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Arch MI is one of the top mortgage insurance providers in the country. The Greensboro headquarters employs over 800 employees who combine industry insight with innovative thinking to design solutions to meet customers’ needs. Along with customer satisfaction, Arch MI recognizes the importance of valuing its employees. Arch MI understands that their employees are their most valuable asset, and in order to keep the best and brightest they offer a number of unique benefits, such as their Active Employee Research Groups (ERGs).  

The company says the ERGs are rooted in four key objectives: 

• Serve as an employee support systems providing spaces for networking and idea sharing 
• Promote cultural awareness across all employees, thereby improving the cultural competence of the organization 
• Enhance civic engagement, strengthening Arch MI’s connections to & image within the community 

• Provide opportunities for employees to learn, grow, & lead 

Arch MI currently has four ERGs: Black Professionals & Allies, DisAbilities & Allies, Women & Allies, and Young Professionals & Allies. They are particularly proud of their Young Professionals & Allies ERG and their work around cultivating a strong professional network that promotes collaboration & idea sharing across functions. Each year they host two events that are not to be missed: Advice to My Younger Self & Bowling with Executives. During Advice to My Younger Self senior leaders have the chance to share their perspective and strategies for success. On the other hand, Bowling with Executives provides the chance to connect with business leaders in a more relaxed setting.  

Through these ERGs, Arch MI demonstrates the employee cultivation outside of the office is just as valuable as professional cultivation from within. 

HAECO is an internationally-known aircraft service provider consisting of 18 subsidiaries and affiliates, employing over 16,000 staff all over the world. HAECO Americas has been headquartered in Greensboro for nearly 30 years while remaining a valuable global and local figure.

For over 10 years, the HAECO Co-Op/Internship Program has been an opportunity for students to utilize the skills they have learned while pursuing an undergraduate degree in a professional work environment. The company values executive level sponsorship, diverse real-world experience, and camaraderie as key practices for successful development. Their customized onboarding and inclusion for the HAECO Co-Op/Internship Program includes an orientation, assignment to an employee mentor, employee networking events, and social media engagement. The company encourages their interns to participate in high-level status meeting while being a part of real initiatives that include presentations to leadership.

A dynamic example of the HAECO Co-Op/Internship program is former intern and current HAECO Americas Marketing Analyst Brianna Pupello. She says, “Interning with HAECO has been challenging, valuable and rewarding. I have been able to apply classroom knowledge to real-world situations and gain valuable hands-on experience. During my internship, I felt confident and comfortable in my environment, trusted as a member of the team, and offered many opportunities to expand on my skills.” The company has the opportunity to find future employees and strengthen relationships with community organizations and universities while the students gain vital skills and experience that they carry throughout their careers. Over the past 3 years, 8 interns accepted full-time positions with the company.

The Co-Op/Internship program allows HAECO to gain new perspectives and ideas through the student’s interaction with company employees while providing valuable experience to the program’s participants.

Pace Communications is a nationally recognized marketing agency with five locations throughout the United States. As the largest independently owned content agency in the United States, the agency has left their mark in the branding initiatives of several companies. 

Pace provides a commitment of distinction to their clients, employees, and community. Their employee lunch and partnership with Ethnosh is an innovative initiative that benefits all parties involved. 

Cuisine, culture, community: It’s the tagline for Ethnosh, a program that connects the public to the many amazing immigrant owned restaurants in Greensboro.  

When Ethnosh co-founder Donovan McKnight joined Pace as a content creator, he offered the agency the unique employee benefit of guided lunches held at Ethnosh restaurants. During the lunch hour, employees experience a culinary cultural immersion.  

Four times a year, participants from Pace board a yellow school bus and step out to enjoy ethnic food from places like Palestine, Ethiopia, India, and Italy. Over lunch, employees enjoy an international meal, food photography seminar, and other engaging activities. Of course, it’s also a chance for Pace to step out of the office to learn about Greensboro as a welcoming home to neighbors across the world. 

In addition to providing an interactive atmosphere for employees, this also program gives back to participating restaurants by providing creative services. Pace achieved this by organizing teams who created content for the international restaurants, which put their talent to good use and uplifted local restaurants’ media presence . Pace spent $1,500 for the year, engaged 160 employees, presented the resulting creative work at company-wide meetings, and shared the love all over Instagram. 

Paternal Leave

The Center for Creative Leadership is global provider of leadership development with 12 offices worldwide. Its 19-acre campus in Greensboro serves as a foundation for the organization’s research, publication, and product development work. 

 In 2018, the organization implemented a Parental Leave benefit for benefits-eligible U.S. employees who become parents through birth, adoption, or placement of foster children. This improves on their previous policy which requires employees to use paid time off and short-term disability benefits.  

