Jim Schorr
Social entrepreneurship expert, Vanderbilt professor
Vanderbilt University professor Jim Schorr, one of the nation’s experts in social entrepreneurship, most recently served as president and CEO of the Social Enterprise Alliance, as well as board chair of the Social Enterprise World Forum. He previously served as executive director of Juma Ventures, a national social enterprise.
Schorr moved to Nashville in 2009 to start the social entrepreneurship program at Vanderbilt University, where he taught at the Owen Graduate School of Management and Peabody College of Education and Human Development.
“Jim Schorr was an extraordinary educator,” said Bart Victor, the Cal Turner Professor of Moral Leadership. “He brought to his students potent insights gained from experience and reflection on how to impact the world. And even more, he inspired those students to act.” —William Williams
James Bass
Lawmaker
When James “Big Jim” Bass Sr. died in May at the age of 108, he had the notable distinction of being the oldest alumnus of Montgomery Bell Academy, the University of the South and the Harvard School of Law. He also lived long enough to see the firm his father founded in 1922 — Bass, Berry & Sims — become the city’s largest.
Bass lived through two world wars, serving in the second in Europe, where he won the Bronze Star. When Japan surrendered, Bass and his unit were on the West Coast, readying for the expected invasion of the Home Islands that ultimately proved unnecessary.
Before the war, he served two stints in the state legislature. While he was in the state House, he was instrumental in changing Davidson County’s judicial system, creating General Sessions courts, which were soon thereafter adopted statewide. In the Senate, he led the adoption of a civil service system for his home county.
In 1963, Mayor Beverly Briley tapped Bass to chair the newly formed Metro Human Relations Committee. The name sounds innocuous and mundane, one of umpteen commissions operated by the city. But this one had a historic charge under Bass’ leadership: It negotiated the desegregation of the city’s lunch counters and other public facilities.
A careful steward of the legacy of his family and his firm, Bass left a lasting legacy to his hometown. —J.R. Lind
Jimmy Webb
Businessman, philanthropist, veteran, gentleman and friend
Jimmy Webb
“Gentility” and “civility” are words that somehow seem tarnished by modern usage. Sometimes they’re used as plaintive pleas to counteract the meanness of our times. But some people remind us of the depth and optimism those words embody — Jimmy Webb did, every day.
Those of us who knew Jimmy rarely saw him without a smile on his face, a kind word on his lips or his hand up ready to help. Though he typically seemed relaxed, he was wound like a watch spring with power to spare.
Jimmy made giving back a tenet of his life, helping the institutions and people who helped him. A graduate of Montgomery Bell Academy and Vanderbilt University, he served as chairman of the board of MBA from 2005 to 2013. He also served in leadership roles for the YMCA of Middle Tennessee, the Nashville Zoo, Tennessee State University Foundation and many others.
Jimmy entered the U.S. Navy after graduating from Vanderbilt in 1966. He served in Vietnam, and then served in a cool assignment, Operation Deep Freeze, assisting in scientific studies of Antarctica. After his service he returned to Nashville, where he soon met Bill Freeman while they were both in the Junior Chamber of Commerce. The friendship turned into a partnership in 1979 when they started Freeman Webb Company. From simple beginnings, the two men built a successful property management and real estate company with more than 450 employees managing more than 16,000 apartments and a million square feet of commercial space. Jimmy was an earnest conservative and a Republican, while Bill is an unvarnished Democrat. Together they illustrated how successful we can be even as we politically disagree.
In May 2018, Bill and Jimmy purchased the Nashville Scene, Nfocus and the Nashville Post; they added Home Page Media Group in Williamson County to the FW Publishing group later that year. We did not get to experience the quiet force that was Jimmy Webb for long before he had to focus on his fight with cancer.
The remembrance posted on the Freeman Webb website conveys the depth of loss we all feel. “For those of us fortunate enough to be a part of his vision, we will remember his gentle smile and the way in which his appreciation and loyalty was never doubted or questioned — as he always left us feeling a little bigger, a little more accomplished.”
Few Nashvillians set a better example than Jimmy Webb. —Frank Daniels III
Al Ross
Investment banker turned Tootsie’s co-owner
For Al Ross, age was just a number, and his complete disregard for the conventions of aging has left an indelible mark on the city of Nashville.
