Board of Trustees
Who We Are
Board Members
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Head of School
James is an eighteen-year veteran of independent school education and comes to us from St. John’s Episcopal School in Rancho Margarita, California.
Along the way, James earned his Master’s and Doctoral degrees at the George Washington University.
James loves to learn, travel, and explore Nashville’s amazing restaurant scene. He and his rescue cat, Biggles, continue to be avid soccer fans. Read Full Bio
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BOARD VICE CHAIR
Dave Goetz currently is Vice President, Client Service Account Management for Optum State Government Solutions. In that role he works with state government clients to define needs and solutions around managing health care and meeting program goals.
From 2003 through 2010, Goetz served as Commissioner of Finance and Administration for Governor Phil Bredesen, and in that role was the chief fiscal officer and administrative official for the State of Tennessee.
Prior to entering State Government, Goetz served as President of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry, formerly the Tennessee Association of Business. From 1990 to 1996, he served as Executive Director of the Tennessee Business Roundtable, a Nashville-based association of business executives.
Dave and his spouse, Katy Varney attend Christ Church Cathedral. He has been a member of the Vestry, and is a lay reader. A Nashville native, he is a graduate of Montgomery Bell Academy and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Dave and Katy have two adult children.
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BOARD CHAIR
Mary Lea Bryant is a native Nashvillian and lifelong Episcopalian. She holds a B.A. in History from the University of Virginia and an M.Ed from Vanderbilt University. Her careers have been in retail, interior design and most recently in education at The Harpeth Hall School from 2007- 2016, serving first as a counselor and then as Director of the Middle School. Mary Lea has served on the boards of Homewood Museum at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Travellers Rest Plantation and Museum, and Harpeth Hall. She has also served on the vestry of Church of the Good Shepherd, Ruxton Maryland. Mary Lea and her husband Rick have three children and three grandchildren.
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Board Chair, Emeritus
Ketch Secor is a Grammy award winning musician, ESN parent, former Board of Trustees Chair and Co-Chair, and founder of Episcopal School of Nashville.
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Board Chair, Emerita
Ellen is a lifelong Episcopalian. As a decades long member of Christ Church Cathedral, she has variously served as stewardship chair, vestry member, head of the 2004 master plan committee, senior warden, member of the most recent strategic planning committee, and convener of the third party working group from 2017-2020. She formerly served two terms on the Board of Trustees of University School of Nashville and was a long term member of its building and grounds standing committee. A now part time pathologist, she and her husband, George, have two grown children and share their home with a black standard poodle- Johnny Cash.
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Gareth S. Aden is from Durham, N.C. and moved to Nashville with his family in the early 50s. He graduated from Vanderbilt University and received his law degree from Vanderbilt School of Law in 1969. He joined the law firm of Hooker, Keeble, Dodson and Harris after graduation and when that firm dissolved in 1986, he joined Gullett, Sanford, Robinson and Martin (GSRM) where he practices today, specializing in commercial and railroad litigation. As an attorney, he has served two terms on the board of directors of the Nashville Bar Association and was elected President of the NBA in 2000. He served as editor of the Nashville Bar Journal for several years and was the attorney for the association for four years. In 2002 he received the John C. Tune Community Service Award from the Nashville Bar Association and continues to serve the NBA as the Historical Committee chair for its Oral History Project.
Gareth is a lifelong Boy Scout. He received his Eagle Scout award as a youth and thereafter has been an adult scoutmaster and assistant scoutmaster at Troops 42 and 11 in Nashville for a period spanning 50 years. He has led scouts on high adventure backpacking trips to the Appalachian Trail, Glacier National Park, Grand Teton National Park, the White Cloud Wilderness in Idaho and the Wemineuche Wilderness in Colorado. The James T. West District of BSA has awarded him the Long Rifle Award and he has recently been selected to receive the Silver Beaver Award for service to scouting by the Middle Tennessee Scout Council. He is also active in the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee, where he served as Vice Chancellor and Chancellor for 17 years until stepping down in 2019.
He is a member of St. David’s Episcopal Church where he served twice on the vestry and as Senior Warden and Junior Warden. He also was selected to serve as a deputy to four Triennial General conventions ofThe Episcopal Church. In the past he served as a board member and president of the Easter Seal Society of Middle Tennessee. In mid-2001 he was happy to become a trustee of the Episcopal School of Nashville and continue to serve the church in Middle Tennessee. Gareth is married to Julia Whaley Aden and they have two children, Spenser Aden and Erika Best, and four grandchildren. He is an avid backpacker, climber, cyclist, trout fisherman and gardener.
