Mr. Farrell is the founder and president of Savage Grant, a company that invests in Appalachia through the energy, infrastructure and technology industries. As part of this strategy, he co-founded Mountain Point, a cloud technology consulting firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and CentralApp, an onshoring software development company with workers located throughout central Appalachia. Mr. Farrell also owns and serves as the president of Service Pump and Supply, an industrial products and services company working to provide customers with solutions to their clean water, wastewater and stormwater challenges.
Dr. Brooks is the associate vice president of online learning and dean of university libraries. She has been with Marshall for 26 years, having started her career here as a member of the library faculty. She is the recipient of the Southern Growth Policy Board Regional Innovator Award and was an Appalachian Educational Laboratory Co-Venture Minority Research Fellow in 2004. Personal research interests include her family’s circus, La Carpa Garcia, 1914-1947, and its important contribution to Mexican-American theater in the Southwest region of the United States.
Dr. Christofero is a professor and program coordinator for the Master of Science in Information Systems in the Lewis College of Business. She additionally coordinates graduate certificate programs in accessibility awareness and technology management. She is the principal investigator for the interdisciplinary MU ACCESS (Marshall University Accessibility Curricula Collaboration fostering Employable Student Skills) project, which helps students gain the knowledge and skills needed to provide technology accessibility for all people—including those with disabilities—to become more employable.
Lt. Gen. Crutchfield is a 1982 alumnus of Marshall, with a degree from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. He retired as a lieutenant general from the U.S. Army in 2017 after 34 distinguished years. He led units at nearly every level, including the 10th Mountain Division’s Aviation Brigade and as Commanding General of the Army’s Aviation Branch at Fort Rucker, Alabama. His last assignment before retiring was as Deputy Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, the largest combatant command in the U.S. unified command structure. He is currently the vice president of Army systems at Boeing.
Ms. Hurula is the business operations manager in the university’s Division of Academic Affairs. In addition to serving as the classified staff representative to the Board of Governors, she has represented Marshall on the state’s Advisory Council of Classified Employees (ACCE).
Ms. Parks is a senior political science and international affairs major from Hedgesville, West Virginia. She represents the students on the Board of Governors. Her Student Government Association (SGA) priorities includes promoting COVID-19 vaccinations for students and the use of university facilities like the Recreation Center and the Counseling Center to boost overall general health. In addition to her involvement with SGA, she participates in Baptist Campus Ministries and is a lifeguard and swim instructor at the Recreation Center.
Dr. Riner is professor of anthropology at Marshall. She has conducted ethnographic research on death penalty trials across Texas, investigating how the use of language shapes jurors’ experiences during trials and impacts their life and death decisions. Her book, Confronting the Death Penalty, published by Oxford University Press (2016), explores how jurors use language to counter moments of empathy they share with defendants, thereby justifying their decisions for death. Dr. Riner is also engaged in multiple projects that seek to understand the experiences of military veterans and help with issues that they face in their post-service lives.