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Seven alumni and friends of the university were recently honored with the 2024 Alumni Awards, presented by the East Tennessee State University National Alumni Association.

“These seven individuals represent just a sampling of the incredible graduates whose journeys and stories began on our campus,” said Whitney Goetz, executive director of the ETSU National Alumni Association. “We are so proud of their accomplishments and the many ways they have transformed their communities and improved the lives of others. What amazing legacies they have established!”

 

B.J. KING

ETSU’s 2024 Outstanding Alumna Dr. B.J. King is an accomplished financial executive and educator with over 30 years of experience. She retired from ETSU, where she most recently served as chief financial officer from 2017-23, overseeing an institutional budget of $400 million.

Prior to her CFO role, she held various executive finance positions at ETSU from 2001-17. She has also worked in both public accounting and private industry.

She holds a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership from ETSU, where her dissertation examined internet policies in academia. She also earned a Master of Accountancy from ETSU and was the Outstanding Master of Accountancy student in both Management Accounting and Management Advisory Services. She is a member of the ETSU College of Business and Technology Hall of Fame.

Beyond her professional accomplishments, King actively served the Johnson City community. She has held board and leadership positions with BrightRidge and the Johnson City Power Board, the United Way, Covenant Presbyterian Church and other local organizations. A strong supporter of the ETSU Marching Bucs, King is a dedicated leader whose financial expertise and community commitment have greatly benefited ETSU and the region.

 

JUAN DEANGULO

The 2024 Outstanding Alumnus award was presented to Juan DeAngulo, whose journey began in Cali, Colombia, South America, with his parents and older brother. This is where he cultivated his passion for tennis and became the top junior player in the country, representing Colombia in international events. An opportunity to play tennis and study business brought him to ETSU, where he graduated in 1997.

As co-founder of Inselligence, DeAngulo brings deep sales and process expertise to the organization as well as decades of experience utilizing the underlying Inselligence algorithms and methodology. He advises the executive team on matters related to the venture’s growth from a startup to a sustainable enterprise while providing strategic and operational leadership to the organization.

In addition to Inselligence, DeAngulo is a co-founder and partner at Elion Partners and a voting member of the firm’s Investment and Asset Management Committees. Starting in 2013, he helped to lead the development of Elion into a vertically integrated, institutional-grade real estate investment platform, managing more than $4 billion in real estate assets. DeAngulo provided leadership to the firm’s corporate development as well as the business development and institutional investor relations, overseeing the execution of the firm’s corporate strategy as well as its ongoing growth in the world of institutional limited partners.

Previously, DeAngulo served as managing director of Transwestern Investment Management, where he oversaw the complete cycle of portfolio management and participated in the launch of a billion-dollar equity investment program for a major U.S. institutional investor. He also secured capital commitments from Latin American pension funds and high-net worth individuals for a co-mingled fund focused on U.S. commercial real estate investments.

 

SEAN OCHSENBEIN 

Dr. Sean Ochsenbein, the recipient of the PRIDE of ETSU award, is a board-certified emergency medicine physician in Johnson City and currently serves as one of the chief medical officers for Ballad Health.

In college, he earned his Bachelor of Science from Tennessee Tech University. During this time, the Governor of Tennessee also appointed him to represent over 200,000 students in higher education on the Tennessee Board of Regents as the sole student voice.

As Ochsenbein began medical school at ETSU, he found himself in a similar role among his classmates. He was elected class president, serving on multiple national boards, including Emergency Medicine Residents Association and the Gold Humanism Honor Society. While a medical student, he received the Unsung Hero Award for his efforts to free a driver from a wrecked vehicle just moments before it burst into flames.

Following medical school, Ochsenbein completed an emergency medicine residency at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

Service is a cornerstone of Ochsenbein’s life and led him to serve on multiple specialized rescue teams at the Putnam County Rescue Squad. In the line of duty, Ochsenbein performed valorous acts, risking his own life to save another. For this, he was awarded the Public Safety Medal of Valor by President Donald J. Trump in 2018.

Most recently, Ochsenbein was recognized for his leadership during the rescue of 60 individuals from the roof of Unicoi County Hospital as flood waters rose during the historic flooding caused by Hurricane Helene.

 

KENNETH LEE CARDER

Kenneth Lee Carder, recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus in Service award, earned degrees with honors from ETSU, Wesley Theological Seminary and Vanderbilt Divinity School; and he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Divinity in 2004 from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi.

