Board of Directors
Kristen Bale
Secretary
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Kristen T. Bale became a Kentuckian after her marriage to Phillip W. Bale, M.D., in 1972. Her career has encompassed the roles of wife, Special Education teacher, homemaker, medical office book keeper, developing into a local and statewide civic volunteer and activist for many decades. Her civic volunteer interests have always centered around her passion, education.
Over the decades, she has served in a variety of volunteer capacities: her children’s PTO’s, teaching adults to read at the local library, on the Western Kentucky University Board of Regents, The Prichard Committee, Leadership Kentucky, South Central Kentucky Cultural Center in Glasgow, Kentucky Humanities Council, Lexington Theological Seminary, Western Kentucky
University Student Life Foundation and First Christian Church of Glasgow. The Kentucky Center for Leadership is the most recent adventure Kristen is supporting.
The Kentucky Center for Leadership will be providing excellent programs and support to educate our local and state citizenry in strong positive leadership roles essential to the building of well-balanced lives, institutions and a democracy.
Craig Browning
Chair
Craig serves as Managing Principal of The Glenview Trust Company’s Bowling Green office. Prior to that Craig worked in the financial services industry for 35 years, with his most recent position being the regional president of U.S. Bank, N.A., where he worked for 26 years. Craig has been actively involved in many civic and community development leadership roles throughout the state including two terms served on the Kentucky Chamber Board of Directors and as a member of the United Way of Kentucky board. He previously served on the advisory board for the Warren County DARE program, South Central Workforce board, and as a former Chairman of the board for the United Way of Southern Kentucky, Junior Achievement of South Central Kentucky, and the WKU Foundation Board of Trustees. He is currently serving as: Chairman of the board for the Kentucky Center for Leadership;
Executive Committee, board member and Past President of the Hilltopper Athletic Foundation; Adjunct Professor for WKU’s Gordon Ford College of Business; and board of director for the POP-UP Minority Entrepreneurship Program. Browning is an alum of the Kentucky Leadership program, KBA’s Commercial Lending School of Banking, and received his undergraduate business degree from Western Kentucky University.
“The KC4L fills a gap in our region and state that is underserved today. Enhancing the real-life leadership skills of our citizens will produce a stronger, healthier community. Many individuals in leadership roles today struggle because they were cast into such a position without formal guidance and coaching around leadership strategies. Being a strong individual contributor doesn’t always equate to strong leadership skills. KC4L helps assess, analyze, and chart a path of leadership growth for individuals and organizations alike.”
Greg Coker
Greg Coker is the president and CEO of Greg Coker Development Inc., whose mission is the development of the individual, team and organization. Considered an expert in human behavior and organizational dynamics, his vision is as a result of reading his books, attending his keynotes/workshops; participants are moved to achieve higher levels of performance and their organizations better places to work. He is the author of Building Cathedrals: The Power of Purpose, Soft Skills Field Manual and Healing the Wounds: Forgiveness & Reconciliation in the Workplace. His fourth book, Pillars of the Organization, is scheduled to be released in 2024. His clients have included AT&T, General Motors, McDonalds, AT&T, Vanderbilt University, TVA, Duke Energy and hundreds of high-performance individuals who benefit from his personal coaching.
Pamela Decker
Pam is an executive officer and the Chief Compliance Officer at Franklin Bank & Trust and has spent most of her career as a community banker in South Central Kentucky. Prior to joining Franklin Bank in 2023, she was an Assistant Professor of Business at Lindsey Wilson College where she taught Finance, Management, International Business, and Ethics courses. She has been an Adjunct Professor at WKU since 2017 teaching online courses for the School of Leadership and Professional Studies.
Pam serves and has served on numerous boards and local committees, including Warren Rural Electric Cooperative, the Edmonson County Industrial Authority, BRADD, American Red Cross, and as a volunteer providing credit counseling for the Bowling Green Housing Authority’s People’s Opportunity for Underserved Populations. She holds an MBA and an EdD from WKU.
Jim Flynn
Treasurer, Chairperson Elect
A veteran educator and leader with over 30 years of experience, Dr. Jim Flynn serves as Executive Director of the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents where he provides professional assistance and leadership for the 171 superintendents in Kentucky, supports their professional learning, and leads the advocacy efforts of KASS.
Dr. Flynn served 16 years as superintendent of Simpson County Schools where he instilled a common vision for empowering all students to graduate life ready – prepared both academically and socially for college and careers. Recipient of the 2015 Kentucky Superintendent of the Year Award, Dr. Flynn is a statewide leader having served as President of the KASS and appointed by Kentucky General Assembly to the Local Superintendents Advisory Council (LSAC). Dr. Flynn’s national leadership experiences
include AASA, NSBA, the National Superintendents Leadership Institute and the BellSouth Superintendents Leadership Network to name a few. Additionally, he has presented to international audiences in Finland and China where he shared Kentucky’s educational achievements and benchmarked best practices.
At Western Kentucky University, Dr. Flynn continues to serve in the Department of Educational Administration, Research and Leadership in the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences.
He is a graduate of Bowling Green High School, where he was inducted into the BGHS Hall of Honor in 2014. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree along with his Rank I in School Administration and superintendent certification from Western Kentucky University. He received his Master of Science degree from Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi and his Doctoral degree from Northern Kentucky University.
