Adams and Reese Partner Dale Allen, in the firm’s Nashville office, has been elected Board Chairman of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, the nonprofit responsible for the operation of the performance facility and its comprehensive education program.
Allen is joined on the board by other officers: Ron Corbin, Principal at RBBC Holdings, as vice chairman; Jim Schmitz, Middle Tennessee Area President for Regions Financial, as vice chairman and treasurer; Larry Stessel, Managing Partner at Revolver Marketing Group, as secretary, and Claire Tucker, President and Chief Executive Officer of Capstar Bank, as immediate past chairman. Newly appointed board members include Rhonda Taylor, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Dollar General Corporation; Marcus McKamey, Senior Vice President and Senior Client Manager for Bank of America – both mid-term appointments – and Nathan Poss, Principal at JohnsonPoss Government Relations. They join returning directors Dr. Kathleen Airhart, Barbara T. Bovender, John E. Cody, Beth S. Courtney, Ansel L. Davis; Emanuel J. Eads, Donna G. Eskind, Rod Essig, Leslie Fram, Charles J. Hall, J. Reginald Hill, Martha R. Ingram, Christine Karbowiak, Beverly Keel, Bill Lynch, Melvin J. Malone, Andrew Tavi, Dr. Philip Wenk, Gail Williams, Uzi Yemin, and board intern Chambre Malone.
The Tennessee Performing Arts Center Management Corporation is governed by a 27-member Board of Directors. Eight of these directors are appointed by the Tennessee Performing Arts Foundation, which led the efforts for TPAC and raised an endowment to support TPAC operations. Four directors are named by the Tennessee Arts Commission and four directors are named by the Governor of the State of Tennessee, with one of the Governor's appointees being the Commissioner of Education of the State of Tennessee or a designee. Directors serve for a term of three years, and the board meets four times a year in Nashville.
For over three decades, the Tennessee Performing Arts Center has welcomed more than 11 million audience members and served more than 1.6 million students and educators with performances at TPAC, resources for teachers, classroom residencies, and enrichment programs for adults. Founded in 1980, TPAC serves several hundred thousand audience members each year with the annual HCA/TriStar Health Broadway at TPAC season, a variety of special engagements, and the productions of the three resident artistic companies – Nashville Ballet, Nashville Opera, and Tennessee Repertory Theatre.
At Adams and Reese, Allen is a corporate lawyer who concentrates his practice in transportation, government relations and regulatory law. He is a Partner on the Governmental Relations team and serves as legislative counsel to a number of businesses, trade associations and nonprofit organizations with interests before the Tennessee General Assembly.
He is an active member of the Conference of Freight Counsel and Transportation Lawyers of America. In the community, he has served on the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Performing Arts Corporation since 2013 and presently serves as Chairman of the Board. He also serves on the Board of the National Guard Association of the United States Educational Foundation. He has served for more than 27 years in the Tennessee Army National Guard, where he currently holds the rank of Colonel as a Command Judge Advocate General. He formerly served in numerous positions including the Staff Judge Advocate General, J-7 and CACO for the TNARNG.