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Lisa Aston has a genuine passion for early education and its impact on a student’s foundation to reach his or her full potential. A native Hoosier, Lisa graduated from Duke University in 1986 as an honors student in public policy and economics. She pursued a career in investment banking before dedicating her time to raise two young girls.
After living in Dallas and New York, Lisa and her family moved to Nashville in 2002 where her two daughters attended Harpeth Hall. Lisa served on the Harpeth Hall Board of Trustees from 2008 to 2014 and drafted the school’s 2013-2018 strategic plan. As a proud parent of two daughters who attended Blair School of Music and a pianist herself, Lisa served on the Blair KeyBoard for 4 years.
Lisa is passionate about lifelong learning and when not reading, she enjoys cooking, running in Percy Warner Park, traveling, and playing with her 15 month old twin granddaughters.
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Allie Bohannon is a Nashville native and is an attorney at Howard Mobley Hayes & Gontarek, PLLC, a boutique Trusts & Estates Counsel law firm in Nashville, Tennessee. She graduated from the University of California-Los Angeles in 2008, as an undergraduate, where she was a member of the UCLA Cross Country and Track & Field teams and served as a team captain. While at UCLA, she earned All-American honors in Track & Field and All-Academic honors as a student athlete. After college, Allie earned a Master of Public Policy in 2010 from Vanderbilt University and from there went on to work for two years in admissions at Ensworth High School. In 2012, Allie decided to enroll in law school where she earned her Juris Doctorate in 2015 from Belmont University – College of Law. She has been practicing in the area of trusts and estates law for the last 7 years and is listed in the Best Lawyers ‘Ones to Watch’ for her area of practice.
Allie currently serves on the Development Committee for ESN and on the Executive Committee as a Board Member of the 100 Club of Nashville. She has coached middle school basketball at Harpeth Hall, cross country at Ensworth High School and most recently cross country at ESN. Allie attends St. George’s Episcopal Church where she was baptized and confirmed. She previously attended Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville and All Saint’s Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, California. Allie enjoys all things outdoors particularly golfing, gardening, and hiking, she also enjoys cooking, enthusiastically cheering on UCLA athletics and spending time with her dog, Archie.
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Richard Kennelly is Chief Teambuilding Officer at Team Concepts, Inc., a leadership development company, and board member of Leadership Transformations, Inc., whose mission is the spiritual transformation of Christian leaders and teams. He was a founder of cleantech startup BigBelly Solar, practiced environmental law in Boston, and is an Olympic silver medalist in rowing. A lifelong Episcopalian, Richard graduated from St. Paul’s School in NH, which was founded in the Episcopal tradition. He holds a BA in English from Harvard College and a JD from the University of Virginia. He is a member of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Nashville, where his wife, the Rev. Margery Kennelly, serves as an Associate Rector. They have two adult children and a Belgian Shepherd.
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Amos is a native of the Georgia coast and a graduate of the University of Georgia and Mississippi College School of Law. He moved to Nashville in 2008 to spend his final semester of law school clerking for Judge Thomas A. Wiseman, Jr. During his clerkship, Amos and his wife, Sue-anna, fell in love with Nashville and have been living Downtown ever since. In 2012, Amos started his own law practice where he focuses on contract negotiations and business litigation of all varieties. Amos and Sue-anna and their daughter, Susan-Laine, attend Christ Church Cathedral, and Susan-Laine attends ESN.
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Wendy Buntin serves as Vice-President of Advancement for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society covering 16 states in the Midwest and South. Prior to this role, Wendy served the American Red Cross beginning in March of 2012 as the Regional Chief Development Office for the Tennessee Region; and was promoted to National Director of Coaching and Development in the fall of 2016. In January 2018, she was asked to lead the Training Team as the National Director of Training and Development. Wendy came to the American Red Cross after having worked as the Director of Philanthropy at The Nature Conservancy of Tennessee for 11 years. A graduate of the University of the South, Sewanee, with a postgraduate degree from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, Wendy began her career in development at Darlington School in Rome, GA., and with Rotary International. Wendy and her husband, Wilson, have two sons – Jack (11) and Charlie (8) and reside in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Ed is Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Equitable Trust Company, a position he has held since joining the company in 2003. Previously, he was First Vice President and Senior Investment Officer in the Private Client Services Division of SunTrust Banks in Nashville and Atlanta. Ed began his investment management career in 1983 with the Robinson-Humphrey Company. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Communications from Washington & Lee University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Emory University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. Ed served two terms on the board of CFA Society Nashville and was its president from 2008 to 2009. He has served with Boy Scout Troop 31 at St. George’s Episcopal Church in a variety of capacities.
