Four outstanding Scots recognized as recipients of annual Maryville College Alumni Awards
May 18, 2023
The Maryville College Alumni Association takes pride in the civic and professional accomplishments of all Scots who have set out to, as founder the Rev. Isaac Anderson urged, “good on the largest possible scale,” but each year, a few outstanding alumni are recognized for their achievements.
This year, four Scots will be honored with the following three alumni awards:
The Alumni Citation, awarded to any alumnus/a of MC who has demonstrated outstanding leadership or initiative service in his/her community, church or chosen profession, will be given to Denise Hinds ’80 and Adam McCall ’99. The Kin Takahashi Award for Young Alumni, recognizing an alumnus/a who has, within 20 years of his/her graduation from MC, lived a life characteristic of College legend Kin Takahashi (Class of 1895), will be given to Mark Libell ’03. And the Distinguished Service Award, bestowed upon an alumnus or alumna who has dedicated themselves to great service that benefits the greater good and honors Maryville College, or who has rendered unusual service in any capacity on behalf of the College, was recently awarded to Bruce Guillaume ‘76.
The Distinguished Service Award was presented to Guillaume in a special ceremony on May 13 at the Crawford House, home of Mountain Challenge. Recipients of the Alumni Citation and Kin Takahashi Award for Young Alumni will be honored during the College’s annual Founder’s Day celebration on Oct. 20 at the Clayton Center for the Arts. More information will be revealed over the summer at www.maryvillecollege.edu/homecoming.
Read more about this year’s award winners:
Alumni Citations
Two distinguished Scots will be awarded Alumni Citations, including Adam McCall ’99 and Denise Hinds ’80.
Hinds was courted by MC as a basketball player during her years as a high school player in Brooklyn, New York. Her college career began in Iowa, but after two years, experiences of racism led her to seek her education elsewhere. Recalling the overtures of MC Coach Sharon Brown, she transferred to Maryville College and developed lasting bonds and deep friendships that persist more than four decades later.
As a Scot, the recreation and sociology major was a member of the volleyball team and captain of the Scots Women’s Basketball team. After graduation, she spent a year with Volunteers for Social Services in Dallas, serving as the recreation director for a residential facility for troubled young people, a role that solidified her career path. She returned to New York, where she served as a Catholic nun for 13 years, working directly with at-risk youth, eventually leaving the convent after realizing she was gay. She continued to work with Good Shepherd Services, where she currently serves as the chief program officer for youth and family well-being.
During her time at Good Shepherd Services, she’s helped develop programs making a difference in the lives of the organization’s clients, including the development and implementation of the Chelsea Foyer, the agency’s first supportive housing program for young adults experiencing homelessness and one of the first programs of its type in the country. For 10 years, she’s also led the organization’s LGBTQ workgroup in creating a culture of awareness, acceptance, and celebration for its LGBTQIA+ children, youth, families, and over 1,000 employees. Denise is also on the board of Family Equality, a national organization championing the rights and needs of LGBTQ people to have families. She is the board chair of the Newark LGBTQ Community Center. In 2022, she was named one of NYC’s LGBTQ+ Power Players by PoliticsNY, and was honored with a Gay City News Impact Award.
In addition to her Bachelor of Arts degree from Maryville College, Denise has earned a master’s in social work from the Hunter College School of Social Work and completed the Executive Education Program at Columbia University Graduate School of Business. She is certified as a New York State licensed master social worker, as well as a clinical field instructor. She has also served as a member of the Maryville College Alumni Association’s Diversity Taskforce since its 2020 inception.
A native of Maryville, Adam McCall graduated with engineering degrees concentrating in math and physics, having served as a member of the Mountain Challenge team throughout his college career and developing a friendship with Mountain Challenge founder Bruce Guillaume ’76 that persists to this day. His participation in a dual degree program allowed him to complete a second degree in mechanical engineering from Tennessee Technological University in 2001, after which he began working as an engineer with Sverdrup Corp. at the Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Later, he earned his MBA in international business from Tennessee Tech in 2005.
McCall helped launch the Knoxville-based sustainable technology start-up IdleAire Technologies, where he worked as a mechanical design engineer at first, eventually being promoted to director of engineering and to vice president of product development. During his tenure, the company grew from 10 employees to more than 1,100 and raised more than $500 million in capital.