Carder was in the United Methodist Church and served churches in Gaithersburg, Maryland; Abingdon, Virginia; and Bluff City, Concord, Knoxville and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. As pastor of First United Methodist Church in Oak Ridge, he initiated an ongoing dialogue between scientists and theologians, including a dialogue between members of the United Methodist Council of Bishops and scientists on the ethics of nuclear weapons. While in Oak Ridge, he chaired the denominational task force charged with formulating a statement on genetics and ethics and drafted the denomination’s position on genetic science.

While serving as the senior pastor of Church Street United Methodist Church in Knoxville in 1992, Carder was elected as a bishop by the Southeastern Jurisdiction and assigned to lead United Methodists in Middle and West Tennessee and Western Kentucky, where he served until 2000. Upon retiring as a bishop in 2004, he joined the full-time faculty of Duke University Divinity School and was named the Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams Jr. Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry. He is also a successful author.

 

CRAIG CHARLES

The 2024 ETSU Alumni Award of Honor was presented to Craig Charles. As a young boy, Charles was interested in becoming a barber and would go to the neighborhood barber shop and watch them at work. The opportunity to play football brought him to ETSU. He studied communications and marketing but continued to sharpen his barbering skills. Charles’ clientele included other athletes, his Omega Psi Phi fraternity brothers and other students. After graduation, he returned home to Boston and became an apprentice at Oasis Barber Shop.

Charles said he kept recalling lessons from an economics class at ETSU that talked about supply and demand. “If you open a business where there is demand and you supply something to meet that demand, you will be successful,” he said. He remembered that Johnson City had very few barbers in business, so he returned to the  area to open Craig’s Crown Cutz.

In 2017 he opened Crown Cutz Academy. Charles’ vision is for Crown Cutz Academy, which has expanded to three locations, to be more than a barber school; he prepares his students to be well-rounded individuals. He has lessons about domestic violence, mental health and financial literacy. Craig hosts the highly popular podcast, “The Barber College Success,” and his wife has a nail academy in downtown Johnson City. He also has the opportunity to teach classes at locations across the country.

He is currently working with The Confess Project of America, which is the first national barbershop mental health movement. Charles has been featured in national media, including NPR, Modern Salon Magazine and O Magazine. Recently, he was named the Small Business Person of the Year in Tennessee and the winner of the Minority Business of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

 

Dr. LARRY CALHOUN

The 2024 Honorary Alumnus, Dr. Larry Calhoun, became interested in the profession of pharmacy while working at the soda counter at Burgie’s Drugstore. Calhoun was appointed founding dean of the ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in October 2005. When the college was founded, the community was asked to step up and provide funding for infrastructure and resources based on the unique funding model, and it graduated its inaugural class in 2010. Calhoun led the college through the various levels of accreditation, to full accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education.

Prior to serving in this role, Calhoun was president and CEO of Wilson Pharmacy and Home Health. He also held the position of president and CEO of Unicoi County Memorial Hospital in nearby Erwin. He spent 20 years in the Mountain States Health Alliance system, where he served as a vice president with responsibilities for women’s, children’s, oncology and surgical services.

Calhoun completed pre-professional work at ETSU and received his B.S. and Pharm.D. degrees from the University of Tennessee. He has held faculty appointments at various colleges of pharmacy in addition to ETSU College of Nursing and Milligan University. He spent two years in Saudi Arabia working for the Arab-American Oil Company. He also served as city commissioner for Johnson City. He currently supports clinical and educational initiatives in the Quillen College of Medicine at ETSU.

 

DAVID STOUT JR.

Dr. David Stout Jr. is a native of Mountain City and is the 2024 recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus in Education award. After graduating from ETSU, he took a job with Sneed College in Johnson City as an admissions representative recruiting high school students and later veterans to attend on the GI Bill®. He served in administrative roles with Sneed College before moving to South Carolina in 1978 as academic dean at Columbia Commercial College, which later became Columbia Junior College of Business. He married his wife, Duffy Allen, in 1981, and the couple welcomed their son Andy in 1983.

During the early 1980s, Stout entered the field of public education, becoming the adult education director for a consortium of school districts. He eventually led all adult education activities for three rural South Carolina counties, and in 1983 was named Rooke Adult Education Director of the Year.

By 1987, Stout joined the adult education staff at the South Carolina State Department of Education, where he would spend the next 30 years. During his tenure, he held several administrative roles, including state director of adult education. At the time of his retirement, he was the longest-serving state GED administrator in the country.

During his career, he received several prestigious awards, and since his retirement, he has worked as an adult education consultant and has continued to serve as executive director of the Educators’ Veterans Day Golf Tournament, which has raised funds for the USO, Wounded Warriors, Disabled American Veterans and other veterans-related organizations.