Henry DeLozier
Partner
GGA Partners
Governance
Read Bio
Joe Trauger
VICE PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS
National Club Association
Government Relations Update
Read Bio
Watch Presentation
Excellence in Club Management®
Awards Ceremony & Dinner
The National Club Association (NCA) and McMahon Group are pleased to announce that NCA and McMahon Group will be the sole co-sponsors of the Excellence in Club Management® (ECM) Awards. In addition, the Excellence in Club Management® Awards Dinner will now be held at NCA’s annual National Club Conference.
The 2021 Award Winners will be honored on Monday, May 16, 2022, in Charleston, S.C., at the Excellence in Club Management® Awards Dinner at the Charleston Place’s Riviera Theater. All attendees of the National Club Conference will be able to attend the Awards Dinner to celebrate the best in the industry.
Excellence in Club Management® Award Winners
M. Kent Johnson, CCM, ECM
General Manager
Baltimore Country Club
The James H. Brewer Award
Michael Stacks, ECM
General Manager
Indian Hills Country Club
The Mead Grady Award
Steve Cummings, CCM, CCE, ECM
General Manager
Harvard Club of Boston
The Mel Rex Award
Tai Tran, CCM, ECM
Assistant General Manager
Detroit Athletic Club
The Rising Star Award
Thank You to the 2022 National Club Conference Exhibitors
Henry DeLozier
PARTNER
GGA Partners
Henry B. DeLozier is a partner at GGA Partners and one of the leading authorities on golf course asset development and financing. DeLozier joined GGA Partners after nine years as vice president, golf, with Pulte Homes—the largest developer of golf course communities in the U.S.—where he developed 27 golf courses in 10 states and was responsible for the operation of more than 20 golf courses. He is recognized by Golf Inc. magazine as one of the “Most Influential People in Golf.” He is a past president of the board of directors of the National Golf Course Owners Association and serves on the Employers Advisory Council for the PGA of America. He is a frequent expert source to U.S. and international media on golf-related resort and residential investment and development and social and economic trends affecting the golf business. DeLozier holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Oklahoma State University.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.)
MEMBER
US House of Representatives
Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) grew up in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and is the daughter of a retired Army General and retired school teacher. Before being sworn into Congress, she earned accolades as one of the most fiscally conservative members of the South Carolina General Assembly; she’s also one of the most pro-conservation lawmakers in the state.
Mace grew up in Goose Creek, S.C., and when she dropped out of high school at age 17, her parents said, “If you’re going to stop going to school, you got to start going to work.” She immediately became a waitress at the local Waffle House. She earned her high school diploma a few months later by taking college classes at Trident Technical College in North Charleston.
She graduated magna cum laude from The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, where she was the school’s first female to graduate from its Corps of Cadets in 1999. In 2004, Nancy earned a masters degree from The University of Georgia. She is the author of In The Company of Men: A Woman at The Citadel, published by Simon & Schuster in 2001.
In 2008, she started her own company. Her background in business is in technology, PR & marketing and more recently commercial real estate before coming to Congress.
Mace is the recipient of the 2019 Taxpayer Hero Award from the South Carolina Club for Growth; she has a 100% record of voting to lower taxes. She is also the recipient of the Champion Award from Palmetto Goodwill in her efforts in education and in helping those most in need receive job training; she has a 100% lifetime rating with Conservation Voters of South Carolina.
Mike Veeck
VISIONARY, CO-FOUNDER & AUTHOR
Fun is Good
Mike Veeck is a nationally renowned speaker, entrepreneur, college professor, philanthropist, marketing, promotions and customer care expert, and owner of multiple minor league baseball clubs. He and the Fun Is Good philosophy have been featured on NBC Nightly News, 60 Minutes, The Late Show with David Letterman and many other national media outlets.
Veeck founded Fun Is Good, an employment engagement consulting firm, because he is passionate about helping organizations around the country develop and sustain a positive, fun and creative culture for their employees and customers. He and his Fun Is Good partners of nationally recognized speakers and industry experts deliver inspiring, fun and actionable keynote speeches, seminars and workshops around the country.