Beginning in college, a love of wakeboarding earned him sponsorships as a competitive wakeboarder, including one with Malibu Boats. In late 2007, he began collaborating on a new boat design brand which he later named Axis Wake Research. As managing director of Axis, he oversaw design, production, sales and marketing, the success of which led to an executive role with the parent company, Malibu Boats. He remains an active advisor and consultant to Malibu, but in 2013, he left to become president and CEO of TennEra, a subsidiary of the University of Tennessee Research Foundation. To raise private capital, he created Prisma Renewable Composites as a spin-off of TennEra, which has partnered with the Joint Institute for Advanced Materials at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in pursuit of the development of sustainable materials. The advanced polymers and composites produced by the company will find their way into the automotive industry by 2024. McCall’s investment and entrepreneurial interests have helped to create a variety of other companies, including Inland Boat Company; the financial technology company Bleu Tech Enterprises Inc.; and the Colorado-based lifestyle brand Be Hippy, LLC.
Scots may recognize his last name: McCall’s father, Andy, served as director of the Physical Plant (renamed last year as Facilities Operations) for 25 years, and he continues to connect students and the College with entrepreneurial initiatives and help to promote MC during Innov865’s Start-Up Week and other activities.
Kin Takahashi Award for Young Alumni
Mark Libell ’03 will be recognized with the 2023 Kin Takahashi Award for Young Alumni, a reflection of his career dedicated to public service after graduating with a degree in history, followed by a law degree from the University of Alabama School of Law and a master’s of law in tax from Georgetown University Law Center. Originally from Florence, Alabama, he currently serves as the chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
Libell joined Warnock’s team with more than 15 years of congressional experience, having previously served as legislative director and deputy chief of staff to Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama and legislative director to Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. He has also worked for Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Rep. Linda Sanchez of California and Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee, as well as assistant congressional liaison at the Federal Reserve under then-Fed Chair Janet Yellen.
Recently, Mark helped former Sen. Jones create a Congressional experience course at Boston College, where Jones served as a visiting professor, and during his time in Washington, he’s routinely made himself available to answer questions, host and meet with MC students interested in working in Washington, D.C., as part of the federal government.
Distinguished Service Award
At the end of the 2022-23 academic year, Bruce Guillaume ’76 — the recipient of this year’s Distinguished Service Award — stepped down as the director of Mountain Challenge, a milestone year that saw the organization celebrate its 35th anniversary under his leadership. The College’s on-campus partner in wilderness adventures, team-building exercises and fitness and environmental campaigns, the organization was established by Guillaume in 1987, 11 years after he earned his diploma from MC in psychology.
Traditional social work didn’t suit him, and in deciding what kind of career he envisioned for himself, the answer was an easy one: using the outdoors as both a playground and a place of inspiration. Mountain Challenge began as a way to promote team-building through activities that forced participants to rely on one another, and to do so in an environment that fostered a deeper appreciation for the scenic wonders and natural beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains and their surrounding foothills.
The first Mountain Challenge events were held at Camp Wesley Woods, a summer retreat in nearby Townsend, and in 1987, the program began operating on the MC campus. Guillaume raised funds to build the ropes course in the College Woods and the following year, Mountain Challenge tripled its corporate client base. The program was then incorporated into the College’s orientation activities and in 1993 the iconic Alpine Tower was built on campus. In 1998, Mountain Challenge was organized as a limited liability company (LLC), signing its first long-term lease with Maryville College.
Now, Mountain Challenge serves 7,000 to 8,000 clients annually, including about 2,500 Maryville College students, and employs 15-20 MC students each year. Under Guillaume’s leadership and vision, a nonprofit arm of Mountain Challenge —Fit.Green.Happy®, along with the Outdoors is Medicine® brand — encouraged students and community members to spend time spent outside in order to improve their physical and mental well-being.
From environmental efforts at Crawford House, Mountain Challenge’s on-campus headquarters, to his contributions to the establishment of Environmental Studies and Environmental Science majors (along with the expansion of the Outdoor Recreation major into Outdoor Studies and Tourism), Guillaume has remained committed to the land that nurtures Maryville College and the mindset of Scots who find in it a similar connection. He and his wife, Wendy Magee Guillaume ’81, have one daughter — Emily Guillaume ’15 — and will remain active in both community and College efforts, even after retirement, to promote environmentalism and sustainability.
Guillaume was presented with the Distinguished Service Award at a ceremony at Crawford House on Saturday, May 13. Hinds, McCall and Libell will be recognized on Oct. 20 during the Founder’s Day celebration. For more information and to keep abreast of updates, visit the Homecoming page on the MC website in the coming weeks.
