Barbara M. Henagan ’81

Linx Partners

John S. Richardson ’70

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, John Richardson began his career in commercial banking in Pittsburgh following his Princeton education (Class of 1970) and a few other detours (including an M.B.A.).  During the 1980s, as the consolidation in the soft drink distribution systems in the U.S. began to take off, Mr. Richardson joined a start-up company that had been formed by several independent Pepsi-Cola bottlers for the purpose of acquiring and consolidating Pepsi bottlers in the mid-Atlantic region.  By bringing in a major private equity investor, Mr. Richardson helped the company acquire a dozen businesses in a four-year span, consolidate their operations and sell the company at the height of the consolidation push to the Pepsi-Cola Company, rising to the position of COO at the time of the sale.

Jerry Schmidt

Jerry Schmidt is currently an owner and Senior Managing Partner at Matteson Partners, a provider of Strategic Leadership Solutions.  He devotes the majority of his time to the strategic direction of the company and in particular to its new RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) company, ExactSource.  Jerry also works with select Matteson Partners clients on Organizational Effectiveness and Business Value Creation.  Over the past 22 years of Private equity and Venture investing as Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Cordova Ventures, Jerry has developed a proprietary “Value Creation Matrix” to assist small to mid size companies create substantial shareholder value.  Prior to that Jerry spent 18 years at Jostens Inc., a formerly publicly traded New York Stock Exchange Company on the Standard and Poorʼs 500 based in Minneapolis involved in the sale and manufacturing of motivation and recognition products to educational institutions and companies.  Jerry served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the Printing Division, and Vice President and General Manager of the Scholastic Division.  Civic activities have included the East Cobb Rotary Club of which he is past president, the National Chairman of the Council of Growing Companies, a national nonprofit business organization for CEOs and growing companies.

Dennis Hooper spent his first career helping hundreds of managers and technicians within the Procter & Gamble Company (23 years) and the Weyerhaeuser Company (7 years) build their leadership skills.  He held line and Human Resource staff assignments at five different manufacturing locations, often serving other facilities based on his growing reputation. 

Now, as a Certified FranklinCovey Coach focused on leadership development, Dennis is helping leaders of organizations enhance the skills of their direct reports.  He shows leaders how to leverage their experience and influence to build future organizational leaders.  The executive achieves greater freedom while building assurance that the organization will continue to serve its customers well, continually improving toward excellence.  Dennis installs a leadership development system in those organizations that do not yet have one, and improves systems that currently exist.  After identifying each leader’s current strengths and limitations, he guides the individual in generating a plan to enhance skills and increase service to direct reports.

Thousands witness Dennis’ teaching and writing skills through his biweekly newspaper columns focused on building leaders and organizations of excellence—he’s been writing articles for ten years!  Skilled in applying academic theories and empirical models to the practical needs of organizations, his penetrating questions cause leaders to think deeply, often making new meaning of familiar situations. 

Dennis has a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech and a master’s degree in Business Administration from East Carolina University.  He is a member of the International Coach Federation, the Georgia Coach Association, and the Christian Coaches Network.  With clients from Florida to New York and west to Washington state demanding his attention, Dennis misses every night he’s away from Atlanta and Donna, his loving wife.  They enjoy investing time with their daughter Alison, her husband Daniel, and their toddler son, Riley.

Trey Loughran

Trey Loughran is responsible for Equifax’s Personal Information Solutions business unit, a leading provider of credit monitoring, identity management and debt reduction solutions to customers, primarily through digital channels, across the U.S. and Canada.  During his tenure as President of Personal Solutions, the unit has seen its growth rate increase significantly and margins improve by 700 basis points.  Prior to his promotion to this position in December 2009, Mr. Loughran led the company's Corporate Development efforts, including global mergers, acquisitions and integration and business expansion into new international markets.  During his tenure in this role, Mr. Loughran led the largest acquisition and integration in the history of Equifax, the $1.4 billion acquisition of TALX Corp, and Equifax’s entry into both Russia and India.

Mr. Loughran joined Equifax after five years at BellSouth Corp., where he held a number of leadership positions, including Managing Director of the company's Corporate Strategy and Planning department.  During his tenure at BellSouth, he also served as Executive Director of Marketing in BellSouth's Interconnection Services business unit and was awarded the company’s Network Service Excellence Award in 2005.  Prior to joining BellSouth, Mr. Loughran helped launch Global Food Exchange, an Internet-based software company, and was its Chief Financial Officer and head of Corporate Development.  Prior to that, he served nearly four years as a consultant with McKinsey & Company in Atlanta, where he focused on the corporate finance and strategy practice. Previous to McKinsey, he served as an attorney with King & Spalding in Atlanta and as an investment banking analyst with Lazard Frères & Co. in New York.