Former governor offers Belmont executive insight

By Louis Medina
Diversity Institute Fellow

03.30.06

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Former Kentucky governor Martha Layne Collins became the first Executive-in-Residence at Belmont University’s College of Business Administration Thursday.

The new two-day program allows business and government leaders to interact once a year with students, faculty, staff and the community.

Collins visited classes, conducted lectures, had one-on-one meetings with faculty, ate lunch with students and dined with local business community representatives.

During an evening lecture on leadership and diversity, Collins spoke about Americans’ need to adjust their way of thinking in a changing world economy.

“Ninety-six percent of the world’s consumers and two-thirds of the total purchasing power is not in the U.S.,” she said. “America will remain strong, but we’ll have to work harder than in the past.”

She also told students, “It’s not where you come from or what you have, it’s what you do with what you have that counts.”

J. Patrick Raines, dean of the college, said Collins was the ideal person to kick off the executive-in-residence program because of her accomplishments.

She graduated from the University of Kentucky with a degree in home economics then became a middle- and high-school teacher. She served one term as governor of Kentucky, from 1983-87. She later was appointed President of St. Catherine College in Kentucky, where she served for six years. Last year she became CEO of the Kentucky World Trade Center.

Raines said that as governor of Kentucky, Collins delivered the “phenomenal coup” of bringing Toyota Motor Manufacturing to the state.

Collins’ full schedule at Belmont continues through Friday with breakfast with a group of local business community members and a round-table discussion with faculty, Raines said.
 

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