public and government relations whose office oversees IPS, said, "IPS has a tradition of excellent service and has made a difference to the state of Tennessee. Mary's leadership over the years has set IPS on a well-planned course to deliver results to businesses, local government officials and state agencies."

In fiscal year 2007, IPS helped businesses and government entities realize $868 million in economic impact through increased revenues, reduced expenses or jobs created. That success led the university's efforts to provide $1 billion in outreach activities by 2010.

Through its four agencies and leadership development programs, IPS answered more than 26,000 requests for assistance from government, law enforcement and business officials last year. More than 19,000 people took advantage of IPS training in 2007, logging more than 140,000 hours of training.

"Public service has been my life's work," Jinks said. "IPS has been tremendously successful in taking UT's expertise to the people of Tennessee. Our work with local government and industry leaders has been rewarding, and the opportunity to elevate these efforts for the university is one I graciously accept."

IPS collaborates with all campuses, institutes and divisions of the UT system, enabling the university to provide public service across the state. IPS has offices statewide in 10 cities (Johnson City, Knoxville, Oak Ridge, Chattanooga, Cookeville, Columbia, Nashville, Jackson, Martin and Memphis) and consultants assigned to every municipality and county in Tennessee.

Note: This release was sent from Pro2Serve, a member of the Knoxville Chamber.

Pro2Serve Professional Project Services, Inc. (Pro2Serve), announces that Joseph P. Hebert recently joined the company as Vice President, Physical Security Programs, and Manager of the Washington DC office.

Board certified by ASIS International in security management, Mr. Hebert has almost 40 years of experience and professional training in physical security, law enforcement, management and strategic planning both in the military and with civilian corporations. His most recent experience was with L-3 Communications in Chantilly VA where he served as the Business Unit Manager of Integrated Security Solutions and Services and as the Vice President for Division Programs. Previously Mr. Hebert was the Division Manager for Integrated Security Services with SAIC in McLean, VA.

Mr. Hebert’s military experience spans over 30 years in the United States Army’s Military Police including both senior command and staff positions and retiring with the rank of Colonel. In his last assignment with the Army, Colonel Hebert served as the Command Provost Marshal and senior Anti-terrorism Officer for the Army’s largest Command. He was selected as the Department of Defense’s best Senior Manager for Anti-terrorism Programs in 1999. He is a graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy (FBINA) and National War College.

NOTE: This release was sent by Bandit Lites, a Chamber member.

Bandit Lites recently lit the University of Tennessee 16th Annual Lead-off Banquet, which was held at the Knoxville Convention Center in front of a sold-out crowd.

UT honored former UT athlete, Todd Helton, by making him the first baseball player in school history to have his jersey number retired.

Recently making his first World Series appearance with the Rockies, Helton entertained a crowd of over 1,000 people with stories of his days at UT as well as some of his favorite big league experiences. Before the night was over, the former Knoxville resident was
inducted into the UT Baseball Hall of Fame.

The event also provided fans with the opportunity to meet the 2008 Vols along with first- year head coach, Todd Raleigh and staff.

Lighting Designer, Chris Lisle chose to use Martin MAC 600s, 500s and 300s and Color Kinetics iColor Accent 4ft tubes to light the event. Lighting was controlled by two High End Systems Whole Hog IIs.

"It was truly a pleasure to be involved with the UT Baseball Lead-Off Banquet,” commented Lisle. “One of the key purposes of this event was to honor Todd as they were retiring his UT jersey at this ceremony. I used Mac 500s with custom gobos to project onto the walls with both [Helton’s] UT and Colorado Rockies jersey numbers.” Lisle used Mac 600s to spread some general color throughout the room. There were also six towers with Color Kinetics tubes on them, used to fill in some gaps between video screens.

Note: Knoxville Chamber member Bandit Lites celebrates the following achievement with this release.

The entertainment industry has again named Bandit Lites as ‘Lighting Company of the Year.’ The awards ceremony took place on February 7, 2008 at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, CA. Hosted by the world famous Smothers Brothers, the event also featured notable presenters such as Peter and Gordon, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Glen Frey, Timothy Schmidt (from the Eagles) and Andrew Dice Clay.
The awards ceremony closed out the 2008 CIC Convention. Held at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in Los Angeles, the annual 3-day event seeks to facilitate the exchange of ideas between key decision makers, enhance the flow of information among
professionals, and make a positive contribution toward enriching the concert industry's health.
Bandit General Manager, Dizzy Gosnell was there to accept this honor on behalf of Bandit Lites. Bandit has been named ‘Lighting Company of the Year’ 16 different times through the years.
“This was made possible by the tremendous global Bandit family. Please accept my most sincere thank you and offer my thanks and congratulations to all the staff worldwide,” commented Bandit CEO, Michael T. Strickland. “This is the perfect start to our 40th Anniversary.”