Bert Thornton
President and COO (former)
Waffle House
Bert Thornton is the former president and COO of Waffle House. His first book, “Find an Old Gorilla: Pathways Through the Jungle of Business and Life,” is a well-received leadership handbook for rising high achievers and emerging leaders. His latest book, coauthored with Dr. Sherry Hartnett, is “High-Impact Mentoring: A Practical Guide to Creating Value in Other People’s Lives.”
Thornton is a member of the board of directors of the Studer Community Institute in Pensacola, Fla., and entrepreneur-in-residence at the University of West Florida Center for Entrepreneurship. He also has an advisory board role with the Museum School of Avondale Estates, an award-winning charter public elementary-middle school in DeKalb County, Ga. He is a former trustee of the school and was honorary chair for the Museum School’s successful $5 million expansion capital campaign.
Thornton is a 1968 graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, which he attended on a full football scholarship. He spent two years as an artillery officer in the United States Army, serving a tour with the 5th Battalion, 2nd Artillery in South Vietnam. Today, he is vice chairman emeritus of Waffle House, Inc., the largest full-service, sit-down, 24-hour restaurant chain in the world.
Angela Feeser
PRESIDENT
Licensed Professional Counselors Association of Georgia
Angela Feeser, EdS, LPC, CPCS, started her therapy career providing in-home counseling services throughout the Central Savannah River Area. Her leadership roles included regional director and clinical director of outpatient mental health/substance abuse, crisis stabilization and developmental disability services. She has been a member of a variety of advocacy groups for mental health and addiction. During the last four years she has focused on providing therapy in a private group practice.
Feeser enjoys providing workshops in ethics and clinical supervision as well as providing clinical supervision for therapists.
Roger Warren
President
Kiawah Island Golf Resort
Roger Warren, president of Kiawah Island Golf Resort, was elected to serve as the 34th president of The PGA of America from 2004-06 and is a member of the PGA Golf Professional Hall of Fame.
At Kiawah Island, Warren oversees Kiawah Island Golf Resort, an operation that includes the Forbes Travel Guide Five Star and AAA Five Diamond-rated hotel, The Sanctuary; 500 villas and homes; five golf courses; 22 tennis courts; 12 restaurants and 1,400 employees. The resort’s Ocean Course hosted the 2012 and 2021 PGA Championship.
Warren came to Kiawah in 2003 as the resort’s director of golf before assuming the president’s duties in 2005. Formerly general manager and director of golf at Seven Bridges Golf Club in Woodridge, Ill., he has been a PGA member since May 1990 and was the 1998 Illinois PGA Golf Professional of the Year.
Certified as a PGA Master Professional in General Management, Warren was a member of the Golf Professional Training Program (GPTP) faculty for three years. In 1996, he served on the task force that developed CareerLinks, The PGA of America’s job identification service. Warren’s golf shop at Seven Bridges Golf Course in Woodridge, Ill., was named one of “America’s 100 Best Golf Shops” in 1991, ‘96, ‘97, ‘98 and ‘99 by Golf Shop Operations magazine. He was named the Illinois PGA Section’s Merchandiser of the Year for Public Facilities in 1992.
Nationally, he has served on The PGA’s task force on governance and was elected to two-year terms as secretary of The PGA of America in 2000; vice president in 2002; president in 2004; and honorary president in 2006.
A native of Galesburg, Ill., Warren graduated from Western Illinois University with a degree in education in 1972. He earned his master’s degree in 1981 from Northern Illinois University. From 1973-86, he worked for the Dundee (Ill.) School System and in the summer at The Village Links of Glen Ellyn.
Dr. Victoria Grady
Associate Professor, Management
George Mason University
Dr. Victoria M Grady is academic director of the MSM Graduate Program and associate professor of management/organizational behavior in the School of Business at George Mason University. Victoria also recently joined Dixon Hughes Goodman (DHG) as professor in residence for the Healthcare People and Change Practice. Victoria’s research portfolio focuses on the behavioral implications of organizations introducing and implementing organizational change—her unique emphasis is the role of attachment behavior and transitional objects within the change process.
Victoria’s consulting practice includes work with United States federal government agencies, private and public healthcare organizations in the United States and United Kingdom, utility organizations in Australia, K-12 and higher education institutions, nuclear power plants, and nonprofit associations.
