business briefs
• Mason Speanburgh recently joined the team of agents at Weichert, Realtors - Advantage Plus in Knoxville.
Speanburgh assists clients in Knoxville and surrounding areas with all their real estate needs.
• Diane Russell recently joined the Engel & Volkers Knoxville brokerage firm as brokerage manager. Russell, who comes from Keller Williams in Knoxville, brings her expertise to help best service East Tennessee clientele.
• Tennessee Memory Disorders Foundation has announced its board of directors has appointed Celia Gruzalski as the organization’s executive director.
Gruzalski brings valued, seasoned experience to TMDF, having spent more than 12 years working in the nonprofit sector in East Tennessee, most recently serving as founding executive director of Our Place Adult Day Center.
Her previous experience also includes leading the CADES Adult Day Program as its
executive director and several years of nonprofit work with the geriatric community in Denver
with Jewish Family Services of Colorado.
• Blake Brown, director of the AgResearch and Education Center at Milan with the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, recently was named the 2024 recipient of the Research Center Administrators Society Distinguished Service Award.
An RCAS member for 25 years, Brown has served in leadership roles including secretary, vice president and president and currently is chairman of the Site Selection Committee.
Along with other UT AgResearch and Education Center directors from across the state, Brown coordinated and hosted the fall 2023 meeting of RCAS, sharing UTIA’s decades of scientific and agricultural contributions with their fellow research center managers, directors and administrators from institutions throughout the United States.
• University of Tennessee Medical Center recently was awarded on the Forbes list of America’s Best Employers 2024.