A former member of the Christ Church Cathedral Vestry, Ed also served for many years on the Finance Committee and as Treasurer for five of them.
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Drew is a nationally acclaimed touring artist, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He grew up in Memphis TN, studied History and Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and earned a Masters Degree in Theological Studies from the University of St. Andrews.
He and his band, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, have spent the last 15 years criss-crossing the US and Europe touring and recording. He is also the founder of the Moon River Music Festival in Chattanooga and the Magnolia Record Club.
Drew is married to fellow touring artist and children’s book author, Ellie Holcomb. Ellie and Drew have lived in East Nashville for 14 years and have three children, Emmmylou, Huck and Rivers. Their children attend Episcopal School of Nashville, and often accompany them on tour throughout the United States.
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Craig is a member of St. George’s Episcopal Church where he has variously served as Stewardship Chair, a vestry member, and on the finance committee. He has also served on the recently completed Capital Campaign Committee and now serves on the Building Committee. He formerly served two terms on the Board of Trustees of the Ensworth School in Nashville and was a long serving member of its Building and Grounds Standing Committee and the Executive Committee. A native Nashvillian, Craig is now retired from the commercial real estate business, having mostly served in the office sector. He is a graduate of The University of the South at Sewanee and holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from Emory University. He and his wife Rebecca have two grown children. Craig enjoys tennis, fishing, hunting, and being on his farm as often as possible.
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The Reverend Canon Jody Howard is Canon to the Ordinary of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee. A native of Asheville, North Carolina he is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, Asheville and the University of the South School of Theology. He has previously served as Assistant Priest at Trinity Church, Winchester, Vicar of St. Francis Church, Goodlettsville, and as Rector of St. Joseph of Arimathea Episcopal Church in Hendersonville, where he resides with his wife Anna and their sons, Eli and August.
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Catherine Grace is an Oklahoma native who holds a BA in Urban Studies from Columbia University and a MST in Early Childhood Education from Fordham University. Before moving to Nashville in 2016, she pursued her career teaching at several top independent schools in the Northeast, including Grace Church School in downtown New York City and the Brunswick School in Greenwich, CT. While living on the Upper East Side, Catherine was an active participant in philanthropic young professionals organizations, particularly the First Position of the School of American Ballet and the Greensward Circle of the Central Park Conversancy, where she served on various committees and took on leadership roles. Since moving to Nashville, Catherine has continued to pursue a patronage of the arts and education through involvement with Nashville Ballet, the Nashville Symphony, Cheekwood, and St. George’s Kindergarten. Catherine currently lives in Green Hills with her husband Frederick (a native New Yorker and lifelong Episcopalian), and their three young children, Sutton, Kingsley, and Russell. Catherine enjoys playing tennis and spending time with family in Palm Beach, Florida and Locust Valley, New York.
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Brooks R. Smith moved to Nashville when in high school in the mid 80s. He graduated from Sewanee, the University of the South in 1993 and then the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1996. After practicing for a few years in Atlanta, he joined the law firm of Boult Cummings Conners & Berry in Nashville in late 1999, which merged into and became Bradley Arant Boult Cummings in 2009, where he continues to practice today. His practice focuses on commercial real estate transactional matters. Brooks is an adjunct professor of law at Belmont University College of Law where he teaches real estate transactions. He is also the Judge for the City of Forest Hills.
Brooks is a “cradle” Episcopalian; having attended, in order, St. James Episcopal Church in Marietta, Georgia; Church of the Incarnation in Dallas, Texas; St. George’s Episcopal Church in Nashville; the Sewanee parish at All Saints; St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Knoxville, Tennessee; the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta, Georgia and since 1999, Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral in Nashville, where he is currently serving on the vestry and conditions permitting, as an early service Sacristan. Brooks is currently a candidate for postulancy for the Diaconate within the Diocese of Tennessee. Brooks is married to Janna Eaton Smith and they have two children together, Adeline, a freshman at Sewanee, and Brooks Jr., a sophomore at Montgomery Bell Academy. Aside from his first love, spending time with his family, Brooks enjoys playing the piano, banjo, guitar or newly discovered hang drum, gardening, tending to his chickens or four hives of bees, hiking or hunting at his farm, he would rather be doing something, and preferably outdoors.
