HIGH POINT, N.C., April 12, 2023 – High Point University has appointed six new members to its Board of Visitors. The board is comprised of business leaders, alumni, friends and community advocates of HPU who are recognized for their character, success, philanthropy and leadership.
“High Point University is blessed by the support from all of our Board of Visitors members, including the six newest members,” says HPU President Dr. Nido Qubein. “Our students continue to learn from the leadership, advocacy and experience each member brings to the table.”
Lisa Brayton is a 1986 HPU graduate who grew up in the High Point area. After earning her Bachelor of Arts in sociology, she continued her education at the University of Memphis, where she earned her master’s degree in education/counseling. While living in Tennessee, she worked in foster care and early childhood development while starting a family. She has three adult sons.
After her family returned to North Carolina, Brayton worked at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where she assisted in the Office of the Chancellor and in Student Affairs. While in Wilmington, Brayton co-owned a small business and completed an additional master’s in liberal studies. In 2012, Brayton returned to High Point to work alongside her father in the family furniture business, Paul Brayton Designs. She served as an executive assistant, company officer and on the board of directors before retiring from that position upon the selling of the company.
Brayton currently serves on the board of directors of the Brayton Family Foundation, which focuses its philanthropy on education, foster care and developing leadership for women. In 2015, the Brayton Family Foundation founded Women in Motion of High Point, an initiative of the United Way of Greater High Point, that serves the High Point area. She was a founding member of Women in Motion and continues to serve on its leadership team. In her free time, Brayton supports a variety of community programs. She is a proud HPU alumna and looks forward to serving on the Board of Visitors.
J. Chris Bryan, senior vice president and market president of Truist Financial Corporation, oversees the High Point commercial banking portfolio. He represents Truist in civic, professional and community organizations, and is responsible for the city’s budget, balance sheet and income statement growth. Prior to his transition to High Point in October 2021, Bryan was Truist market president in Alamance County, North Carolina, where he grew its market share from fourth to first place from 2016 to 2021. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Truist is the nation’s sixth largest commercial bank.
With more than 15 years of banking experience, Bryan previously served as a vice president-business service officer with BB&T in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, from 2011 to 2016; a business banking relationship manager with SunTrust Bank in Winston-Salem from 2009 to 2022; completed the Commercial Associate Program with SunTrust Bank in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2009 and as a licensed banker with SunTrust Bank from 2006 to 2009.
Passionate about supporting his local community, Bryan is currently a board member of Business High Point and the United Way of Greater High Point. He has served in leadership roles in various other community organizations, including as board chair of the United Way of Alamance County; vice chair of Economic Development for Alamance County Chamber of Commerce; and board chair of the Experiment in Self-Reliance in Winston-Salem. He has also served in various capacities with the Alamance County Education Council, the Alamance County Economic Development Foundation and as a board member of the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership.
Bryan earned a B.S.B.A. in finance from East Carolina University and completed the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at the University of Pennsylvania with a Warton Leadership Certificate in 2019. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife Nancy and two daughters, golfing, fly fishing, running and traveling.
Jane Dagmi is a career storyteller who has relocated to a new city every 17 years for growth, opportunity and a new point of view. For the past four years, she has made her home in High Point, North Carolina.
She began making biannual trips to the High Point Market during the 1990s when she was an editor at Country Living magazine. In 2018, when she was editor in chief of Designers Today magazine, Dagmi and her partner, who also traveled frequently to the home furnishings capital city, decided to start their life together here.
In March 2022, Dagmi assumed the role of managing director of High Point x Design (HPxD), an organization that champions High Point as a year-round hub for design and creativity, which is open to all. Composed of members – many of the industry’s most iconic and admired brands, smaller makers and artists – and industry and community friends and leaders, HPxD unites, promotes and builds upon the city’s rich legacy, potential and creative ecosystem.
The HPxD team creates engagement opportunities for design professionals, students and the design obsessed and curious in High Point. They hosted SCAD students for an immersive three-day exploration, welcomed Leadership High Point to an afternoon of design, created a community paint event at the High Point Library, and planned a half dozen events for the design trade. Additionally, HPxD is partnering with High Point Market Authority to produce the Vacation Rental Design Summit which launches in April.
Dagmi has served on the board of the High Point Market Authority since 2019 and is newly appointed to the Bienenstock Furniture Library Board, where she is an active participant in the Future Designer Summit. A former substitute teacher who loves to keep ties in education, Dagmi has also been a guest critic and speaker in design and branding classes at High Point University. She graduated from Tufts University with a Bachelor of Arts in American studies and earned an associate degree in interior design at Parsons School of Design.
Christopher M. Ilderton, ’12, is the fixed operations director of Ilderton Automotive Group, his family’s automotive business in High Point, North Carolina. He has experienced various parts of the automotive business through his differing job roles at Ilderton, starting at age 15 with washing cars in its reconditioning department.
Some of his favorite memories involve hitting the road as a traveling commercial salesperson to sell ADA commercial mobility vans as his father had years earlier. He is a graduate of the NCM Dealer School, a certified service manager for Stellantis, a Wagoneer ambassador and an expert in Jeep, Uconnect and Mopar. The executive team at Ilderton Automotive Group made sure he had the training and experience before asking him to lead Ilderton’s Service and Parts team in 2021. In the last two years, Ilderton has taken on more responsibility to promote better business practices, networking and volunteering in the community. A current board member of Caring Services in High Point, he says being a part of the community is what the Ilderton Automotive Group’s foundation stands on and he plans to carry the tradition forward.
Eric T. Rothrock joined Crescent Communities in 2013 and currently serves as senior vice president of preconstruction. He is responsible for all aspects of preconstruction and budget-related design for the company’s $4 billion assets.
Rothrock has developed and implemented several budget-projection processes to help the company evaluate anticipated cost models and is responsible for the firm’s large value contracts and national accounts. He has worked for several large regional and national general contractors. In addition, Rothrock previously owned a well-respected Triad-based concrete subcontracting firm.
To give back, Rothrock led residential storm relief repairs following Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Jeanne and Hurricane Francis, working with the Army Corps of Engineers. He earned his bachelor’s degree from East Carolina University and has been featured in publications, such as Construction Global. Rothrock was named in the top 20 under 40 from Engineering News-Record (ENR). He serves on the ECU Construction Management Department Advisory Board and on the board of Built National. He is a former LEED, Green Associate.
Ellen Deal Whitlock, ’76, is a High Point native who has served as CEO of Senior Resources of Guilford since 1995. Prior to that she served as executive director of the Mental Health Association in High Point.
Whitlock currently serves on the board of directors of the National Nutrition and Aging Programs Association. She also serves on the North Carolina Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service, where she has been appointed by three governors and is a past chairman. She serves on the regional advisory board of the Area Agency on Aging at the Piedmont Triad Council of Governments. Whitlock has previously served as president of Carousel Theater, Youth Focus, the Junior League of High Point and the North Carolina Association of Aging, as well as the Salem Needlepoint Guild of the American Needlepoint Association. She is the mother of four children and the grandmother of five teenagers. She enjoys needlepointing, traveling and reading.