Newsmakers: Sept. 12-18, 2022

Banking & Finance
Missouri Bankers Association added Kim Light to its board of directors. The president and CEO of Heritage Bank of the Ozarks in Lebanon, he was elected by peers at the 2021 MBA Executive Management Conference to serve as an at-large director. Light also has served on several MBA committees throughout his career, including the Board of Trustees for Banking Education and the Executive Management Committee.

Guaranty Bank named Cynthia Olmstead as assistant vice president and branch banking group manager over six centers in Joplin, Carthage and Neosho. She’s worked for Guaranty Bank since 2019, first as a retail banking officer and most recently a branch manager, and has a decade of banking experience.

Great Southern Bancorp Inc. added former CoxHealth President and CEO Steve Edwards to its board of directors. Edwards’ three-year term started Sept. 1, and he joins directors William Turner, chair, Joe Turner, Julie Turner Brown, Thomas Carlson, Larry Frazier, Earl Steinert Jr., Kevin Ausburn, Debbie Shantz Hart and Doug Pitt. Edwards worked for 30 years at CoxHealth, spending the last 10 years of his tenure as CEO.

Education
Evangel University’s Phi Beta Lambda chapter received the Gold Seal Chapter Award of Merit at the PBL National Leadership Conference in Chicago. The award recognizes local chapters that have actively participated in PBL projects and programs that give students relevant hands-on business experience. Chapters awarded by PBL, the collegiate branch of Future Business Leaders of America, are ranked in the top 15% nationally among all university teams. Evangel’s chapter is one of 350 across the country.

Health Care
Burrell Behavioral Health and parent company Brightli Inc. hired Clay Goddard as president of its Southwest Region, effective Sept. 19, and promoted Elizabeth Avery to chief operating officer for the same region largely comprising Christian, Dallas, Greene, Polk, Stone, Taney and Webster counties. Goddard, a public health administration veteran, had worked for 18 months as senior director of public health transformation for Missouri Foundation for Health and as director of the Springfield-Greene County Health Department since 2017. He holds a master’s in public administration and a bachelor’s in political science from Missouri State University, and also is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard. Avery previously served as Burrell’s executive vice president of community services and joined the company in 2018 as vice president of school-based services.

Citizens Memorial Hospital hired Dr. Keith Butvilas as medical director of emergency services, effective Dec. 1. With two decades of emergency medicine and leadership experience, he most recently was an attending physician in emergency medicine at Mercy Hospital Springfield, MercyOne Siouxland in Sioux City, Iowa, and MercyOne Waterloo in Waterloo, Iowa. Butvilas also has worked as a chief medical officer, an emergency department medical director and director of a community paramedicine program. He holds a doctorate in osteopathic medicine from Midwestern University of Chicago, where he also completed a residency in emergency medicine, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine.

Nonprofit
Harmony House promoted Philanthropy Director Jared Alexander to executive director, effective Dec. 19, to succeed retiring leader Lisa Farmer. Before joining Harmony House three years ago, Alexander worked for nearly 11 years at Boy Scouts of America’s Ozark Trail Council, ending that tenure as development director. Farmer served as executive director for eight years.