As an entrepreneur and coach, he helped hundreds of others become successful entrepreneurs themselves. He understood how to hone a business model, launch a business and keep it growing, by applying real world knowledge with the skill that only comes from years of experience.
He was fortunate to have lived in different parts of the country and had many different work experiences. He was a Huntsville, Alabama native and attended Auburn University. He started his career in 1983 at a small mutual savings & loan association in West Point, Georgia. In 1988, he got his first taste of manufacturing experience as the controller at Knauf Insulation, a fiber glass manufacturing plant in Lanett, Alabama. Three years later, he transferred to the Indianapolis, Indiana area as credit manager at the corporate office. In 1999, they gave him an opportunity to run a manufacturing facility that produced expanded polystyrene insulation located in Lebanon, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati. In 2002, he moved further north to the Boston area as CFO of an industrial insulation products distributor.
In late 2008, that Alabama boy had to get back home! He and his beautiful wife relocated to Huntsville and he joined Ad4! shortly thereafter.
He has been a corporate CFO, a general manager, a site selection consultant, and crisis management/turnaround consultant, among others. He served on planning commissions and zoning boards, He ran for political office, and promoted politicians. He used all these real-world experiences to help businesses build their own lemonade stand empires.
His biggest passions were his faith, his music, the Auburn Tigers, and the American Cancer Society. He volunteered for and served on the leadership board for the American Cancer Society. He was a surviving prostate cancer and try to use that platform to spread the Good News about the God that saved him and the early detection strategies that may save you. He played tenor sax in First Baptist Church orchestra. He was a member of a big band and a sax ensemble known as “The Thundering Herd.”
To honor Chris’ passion to alleviate cancer and his faithful witness to his family and friends as he battled the disease, a “sockinit2cancer” page was set up on Facebook to remind Chris daily he was not alone in his fight. He received hundreds of pairs of socks and daily messages over the last months from cherished well-wishers. A “sockinit2cancer” foundation is in the process of being set up by his family to raise awareness and promote research of prostate cancer.