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Business Notebook for April 24, 2022

A roundup of business news in Fayetteville and Cumberland County

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Fayetteville nonprofit leader is recipient of sabbatical program

Terri Thomas, the executive director of the Vision Resource Center, is one of five recipients of the  Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation 2022 Sabbatical Program.

The foundation has invested nearly $3.1 million in the program and provided sabbaticals to 154 nonprofit leaders since the program’s inception in 1990. The program is “intended to provide veteran nonprofit leaders across the state with an extended break from work that allows time to focus on their personal needs, growth and self-revitalization so that they can return to their organizations with a rejuvenated spirit and renewed sense of focus,’’ the foundation said in a release.

Recipients are encouraged to spend three to six months engaging in activities that interest them and that are unrelated to their field of work.

Thomas has been executive director of the Vision Resource Center for 12 years. The organization works with people who are blind or visually impaired.

ServiceSource employee receives Governor’s Medallion Award

Stacy Bucker, a Service Source employee, has received the Governor’s Medallion Award.

Bucker works part-time at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Ramsey Street. In her spare time, she created a nonprofit called Off-Road Outreach and Veggies for Vets.

She outfitted her personal vehicle with a shower and washing machine and visits homeless areas in the community each week to provide food, hygiene kits and hot showers, a ServiceSource official said.

Bucker also established a vegetable garden at the ServiceSource office to provide free fresh produce to homeless and at-risk veterans.

Bucker was nominated for Volunteer of the Year through United Way of Cumberland County. United Way selected ServiceSource’s submission to apply for the Governor’s Medallion Award. 

Bucker was recognized during a virtual awards ceremony Wednesday. The Governor’s Medallion Award was implemented in 2006 to recognize the top 20-25 volunteers in the state.

FSU names director of Center for Defense and Homeland Security

Retired Brig. Gen. Arnold Gordon-Bray has been named senior advisor of military affairs and the director of Fayetteville State University’s Center for Defense and Homeland Security, the university announced this month.

Gordon-Bray will work to enhance and promote FSU's support of the military-connected community as well as spearhead enrollment growth efforts in the center’s cybersecurity certification courses, the university said in a release on its website. He also will work to grow military-connected student enrollment in the university’s academic degree programs.

Gordon-Bray spent more than three decades in the Army. He served in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom during the surge of 2007. He also has served as division chief in the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, the release said.

He has a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in Rhode Island; a Master of Science in International Strategic Studies from the Air War College in Alabama; and a Bachelor of Science in Art from the University of Central Missouri, the release said.

Business Notebook, Vision Resource Center, ServiceSource, Fayetteville State University

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