While still pursuing a relatively conventional career at a staid investment bank where I first met him in the 1990s, Al determined that a good use of the afternoon before Nashville Kats games was a cookout behind Tootsie’s. The barbecue featured the dry-rub concoction of one Jeff Rippy, who eventually lent his name to the barbecue joint across the street.
It was at Tootsie’s that Al struck up a friendship with Steve Smith, some 20 years his junior and decidedly not the investment-banking type. I think Steve and Al became friends initially because of their shared appreciation for music. At the time, Steve was fresh off ownership of an R&B club in Brooklyn. Al had spun records as a college DJ and was known to break out into Creedence Clearwater Revival songs on the trading floor at work.
After the bank was sold — to New Yorkers and the Swiss in quick succession — Al could have quite comfortably dug in on the West Side playing golf and attending pay parties. Instead, he launched another career buying up real estate and opening clubs on Lower Broad and beyond with Steve. While Al certainly had a talent for the economics of real estate development and club ownership, I always got the sense from him that the sheer fun of encouraging artists and their music was the real motivation. I suppose that’s why on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, had you been downtown, you would have found Al sitting at Rippy’s bar rapping with Kid Rock.
Al’s anti-aging campaign also included volunteer work each Monday at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Age is just a number, and Al was quite good with numbers. —Emily Evans
Boyce Magli
Williamson County real estate agent, founder of Brentwood National Bank
Boyce Magli began his career in real estate in the 1960s after graduating from the University of Tennessee. He served two terms as president of the Williamson County Board of Realtors and as the president of Tennessee Realtors, the former Tennessee Association of Realtors. He was honored as Realtor of the Year by both organizations — in 1977 and 1981, respectively.
Magli was a founding director some three decades ago of Brentwood National Bank — which was bought in the mid-1990s by the former First Union — and chaired the bank’s executive committee before most recently serving as a Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency commissioner.
“We were saddened to hear of Boyce’s passing,” Kathy Tucker, 2019 president of Tennessee Realtors, told our sister publication Brentwood Home Page after Magli’s death in August. “He made a tremendous positive difference in Tennessee’s real estate community. Boyce was always known as a gracious gentleman, a consummate professional, and a generous mentor to many brokers and agents. Our prayers are with his family and loved ones.” —William Williams
Germain Böer
Owen Graduate School of Management professor, entrepreneur advisor
Germain Böer taught at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management for more than 40 years and became a fulcrum of Nashville’s entrepreneurial scene. He began teaching accounting at Owen in 1977 after working at Arthur Andersen and teaching at Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. He went on to publish dozens of journal articles and to author or co-author 12 books while teaching students during five decades, advising dozens of startups and becoming one of the region’s prominent angel investors.
“Germain touched generations of alumni and had a tremendous impact on their lives,” said Eric Johnson, the Owen school’s Ralph Owen Dean and Bruce D. Henderson Professor of Strategy. “Over the past four months of 50th-anniversary celebrations around the globe, many alumni remembered him fondly as a caring mentor.”
Böer’s influence stretched across the Vanderbilt campus. In addition to being Owen’s interim dean from 1986-1987, he chaired numerous technology-focused committees and helped shape the university’s approach to bringing computers into the classroom. Inside the walls of Owen, he pushed for the creation of an entrepreneurship center that hosted conferences and developed a program to provide MBA students with hands-on experience in the private capital market.
Filling a critical gap in Nashville’s startup scene, Böer also helped start the Nashville Capital Network in 2003. Böer was married to Elinor O’Brien Böer, who was also a professor of accounting at Vanderbilt and who died in 2004. They are survived by son Robert, daughter Kathleen and four grandchildren. —William Williams
Sam Bartholomew
Lawyer, former Army football captain
Sam Bartholomew Jr., a longtime pillar of Nashville’s legal community, arrived in Nashville in the early 1970s to attend Vanderbilt Law School, where he later taught from 1974-1984. In 1977, he helped launch Stokes Bartholomew and handled a wide range of work, including corporate, health care, government relations and economic development items. In 2000, the firm grew to include Memphis-based Evans & Petree, and a year later, local tax law specialists Holton, Goodman & Blackstone. Four years after that, he led talks to have his 40-lawyer firm join forces with large New Orleans-based firm Adams and Reese.
“Sam Bartholomew had a tremendous impact on my life,” Lynn Morrow, a partner at Adams and Reese, said in a statement on the firm’s site. “I admired his strong faith and how he led by example in giving back to the community. He provided the highest level of service-above-self and will be dearly missed.”
