Pair will replace retiring Smith

Moore Tech leadership change coming

Don Smith’s retirement from Moore Tech will leave such big shoes to fill that it will take two hires to do it.

Smith is retiring Dec. 31 from the private, nonprofit vocational college after 17 years including nearly 14 years as director or president.

Responding to fullcapacity enrollment and increasing administrative complexities, trustees split Smith’s duties into two positions: president and chief administrative officer.

Stanley “Skip” Redmond will come on board Sept. 1 and take over as president Jan. 1. Redmond is former vice president of advancement and principal of Briarcrest Christian High School.

David Penna will start work Sept. 1 as Moore Tech’s first full-time CAO. Penna has held management positions at Southwest Tennessee Community College for 27 years.

Smith started as an airconditioning instructor at Moore Tech in 1995 and became director and CAO in 1999.

The board changed Smith’s title from director to president last spring after learning of his retirement plans.

“After the extraordinary job he’s done at Moore Tech for the past 17 years we wanted Don to retire as president,” board president John Malmo said.

A search committee of Clay Smythe, Tom Hutton and Steve Bowie, working with Kristin Lockhart of the executive search arm of SEACAP Financial, zeroed in on Redmond and Penna and redefined the college’s leadership structure.

“When we really focused on the president’s job, the trustees decided to split it into two jobs because our president is suffocating under government and accreditation paperwork,” Malmo said.

Smythe, search committee chairman and principal of Hull Lower School at Memphis University School, said, “The backgrounds and experience of Mr. Redmond and Mr. Penna were such that they actually helped us write the new job descriptions. They were exactly what we were looking for.”

Moore Tech, located at 1200 Poplar Ave., offers graduate diplomas and/or two-year associate degrees in industrial electricity, air- conditioning, refrigeration and heating, machine shop, welding and property maintenance. Its website is mooretech.org.

The college, which starts fall classes Sept. 5, has been serving about 200 students in day and night classes for five years.