Amy Daniels

The Greater Memphis Chamber’s Chairman’s Circle presents a panel of local experts sharing best practices for instilling basic business sense in your employees. We hope you and/or your HR representative can join us Wednesday, March 3, 12:00 – 1:30pm.

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Eric Brown is the Vice President and General Manager of the Valero Memphis Refinery, a position he has held since April 2020. Moving to Memphis last year was a homecoming of sorts – although he’s a Jackson, Tennessee native, he began his career at the Memphis refinery in 1997 as a process engineer, after earning his bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Christian Brothers University.  In 2002, Eric moved to the Gulf Coast and over the years he has held progressive leadership roles throughout Valero, the world’s largest independent refiner and North America’s largest renewable fuels producer. Throughout the refining organization he has served as Operations Complex Manager, Director of Technical Services and Operations Director.

The Valero Memphis Refinery is located on 250 acres along the Mississippi River’s Lake McKellar. It is the only oil refinery in TN. More than 300 employees and 200 contractors work to provide a safe, stable and reliable source of petroleum products for the Tennessee-Arkansas-Mississippi market. They use light and sweet crude oil to produce gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and petrochemicals. Nearly 100 percent of gasoline and jet fuel in this area comes from the Valero Memphis Refinery.  Brown says, “I come to work every day focused on how we manage our business. The safety of our workers, the environment and the surrounding community are my priorities.”

Brown describes Valero as a “very giving company” with a consistent commitment to the communities where we live and work. Over the past 10 years, this Memphis refinery and the Valero Energy Foundation have donated over $10 Million to support area charities. The COVID-19 pandemic canceled the Valero Texas Open and Benefit For Children, one of their signature programs. But that didn’t stop Valero from distributing over $350,000 here in Memphis to support disabled and disadvantaged children’s programs. Over the past three years Valero employees have volunteered over 12,000 hours to support charitable organizations. During the pandemic they focused on helping children that live near their fence line advance and succeed by donating meals and digital devices. Brown says, “Valero purchased this site in 2005 and we value the relationships we have fostered in this community. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be back in Memphis and I’m looking forward to meeting more Memphians when the pandemic lifts.”

Brown is a proud veteran of the United States Army. He served in the US Army for five years as a Power Generation Equipment Repairman. He says the Army helped him earn money for college, develop strong leadership skills and travel the world. He was stationed in Germany, Kansas and served in Operation Desert Storm. Brown credits a teacher from Southside High School in Jackson, TN, with recognizing his natural affinity for math and science and ultimately helping him find his path to his current career. He has been married to his high school sweetheart for 32 years. He and Chiquilla have two sons – a 19-year-old who is attending UCLA virtually and a 15-year-old attending Lausanne.

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Jimmy He is the President of Standard Elevator Systems, a company he founded in Memphis in 2007. In the beginning, his company supplied only one customer and employed two people — himself and his assistant. They designed one type of elevator traction machine. Fast forward to today, his company employs more than 100 people in five countries – China, India, Brazil, Poland, and the US. 35 of those employees work here in Memphis at his world headquarters.

Standard Elevator Systems strives to be a one-stop-shop for contractors, offering leading elevator solutions. The company is technology driven: 85% of orders go through their system without a human touch. Contractors can use the company’s website to enter specifications and get designs within minutes. That’s work which may take their competitors a week to produce. From historic buildings to brand new hospitals, to 100-story buildings in Manhattan, every structure is unique, meaning the elevators they design, and build are all highly customized.

He attended college in China and completed his MBA at the University of Chicago. A job offer from ThyssenKrupp brought him to Memphis in 2004. After working as a strategy manager for three years, he decided to start his own elevator company. Staying in Memphis made sense from a convenience standpoint. He had the workforce he needed with a reasonable cost of living, access to a strong logistics network, and the support of his local customers. Memphis is also where he met and married his wife 14 years ago. They have 7-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. Asked what he most likes about Memphis He says, “the people. They are genuine and very sincere.”

Outside of work He enjoys golfing, skiing, and reading. Pre-pandemic, He and his family also traveled frequently. He says it’s important to be exposed to different cultures to gain more open perspectives. He is also the President of Mid-South Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Chairman of the Board, Greater Memphis United Chinese Association. Memphis has a very tightknit Chinese community of around 10,000 people. He is honored to serve the community and is always seeking opportunities to give back. He says the US is his second motherland and he appreciates all the opportunities he was offered while living here for the past 20+ years. But He says, “ultimately it doesn’t matter where you are from, because the US is the land of opportunity.”

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Tina Walker is the Chief Operating Officer of Patriot Bank. It’s a position she started in September 2019, after working in the Shelby County Trustee’s office for 27 years. The transition from public sector to banking was a natural one: Her first job after graduating from Union University was working in a small bank in Jackson, Tennessee. Now with an extensive track record in leadership and management within the financial services industry, Walker is a key member of Patriot Bank’s management team.

Patriot Bank will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2021. Their 8 branches are spread throughout Shelby and Tipton Counties. The newest branch opened in the heart of Raleigh last month, across from the new Raleigh Springs Civic Center. Walker says the Raleigh location is “positioned beautifully for people to have access to our services. We feel like there is a niche there.” She described joy in watching development take off around the new Raleigh branch. She sees that growth each day, on her drive to the bank’s corporate headquarters in Barretville.

Patriot Bank prides itself on providing “downhome banking the way it should be.” While it promises fast, friendly personal service, Walker says “community service is at the heart of what we do at Patriot Bank. We want to be more than a bank. We want to be a partner, know our customers’ names, schools, churches, and non-profits. We are there for the community.” In short, Patriot wants to be a good neighbor and financial partner.

Walker describes herself as a lifelong learner who loves to travel and is looking forward to pairing research of her ancestry with a trip to England, Scotland, and Ireland as soon as pandemic-related travel restrictions ease. Her favorite stress reliever is playing a round of golf with close friends. Walker is a deacon at Second Presbyterian Church and is head of the stewardship committee. She attributes her success to the great opportunities provided to her and great mentors. “Networking is an equipping type of thing,” she said. “We need strong support systems so we can succeed, and we need to empower other people.” Her guiding principle “is to try to always do the right thing. My hope is that I would empower others to do the right thing and pour into their life that which is rich and meaningful.”

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