Brooks passionately believes that all children deserve an excellent education and educational opportunities, and is blessed by his involvement with the Episcopal School of Nashville that provides just such an opportunity within the framework of the Episcopal Church.
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Katherine Murrie is a parishioner at St. George’s Episcopal Church and earned a B.S. in Business Management from Lipscomb University and an M.Ed. with a concentration in Organizational Learning and Communication from Belmont University. Katherine is a member of the Lipscomb Bison Athletic Hall of Fame for Golf and has held a variety of volunteer roles for non-profits in the Nashville area. Having spent almost two decades in Banking, Katherine now serves as a Commercial Payments Consultant in the healthcare technology sector. Katherine and her husband Jason, a local Attorney, have lived in East Nashville for 13 years and are the proud parents of two ESN Purple Martins and a rescue Doodle named Richard.
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Pam Schmidt, a Nashville native, is the director of HR and Talent Development at MP&F Strategic Communications. She joined MP&F in 1994 and spent 10 years specializing in event management, news and feature writing, and marketing materials development. After a four-year stint as an affiliate real estate broker with French Christianson Patterson & Associates, she returned to MP&F in 2008 and spent four years with a focus on strategic planning, crisis communications, media relations and event planning. After 14 years of client service, she is now part of MP&F’s administrative team, where she oversees all human resources functions and manages the company’s professional development program. She is a member of the Public Relations Society of America and the Society of Human Resource Management.
Pam is a graduate of Hillwood High School and holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tennessee. She also holds a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace Certificate from the University of South Florida Muma College of Business.
She and her husband Chad have two teenage daughters, who are among Camp Gailor-Maxon’s biggest fans. They attend St. David’s Episcopal Church.
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Kathryn Thompson is a founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Thompson Research Group (TRG). TRG is an equity research & advisory firm focused on the industrial and construction sectors. In addition to managing and setting the strategic direction of the firm, she also serves as Director of Research. Thompson brings over 20 years’ experience analyzing, modeling and advising mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, private equity funds and family offices on investment and portfolio management. She also works closely with key public and private companies, acting as a trusted advisor for strategic planning and growth initiatives. Kathryn is a graduate of the University of the South in Sewanee and Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. She has been a long-time member of Christ Church Cathedral and is kept busy by her two daughters, Harper and Helen Jane, and rambunctious corgi George.
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As a pillar of the Nashville nonprofit community, Robinson Regen has more than 20 years of experience in the nonprofit sector and currently serves as a consultant.
Robinson has successfully managed capital campaigns during the last twenty years, strengthened fundraising programs, evaluated organization governance, built awareness among community volunteers and leaders, and worked with various boards of Directors. Her varied nonprofit experiences and significant involvement in the community enable an organization to execute its strategic goals and deliver on promises to the community the nonprofit serves. She has a proven ability to work cooperatively with diverse populations, bring about consensus and alignment, and further the organization’s mission. The organizations have varied in size and need.
Before beginning her consulting career, Robinson spent nearly a decade in fundraising and leadership with three social service agencies. In addition to her employment in the nonprofit community, she has served on numerous boards or volunteered with organizations, mainly in a leadership capacity.
A native of Kentucky and graduate of Centre College, Robinson is married to local artist and educator Doug Regen. Her son Powell and his wife Lauren reside in Nashville, and Jackson lives in Savannah, Ga. Besides work, her other passions include connecting people, gardening, reading, and equestrian events.
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The Rev. Dr. Molly Dale Smith is an Episcopal priest, writer, and consultant. A graduate of Harpeth Hall and Hollins University in Virginia, Molly Dale has advanced degrees from Emory University, Seabury Western Theological Seminary and St Paul School of Theology. She has served churches in the Dioceses of West Missouri, Newark, New Jersey, Florida, New York and Tennessee. Ministry during times of transition has been a major focus of her ministry. She has led workshops for both Christian and Jewish clergy in the United States and Europe. In addition, she has served on the boards and as president of several national professional organizations. Currently, she is a member of the Board of Trustees of The General Theological Seminary in New York City. Molly Dale and her husband Richard live in Nashville, where they enjoy spending time with their children and grandchildren.