Their current parental leave policy added two new forms of PTO: parental medical leave and parental care leave.  

The former is an enhancement to a medical leave of absence taken for childbirth and recovery. PML complements short term disability benefit by covering the 5 workday waiting period at 100 percent and by bringing the 60 percent pay benefit up to 100 percent pay for the medical portion of parental leave. The duration of this leave is usually 6 or 8 weeks but may be longer.  On the other hand, PCL offers 4 weeks of 100 percent paid leave for care and bonding time with a newborn, newly adopted child, or newly placed foster child. This leave may be used following a PML or as stand alone leave for an employee who becomes a parent but did not give birth. 

The Center for Creative Leadership also offers a flexible work environment and comprehensive medical coverage among several other high-quality benefits for its employees.  

Charles Aris Maternity Lounge

Charles Aris Inc. is a global executive search firm that has over fifty years of experience in recruiting top talent. Along with being responsible for recruiting and connecting leaders with worldwide opportunities, the company has shown dedication to nurturing the needs of their employees who are new parents. 

Charles Aris improved their family-friendly benefits program by adding a maternity lounge and adding six weeks to their parental leave package, which is now 86 weeks in total.  

Their current headquarters at the corner of North Greene and Bellemeade streets, intentionally included the maternity lounge as a foundational piece of the program to best serve mothers on their team. 

Charles Aris vice president Jill Jitima, a mother of two children, says, “It was encouraging for me to see our company evolve with regard to how we’re thinking about maternity leave and working mothers in general. The first step was introducing a place where moms could go and be comfortable in the workplace. That was key in us beginning to think about building a platform for moms on a number of fronts including increased paid maternity leave, flexible work schedules and general health assessments we perform each year.”                                                                                                                                                                          

The dedicated area includes a restroom, shower, and small locker room. It is secluded from other areas of the restroom and away from employee offices and workstations. The lounge also includes a sink and drying station; minifridge and snacks, convenient electrical outlets and a clean, sterile environment. By providing this space, Charles Aris supplies its new mothers with maximum comfort and safety in a clean environment and calm atmosphere.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer

Greg Fischer is in his third term as Louisville’s 50th Mayor. He was named a Public Official of the Year from Governing magazine in 2013. A 2016 Politico survey named him as the most innovative mayor in America, and in June 2017, Politico named him among its list of 11 most interesting mayors in America. Mayor Fischer is a trustee for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

During Mayor Fischer’s tenure, Louisville has added 80,000 jobs and 2,700 new businesses. Thirteen billion dollars in capital construction is planned or underway in the city, and between 2014 and 2016, 11,000 Louisvillians worked themselves out of poverty, and another 8,300 families joined the middle class. Louisville has been named an International Model City of Compassion four times. The city’s strong financial management has been recognized with positive ratings by the nation’s “Big Three” credit agencies.

Fischer is a longtime entrepreneur who started several businesses, including SerVend International and Iceberg Ventures, a private investment firm. He also co-founded bCatalyst, the first business accelerator in Louisville.

Mayor Fischer graduated from Trinity High School and Vanderbilt University. He and his wife Alex have four children.

Michael Gritton, Kentuckiana Works

Executive Director, KentuckianaWorks

Tom Quick, GE Appliances

Tom Quick is currently the Vice President, Human Resources, appointed to his role in March, 2013. GE Appliances designs, manufactures, and services a wide selection of consumer home appliances.

He joined GE Aerospace as an intern in 1985 and subsequently joined the Human Resources Leadership Program (HRLP) in 1989 with GE Aviation.

He held a number of human resources assignments of increasing responsibility in GE Aviation for 11 years in Lynn, Massachusetts, Rutland, Vermont, and Evendale, Ohio. Tom transferred to NBC Universal in 2000 as Vice President, Human Resources for CNBC. He was appointed the Senior Vice President, Human Resources for NBCU’s Television Stations Division, Telemundo and Media Works, based at NBCU’s headquarters in New York City. In July, 2007, he was the Senior Human Resources Manager for GE Water & Process Technologies. Tom relocated to Schenectady, New York, in 2008 and held the Senior Human Resources Manager role with GE Power & Water for four years.

Tom has sat on the boards for both the Jefferson Community & Technical College (JCTC) Foundation and Leadership Louisville since spring 2014. He is also a member of the KentuckianaWorks board since fall 2015, the local seven county Workforce Investment Board.

He graduated from Le Moyne College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial and Labor Relations and an MBA from Syracuse University.

Tom and his wife have two children and reside in Louisville, Kentucky.

