business briefs
• Amy Loope, assistant director of admissions at Christian Academy of Knoxville, has been promoted to CAK’s director of Admissions and will be leading the Admissions team. Loope formerly spent two years as Admissions assistant director.
• United Community Bank has promoted Jack Keener to state president to lead all Tennessee and North Georgia operations at UCB. Keener has more than 25 years of professional banking experience. He joined UCB in 2005 and has steadily led efforts in Hall, Dawson, Rabun, Habersham, Jackson, White and Lumpkin counties in Georgia during that time. He now will lead 28 offices throughout North Georgia and nine offices in Tennessee.
• Pellissippi State Community College has been ranked No. 2 in the nation for the number of community college students who study abroad with 185 in 2016-2017, according to a recently released 2018 Open Doors Report. Last year, the college ranked No. 4 with 166 students. This is the seventh year in a row the college appeared in the top five nationally.
• Analysis and Measurement Services Corporation, a nuclear engineering consulting firm managed by Casey Sexton and headquartered in Knoxville, has been awarded a $3.5 million research and development grant from U.S. Department of Energy under the advanced nuclear technology development and deployment initiative. AMS will conduct the research and development in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to determine when critical cables in nuclear facilities must be replaced.
