December 4, 2012
NOTE: Go to http://www.eastman.com/Company/About_Eastman/Leadership/Pages/Executive_Team.aspx to access an image of James Rogers; http://photolab.etsu.edu/images/ForsmanAllan7950b.jpg for an image of Dr. Alan Forsman.
JOHNSON CITY James Rogers, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Eastman
Chemical Co., will be the speaker at East Tennessee State University's 10 a.m. fall
Commencement exercise, and ETSU's Dr. Allan Forsman will deliver the 2 p.m. address
on Saturday, Dec. 15, in the ETSU/Mountain States Health Alliance Athletic Center
(the Mini-Dome).
Rogers graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in psychology in 1973,
followed in 1983 by an M.B.A. degree from The Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania. Between his two courses of study, he served in the U.S. Navy as a naval
aviator, flying aboard the U.S.S. Eisenhower.
In 1983, Rogers joined Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., rising over the next four years
to the position of vice president in corporate finance. By 1987, he had joined Amphenol
Corp. as treasurer of the leveraged buy-out in the electronic connector industry.
Rogers became vice president and treasurer of GAF Corp./International Specialty Products,
Inc. in 1992. Over the next seven years, he rose steadily in the corporate structure.
In 1999, Rogers joined Eastman Chemical Co. as senior vice president and chief financial
officer. He was named executive vice president of the company and president of Eastman
Division in 2003, and president and head of the Chemicals and Fibers Business Group
in 2009. Within two years, he was appointed to his current position.
Rogers is a member of the board of directors for Lord Corporation, a private technology
company. And, among his many community affiliations, Rogers serves on the Executive
Committee and is past president of the Sequoyah Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
In addition, he is active in the United Way of Greater Kingsport.
Forsman is an associate professor at ETSU, within the College of Public Health's Department
of Health Sciences. Since joining the ETSU faculty in 1998, Forsman has earned worldwide
respect for his passion for teaching and his integration of new technologies into
the classroom.
The recipient of ETSU's 2012 Distinguished Faculty Award in Teaching, Forsman has
created an extensive catalog of audiovisual teaching aids for his courseshuman anatomy,
as well as anatomy and physiology I and IIto complement and enhance the textbook and
lab models.
Forsman's teaching influence extends far beyond the ETSU campus through his contributions
to the iTunes educational platform. He has posted hundreds of anatomy lecture podcasts
and videocasts on the ETSU-iTunes website that have been downloaded hundreds of thousands
of times. During one two-week period, more than 100,000 downloads of Forsman's lectures
were made, resulting in Forsman being one of the nation's most "downloaded" professors
on iTunes.
Students from as far away as Australia, Europe, Africa and Canada who have downloaded
his podcasts and videocasts have written letters of appreciation to Forsman.
Forsman earned his baccalaureate degree in biological science at the University of
North Dakota. He remained at the university for his graduate and doctoral degrees.
Prior to his arrival at ETSU, Forsman held a teaching position at Utica (N.Y.) College and served as a laboratory manager/radiation officer in BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado. In addition, Forsman previously held a faculty appointment at the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific in California and was a post-doctoral fellow at the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training in Gravitational Biology, located at Kansas State University.