Recent research publications can be found in Harvard Business Review, Washington Business Journal, Bloomberg News, GovExec.com, the Journal of Change Management, and The Public Manager. She is co-author of The Pivot Point: Success in Organizational Change, Morgan-James Publishing, 2013; co-author of Family Capitalism: Best Practices in Ownership and Leadership, Routledge (Gower) Publishing, 2017; Attachment in the Workplace: Managing Beneath the Surface, Routledge Taylor Francis Publishing, 2020 and Stuck: How to WIN in Business by Understanding LOSS, Productivity Press: Routledge Taylor Francis Group, 2022.
She spent many childhood weekends on the tennis courts and driving range at Saugahatchee Country Club, Auburn, Ala., and is a member of Mount Vernon Country Club, Alexandria, Va.
Carolyn Ramp
SENIOR THERAPIST
LifeStance Health
Carolyn Ramp, EdS, LPC, ACS, CPCS, has a career in mental health spanning more than 30 years. Her experience includes outpatient clinical work in agencies and school systems, as well as building and managing a multi-specialty private practice of 18 therapists. She earned a master’s degree in 1993 and a specialist’s degree in counseling in 2000. She was president of the Licensed Professional Counselors Association of Georgia in 2019 -2020 and Georgia Multi-level School Counselor of the Year in 2005.
Her specialties include more than 20 years in clinical supervision, working with the families of the personality disordered and teaching parenting strategies as a love and logic facilitator; she is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist. She currently works as a clinical lead with LifeStance Health, Inc., to whom she sold her private practice.
John Tecklenburg
Mayor
City of Charleston
Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg spent much of his career as a businessman and entrepreneur—a family legacy that began with the opening of his great-great-grandfather’s corner grocery store at St. Phillip and Wentworth streets in 1867. Tecklenburg founded Southern Oil Company in 1978 and successfully owned and operated it for nearly 20 years. Upon selling the business, he was appointed director of economic development for the City of Charleston, where he helped lead the revitalization of Upper King Street.
Among his efforts to improve city-wide livability, Tecklenburg has paid particular attention to flooding and drainage relief, appointing the city’s first chief resilience officer and beginning the process of implementing the City of Charleston Flooding & Sea Level Rise Strategy, which outlines actions designed to make the city more resilient to effects of more frequent disasters and changing weather.
Tecklenburg has also led initiatives to address housing affordability and homelessness in Charleston, including the closing of Tent City, a sprawling homeless encampment in the North Central neighborhood, and the formation of the Mayors’Commission on Homelessness and Affordable Housing. In addition, he has championed Plan West Ashley, the largest, most comprehensive renewal and revitalization effort in the city’s history, which works directly with citizens to guide the area’s development for years to come.
Tecklenburg holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Georgetown University and attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Keith Wandell
Ret. President/CEO
Harley-Davidson
Keith Wandell is a business executive with a background in operations, general management and leadership development. He held positions in areas of increasing responsibility from 1972 through 1987 at Sheller-Globe Corp., and Farley Industries. In 1988, he joined Johnson Controls, Inc. as a plant manager within the JCI Battery Group, where he was promoted to vice president of operations and was subsequently named president. During his tenure, the company evolved from a North America-centric business to a global one, and revenues grew from $2.5 billion to more than $5 billion.
In 2003, Wandell was promoted to president/automotive group of JCI, a $20 billion entity that supplied complete sets and interior components to every major automobile company globally. He was promoted in early 2007 to executive vice president and COO of Johnson Controls, Inc., where he was responsible for three companies with revenues in excess of $40 billion.
In early 2009, he was recruited to be president and CEO of Harley-Davidson, Inc., and became chairman of the board two years later. He led a turnaround of the company after the 2008-2009 financial crisis, achieving record profitability and the creation of $13.5 billion of shareholder value in five years. In addition to restructuring the manufacturing footprint and rationalizing the dealer network, he led the restructuring of the product development process and introduced the Harley-Davidson electric motorcycle (LiveWire) in 2012.
He currently serves on the boards of Dover Corporation and Dana Corporation, where he is independent lead director. He served on the board of Constellation Brands from 2011-2019 and Chairman of the Board of Exide Technologies from 2015-2019. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University and an MBA from The University of Dayton.