He is married to Natalie, who is a teacher at Briarwood Elementary. They have three children, Bracken (Rice University graduate), Hunter (Western Kentucky University graduate), and Bretton (12th grade). He resides in Franklin, Kentucky with his wife and daughter.
Cecile Garmon
Cecile Garmon serves as the Vice President of the Kentucky Center for Leadership which has the goal of helping citizens and organizations mobilize colleagues to identify and resolve community issues. In this role she helps develop the adaptive leadership courses which she also teaches.
Cecile considers the Kentucky Center for Leadership to be a valuable avenue for people to gain skills that enable them to participate more effectively in leading toward understanding and managing the issues they face in community and personal lives. Her experiences and background have given her access to many leadership sources and she feels fortunate to have the opportunity to promote leadership development among her fellow citizens and enable them to bring healthy change to their communities.
Cecile’s background includes 59 years of teaching and administration at the university and high school levels. After serving as
Director of Budget and Planning at Western Kentucky University, she created and directed the Center for Leadership Excellence while teaching leadership and intercultural communication.
She lives in Glasgow, Kentucky, where she served on boards of the local library and banks and participates in other community nonprofit activities.
Jim Gray
Jim Gray is the former mayor of Lexington, Kentucky, and currently secretary of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. On January 14, Governor Andy Beshear named Gray Director of Kentucky’s Vaccine Distribution Project.
At the start of his career, Gray earned a B.A. from Vanderbilt University, then came back home to Kentucky to help grow his family’s construction business, serving as the company’s CEO and its chairman. Today, Gray Construction is routinely ranked among the top 5 builders in the U.S. within major industry sectors including manufacturing, automotive, food and beverage, and distribution. In 1996, Gray was appointed a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University.
As Lexington’s mayor, Gray drew upon his CEO experience to bring a management approach to government. He righted Lexington’s
financial ship through a series of major reforms and significantly reduced the city’s annual employee health insurance costs while improving employee satisfaction through an on-site medical clinic and pharmacy. His reform of the police and fire pension system was recognized in 2012 as the most effective in the nation. Gray revitalized the city’s downtown and led the effort to make Lexington the largest gigabit city in the nation. Under his leadership, Lexington was named among the top 5 best run cities in the country, three years in a row.
In December 2019, Governor Andy Beshear appointed Gray as Transportation Secretary, which involves leading 4400 employees across Kentucky and an annual operating and construction budget of almost $2.5 billion.
Eddie Melton
Eddie Melton serves as first vice president of Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation and Kentucky Farm Bureau Insurance Companies.
He was elected as first vice president in December 2010, following two years as second vice president of the Federation and one year on the insurance company’s executive committee.
Mr. Melton represents District Two as a member of the Federation’s Board of Directors and is chair of the State Resolutions Committee.
He is an active member of the Webster County Farm Bureau where he has served in a variety of leadership positions, including president and chairman of the young farmer committee.
He also serves on the Board of Directors for Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company, is president of the Board of Directors for the Kentucky Center for Agriculture & Rural Development and is a member of the Kentucky State Board of Agriculture.
Mr. Melton graduated from Murray State University in 1980 with a degree in agriculture, and produces corn, soybeans, and beef cattle on his farming operation in Sebree, Kentucky.
He and his wife, Regina, have a daughter.
Tony Pelaski
Tony has had an extensive career in the apparel industry, with 38 years at Fruit of the Loom, Inc. Tony has held various leadership roles at the company in HR, IT and his most recent position, as executive vice president and chief operating officer.
Upon his retirement at the end of 2019, Tony continues to pursue his passion for leadership development as principal of AP Leadership Solutions, LLC.
Tony and his wife, Jayne, reside in Floyds Knobs, Indiana.
Gary Randsdell
Vice Chair
I am pleased to serve on the Board for the Kentucky Center for Leadership. There is a significant need for opportunities to develop sound leadership skills across Kentucky. Leaders in small towns and large communities often are faced with situations which call for smart, poised, and thoughtful leadership. How an elected or employed individual exercises effective leadership often determines how well or successfully a given problem is effectively solved, and how the organization the official represents is perceived. Image is often defined by the decisions leaders make and the manner in which the leader brings an organization to achieve significant things. The Kentucky Center for Leadership aspires to help leaders better understand and apply sound leadership practices. I am pleased, through my role on the KC4L Board, to help facilitate this noble objective.
John Ridley
Bio Coming Soon.
Michael Trivizadakis
Michael is the founding President of the Kentucky Center for Leadership (KC4L), a non profit organization formed with one mission in mind; empowering people to engage, mobilize, and lead communities for healthy change.
Born and raised in Greece, Michael studied Chemical Engineering and completed his PhD. Following that, he came to the US and worked in the academic field as a post-doctoral researcher at UPenn and Drexel in Philadelphia, PA. In 2008 moved to Kentucky and since then Michael focuses on developing people through leadership.
Working in the areas of strategy and leadership development for several years across the US, he realized that something was missing from this region. Kentucky has a very diverse population, both ethnically and socially, with unique qualities and needs. KC4L was founded to fill that gap. Every community deserves access to real-life leadership programs and KC4L aims to empower
every community for that change.
Michael is a citizen actively engaged in the life of this community through various professional organizations, ethnic, and civic groups. Holding a leadership position is not an accomplishment but a duty. It is a responsibility to improve civic leadership that leads to a better society.