Bartholomew was very active beyond his law and Vanderbilt work.Then-President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the board of directors of Fannie Mae — he was the Tennessee Reagan-Bush chairman in 1984 and co-chair of Lamar Alexander’s 2000 presidential campaign — and he also served on the board of the Tennessee Housing Development Agency and Tennessee Tomorrow Inc., among other bodies. He was the director-general of the first Tennessee trade mission to France, a trustee of the Tennessee Technology Foundation and chairman of the Nashville Business Incubation Center.
Bartholomew played football at Army, where he served as a team captain. Beyond his playing days, he also remained very involved in the sports world, leading the late-1990s effort to sell suites for the new Titans stadium, serving on the executive committee of the TENNFL Committee and helping launch the Nashville Sports Council and the Music City Bowl.
Bartholomew is survived by his wife, Vicki Hurd Bartholomew, and their children, Bo, Anne, Will and Ben. —Geert De Lombaerde
Lucius Carroll
Business executive, HCA Healthcare
Lucius Carroll II, a veteran Nashville businessman and community leader whose work spanned five decades, enjoyed a career that included a diversity of jobs and roles. He variously served as president of Carco Auto Lease, as executive vice president of Leaseco, as executive vice president of the former Baptist Hospital and as Nashville senior vice president of what is now HCA Healthcare. He also served as president of L.W. Carroll & Co., which he founded in the mid-1990s.
In 2002, Carroll teamed with five other local businessmen to form Innovative Health Partners, which focused on recruiting, referral development, marketing and practice management, and consulting services to physicians and hospitals.
Carroll was as well-known for his affable persona as he was for his business acumen. He was active in Nashville’s social scene and supported Nashville Ballet and Vanderbilt University (his alma mater), among others. Of note, Carroll worked well with local media and was respected as a trusted source of tips, information and context, including to Scene sister publications the Nashville Post and the now-folded The City Paper. —William Williams
Randall “Randy” Parham
Commercial real estate professional
The local real estate industry can create a rough-and-tumble vibe. But Randall “Randy” Parham — a principal at Nashville-based commercial real estate and design firm Southeast Venture, and a heavy-hitter in his field — helped soften the edge.
Pleasant and sincere, Parham was always quick to help others in his field, as well as members of the media trying to report on the industry.
“Randy was one of the smartest and kindest people I’ve ever known, as well as being a natural in this business,” Southeast Venture principal Wood Caldwell said at the time of Parham’s death in July. “He could do it all — brokerage, development, property management, design. Kind of a Renaissance man of commercial real estate. And just a good man, period.”
Parham oversaw Southeast Venture’s real estate services, including property management and brokerage. Also active in the community, he once served as chairman of the board of Fifty Forward, as president of both the Richland Country Club and Nashville City Club, and as an alumnus of Leadership Nashville. A registered architect, Parham began his career at what is now called Gresham Smith after earning architecture and environmental design degrees from Auburn University in 1978.
Parham died at 64, his passing forever eliminating the chances of young folks now establishing their careers in the local CRE sector learning from this seasoned and respected pro. —William Williams
Luke Gregory
Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital CEO
Dr. Luke Gregory
Dr. Luke Gregory, CEO of Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt since 2011, also served as the Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s senior vice president for business development.
“He was an exemplary leader who served his colleagues, our patients and their families with great compassion,” said Dr. Wright Pinson, VUMC deputy CEO and chief health system officer. “I’m extraordinarily grateful for the opportunity that I had to work alongside this exceptional man for the past 13 years and want to express my deepest sympathy to his [family].”
With Gregory at the helm, Monroe Carell underwent multiple expansions. Specifically, the facility is seeing the completion of a 160,000-square-foot, four-floor vertical addition.
Gregory presided over the opening of the hospital’s Seacrest Studios, the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital Vanderbilt at Williamson Medical Center, an outpatient surgical center in Spring Hill and a soon-to-open surgery and clinics facility for children in Murfreesboro. He was also key in developing the after-hours-clinics concept that has placed Monroe Carell pediatricians into community clinics across Middle Tennessee.
In addition, Gregory was instrumental in the development of Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks and in forming Vanderbilt Home Care’s relationship with pharmacy giant Walgreens. As a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, he received the ACHE 2013 Regents Award for his four decades of service and leadership in health care management. —William Williams