Chris Schremser, Waystar

Chief Technology Officer, Waystar

Jackie Beard, Norton Healthcare

Tony Georges, UPS - Air Region Louisville

Human Resources Director
UPS – Air Region Louisville

Mary Ellen Wiederwohl, Louisville Forward

Mary Ellen Wiederwohl joined Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer’s administration in 2012, and in 2014, Fischer tapped her to lead Louisville Forward – the city’s new, integrated approach to economic and community development. Louisville Forward combines business attraction, expansion, and retention activities with all of the city’s real estate functions and talent development to present a unified solution for job growth and quality of place.

Louisville Forward has twice (2014 and 2015) been named a Top Ten Economic Development Organization by Site Selection Magazine, the leading trade publication for economic development, with announced projects totaling over $3 billion of investment and more than 12,50 new jobs over the last two years. She has provided leadership for several of Mayor Fischer’s major initiatives, including his Strategic Plan, the Vision Louisville 25-year advanced plan, the Move Louisville strategic multi-modal transportation plan, the city’s first sustainability plan, the Global Louisville Action Plan and the Vision Russell Initiative, which recently won a HUD Choice Neighborhoods implementation grant.

Before joining the Fischer administration, Mary Ellen worked in public affairs in both the public and private sectors. She was a ULI Rose Fellow in 2012-2013.

Eric Burnette, Louisville Forward

Eric Burnette
Senior Policy Advisor, Louisville Forward

Gill Holland, Portland Investment Initiative/NuLu

Gill Holland is a respected national leader of community revitalization projects ranging from a single building to entire neighborhoods

As a community builder, his goal is to empower neighborhoods and develop sustainable environments with an emphasis on small local businesses that grow and creating jobs that last. 

Gill was raised in Davidson, NC by his parents: his father who was born in Lynch, Kentucky (Harlan County), and his mother, a librarian originally from Oslo, Norway. He is an Eagle Scout and was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill where he worked his way through law school and went on to pass the North Carolina State Bar.

Since moving to Kentucky with his wife, an eighth-generation Kentuckian, Gill has been instrumental in transforming a large section of downtown Louisville, now known as NuLu, into a thriving small business, arts, dining, tourism and residential district. Gill’s revitalization efforts in NuLu prompted Louisville Magazine to name him Louisville’s Person of the Year in 2009.  Gill and his wife developed The Green Building, the greenest commercial building in Kentucky (LEED Platinum). Gill served two terms as president of the NuLu Business Association.

Five years ago, Gill added a focus on working with his neighbors in the historic Portland neighborhood of West Louisville, where the goals are even more comprehensive and where incredible productive community collaboration is well underway.  

Gill’s passion for civic life extends to active participation in a wide variety of organizations aiming to improve the lives of Kentucky families and build upon our Commonwealth’s rich arts and cultural heritage. Gill’s leadership includes current and past board member service on organizations like the Fund for the Arts, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Louisville Public Media, the Young Professionals Organization of Louisville (YPAL), the Kentucky Film Commission, the Muhammad Ali Center, the Americana Community Center, the Olmsted Parks Conservancy, the Louisville Mayor’s Office of Safe & Healthy Neighborhoods Advisory Committee and the Louisville Film Society. He is a graduate of both Leadership Louisville and Leadership Kentucky.

Gill served on the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts Advisory Committee and on the board of the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, using his years of experience founding a record label and music and book publishing house.  He is also the author of two children’s books. He is part owner of Louisville’s two largest attractions – the Forecastle Festival and the Louisville City FC, a professional soccer team.

His earlier professional life was focused on film production, and he remains a driving force behind a variety of projects which have employed hundreds of people across Kentucky. A past Spirit Award nominee (the premiere awards for independent films) for Producer of the Year, he has over 100 film credits ranging from documentaries to movies for Christian family audiences. 

He and his wife Augusta Brown Holland live with their three young children in Louisville.

Harrison Kirby, Greater Louisville Project

Harrison is a lifelong resident of Louisville who is happy to be home after a brief hiatus to attend Centre College, where he majored in environmental studies and economics. At Centre, he was involved with community service and the social justice club, so he is excited to continue analyzing issues facing his community at the GLP in order to make Louisville a more compassionate and competitive city. Coffee, dogs, and data-driven policymaking get Harrison through the day. When he’s not laying in a hammock outside listening to podcasts, he’s probably inside cooking and listening to podcasts.

Lisa Bajorinas, Greater Louisville, Inc.

Lisa Bajorinas
VP, Entrepreneurship & Talent at Greater Louisville Inc.

Kent Oyler, Greater Louisville, Inc.