Kristin Graziano
Sheriff
Charleston County
Sheriff Kristin Graziano is a 33-year law enforcement veteran, serving the last 19 years in Charleston, S.C. She is the city’s first female sheriff and previously served 14 years in Charlottesville, Va.
During her tenure with the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, Graziano served as an element leader and trainer for the SWAT team and designed and implemented a uniform response code for active shooter scenarios for Charleston County schools that was later used as a model for the rest of the state. Additionally, she created a port safety threat analysis for Charleston as part of the Sea Hawk Anti-terrorism Task Force (now known as the Interagency Events Center).
She is a 2015 recipient of the Medal of Valor from the South Carolina Sheriff’s Association and a 2011 President’s Award from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Association. She was elected to serve her first term as sheriff in November 2020.
Joe Trauger
VICE PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS
National Club Association
Joe Trauger is NCA’s vice president of government relations, organizing NCA’s lobbying activities and ClubPAC, NCA’s political action committee.
As an experienced government relations professional with numerous legislative and regulatory successes on Capitol Hill, he brings extensive experience and respect as an association lobbyist with tremendous knowledge of the issues facing clubs today. He has a unique perspective into the private club industry as he is entering his second year as president of Mount Vernon Country Club (an NCA member club) in Alexandria, Va.
He previously was principal and founder of Northfield Strategies, an advocacy consulting firm. Prior to Northfield, Trauger was senior vice president of policy and government relations at the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, and vice president of government relations at the National Association of Manufacturers. His Capitol Hill experience includes positions as senior policy advisor for then-House Majority Whip Roy Blunt; policy advisor for then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey; senior legislative assistant for former Congressman Sam Johnson; and legislative assistant for former Senator Rod Grams.
Trauger is a competitive golfer, frequently playing in (and winning) charity and purse tournaments, and modestly boasts a single-digit handicap.
Jim Newsome
PRESIDENT & CEO
South Carolina Ports Authority
Jim Newsome is president and chief executive officer of the South Carolina Ports Authority in Charleston, S.C. He assumed that role on Sept. 1, 2009, and is only the fifth leader in the history of the port. With 12 years in his position, he is also the longest serving leader of a major container port in the U.S.
Prior to his current position, Newsome had an extensive career in the ocean container shipping industry, including as president—region Americas with Hapag-Lloyd AG, and senior vice president—area Southeast before that. He was also the first American to assume the top roles in the U.S. for both Hapag-Lloyd and Nedlloyd Lines.
Newsome has received numerous accolades, including Maritime Association of the Port of New York and New Jersey’s International Maritime Hall of Fame (2021); University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Global Supply Chain Institute Distinguished Service Award (2020); Outstanding Manufacturing Lifetime Service Award (2020); Roger Milliken Defender of Manufacturing Award (2020); DC Velocity Logistics Rainmaker (2019); University of Tennessee Alumni Professional Achievement Award (2018); Agriculture Transportation Coalition, Person of the Year (2016); South Carolina Public Servant of the Year, South Carolina Chamber of Commerce (2014); Doctor of Humane Letters, The College of Charleston (2014); and Connie Award, The Containerization and Intermodal Institute (2010). He is also involved with numerous organizations and nonprofits.
Newsome holds a bachelor’s degree in transportation and logistics and an MBA from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where he was named Outstanding Alumnus in Transportation and Logistics in 1992.
Chris Singleton
INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER
Chris Singleton Foundation
Chris Singleton knows firsthand how to overcome the unthinkable with a mindset of resilience and an understanding that we may not be able to choose what happens to us, but we can always control our responses. His response to his mother’s murder while he was in college led him to be drafted by the Chicago Cubs and he’s now one of the most booked professional speakers under the age of 30, sharing his keys to Survive, Pivot, Adapt and Thrive (S.P.A.T) through all of life’s obstacles.
Singleton is a former professional athlete drafted by the Chicago Cubs in 2017. Following the loss of his mother in a racially motivated mass shooting (the 2015 Mother Emanuel Church Tragedy in Charleston), he became an inspirational speaker and best-selling author who has shared his message of unity and racial reconciliation with clients such as Microsoft, Biogen, the Houston Texans, Washington Wizards, and others, totaling more than 50 organizations and 30,000 students annually. He lives with his spouse, Mariana, and his sons, CJ and Caden, in Charleston, S.C.
