JT Norris

Educated at Virginia Tech, JT Norris, Jr. earned a BS in Accounting and followed that up with a Masters of Accountancy in the fall of 1981. Following graduation he began his accounting career with KPMG. Three years later saw a move to corporate America as the Assistant Controller for a medium size aerospace company. It is within this industry that JT spent the majority of the next 25 years holding positions of Controller; Director of Finance; Senior Vice-President of Finance and Administration; and Chief Financial Officer for entities as diverse as small start-ups to large divisions of publicly traded multi-nationals.

The stress levels were kept in check by spending a couple of years doing something completely different. The first such break was in Grand Cayman as a dive boat captain , followed by a year in Truk Lagoon as the operations manager for a live-aboard dive ship. The second sabbatical sent him to China for three years teaching for the University of the Incarnate Word at their campus located in Guangzhou. The teaching bug never left and in the fall of 2009, JT left his last aerospace company for a full time teaching position for that same university.