Kent Oyler joined Greater Louisville Inc. as its President & CEO in June 2014. He leads GLI, the Metro Chamber of Commerce, in retaining and growing existing businesses, supporting the entrepreneurial and start-up community, attracting and preparing a skilled workforce, and driving advocacy efforts aimed at creating a more business-friendly environment. Prior to GLI, Oyler served as CEO of OPM Services, Inc., a financial services and investment firm.

After earning business and MBA degrees from the University of Louisville, Kent Oyler worked for a predecessor to PNC Bank and later joined a large private manufacturing company where he rose to become its CFO. In 1992 he founded OPM Services and began a career as a serial entrepreneur, launching 19 new ventures in a variety of industries including equipment finance, railroads, manufacturing, accounting, and consumer research. In 1997 he co-founded broadband internet provider High-Speed Access Corp.  The company went public in a 1999 offering that still ranks as Kentucky’s largest IPO. In 2016, Oyler was inducted into the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame.

Throughout his career, Kent has also been very active in the philanthropic and civic worlds. He has served on boards for Leadership Louisville, Junior Achievement, Kentucky Science Center, Metro YMCA, University of Louisville, Venture Connectors, YPO, Metro United Way, Kentuckiana Works, Downtown Development Corp., Tocqueville Society, the Metro Police Foundation, and many more organizations. Prior to joining GLI, Kent served on GLI’s Board of Directors for a total of eight years and chaired GLI’s EnterpriseCorp twice.  From 2000-2008 he served as Mayor Jerry Abramson’s Liaison for Entrepreneurship. Kent has been recognized as Cashflow magazine’s Treasurer of the Year, E&Y Master Entrepreneur, and Business First Small Business Leader of The Year.

He resides in Louisville with his wife Kathy and has three grown daughters.

Kristin Wingfeld, The Academies of Louisville

Coordinator, School Business Partnerships
Jefferson County Public Schools

Mary Gwen Wheeler, 55,000 Degrees

Mary Gwen Wheeler is the Executive Director of 55,000 Degrees. Previously, she served as the Mayor’s Sr. Advisor for Education and Youth for Louisville Metro Government, leading policy development and implementation of education and youth initiatives. In Jerry Abramson’s first term as Metro Mayor, she served as Secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. In June of 2010, Ms. Wheeler was also appointed by Governor Beshear to the Kentucky Board of Education.

With a B.A. in American Studies and a Masters in Public and Private Management from Yale University, Ms. Wheeler also has experience in family literacy, workforce development, non-profit management, strategic planning, and international development. This included 10 years with the National Center for Family Literacy as a project manager and vice president of planning and development.

Rob Fulk, Marion C. Moore School

Rob Fulk is the current Principal of the Marion C. Moore School in Louisville, Kentucky. They are the largest (by enrollment) school in Jefferson County Public Schools.  They are comprised of over 2,200 students grades 6 to 12 and represent 41 different countries and are made up of about 40% Caucasian, 40% African American, and 20% Latino students.  They are 80% Free and Reduced Lunch. The majority of the student body comes from the Highview area of Louisville.

Previous to his position here Rob was the Assistant Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer of Trimble County Schools.  Before that, he was the Principal of North Bullitt High School (NBHS), and Bullitt Lick Middle School (BLMS).  He did a year as the Assistant Principal at the New Haven School and began his career as a teacher and wrestling coach in Oldham County, Kentucky.

“I have been fortunate in my career to work alongside some amazing educators. Together some of our accolades include moving NBHS from the 50th percentile to the 93rd, BLMS from the 7th to the 43rd, and Trimble County from a Needs Improvement district to a Distinguished, High Performing district.  All three schools I have been principal of have had marked, double-digit increases on their TELL survey, and I have been twice rated in the 90th + percentile by my employees on the Val-Ed survey.  I have been a member of the KASA Legislative Committee, am currently a member of the JCPS Budget Committee, Alt School taskforce, was the JCPS HS Principal of the Year 17-18 president-elect for JCASA.”

Rob is married to his high school sweetheart and they have three awesome kids. Rob received his Education Specialist degree in school administration, Superintendents certification, Masters in Special Education, Bachelors in English from the University of Louisville, where he is currently pursuing his doctorate.

Deana Epperly Karem, Greater Louisville, Inc.

Senior Vice President of Regional Economic Growth
Greater Louisville, Inc.
Karem has been with GDI since 2015. Prior to that, Karem served as the Executive Director of the Oldham Chamber & Economic Development. She also previously served as the Director of Client Solutions at GLI from 1998 – 2006. Karem is heavily involved in regional economic development boards including KentuckianaWorks, and served as chair of the Kentucky Association for Economic Development (KEAD). 

Christy Rogers, Jefferson County Public Schools

Assistant Superintendent of Transition Readiness
Jefferson County Public Schools