Tennessee Tech Board of Trustees

Dr. Michael Allen is a three-time Tennessee Tech University graduate and has been a member of the university faculty since 1999. Today, Dr. Allen serves as professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics. He also served as president of the Faculty Senate for the 2023 – 2024 academic year. 

A Cookeville native and the son of a Tech faculty member, Dr. Allen has been part of the extended Tech community from his earliest days. Outside of his service at Tech, Dr. Allen served as an aquatics instructor and volunteer for the Scouts for over 25 years. His wife, Deborah, serves as advisor for the College of Arts & Sciences’ Student Success Center.

He serves on the Academic and Student Affairs Committee.

Ms. Trudy Harper retired in 2012 from her role as President of Tenaska Power Services Co., the power marketing affiliate of Tenaska, one of the largest non-regulated developers and owners of power plants in the United States. Before leading Tenaska Power Services Co., Ms. Harper was General Manager of Business Development for Tenaska's independent power plant development efforts.

Ms. Harper has been involved in numerous activities in the electric power industry, serving on many boards and chairing the Members Committee of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. Ms. Harper was the 2010 recipient of the Gulf Coast Power Association's Pat Wood Power Star Award for her contributions to the deregulation of the Texas power market.

Before joining Tenaska in 1992, Ms. Harper held various transmission and generation planning and state and federal regulatory affairs positions with Texas Utilities Electric Company in Dallas, TX.

Ms. Harper earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in electrical engineering with an electric power emphasis from Tennessee Tech University and a Master of Business Administration with a finance emphasis from Southern Methodist University. Ms. Harper was named Outstanding Alumnus and Engineer of Distinction by Tennessee Tech in 2016 and 2014, respectively.

Ms. Harper serves on the boards of the Siskin Hospital for Rehabilitation, the Tennessee Tech Foundation, and SPARC (the Chattanooga area chapter of Disabled Sports USA).

She also serves as chair of the Executive Committee.

Since retirement Ms. Harper has returned to her hometown of Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, where she lives on the lake with her husband Roger Knipp.

Mr. Tom Jones is president of Research Electronics International, one of the leading designers, developers, and manufacturers of counter surveillance equipment.

Mr. Jones served in the U.S. Navy, later serving as an instructor at the Naval Nuclear Power School in Orlando, Florida, teaching math and electrical engineering. He also has worked as a defense contractor supporting the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

He serves on the Advisory Board for Tech’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and in 2003 was a panelist at an open forum on homeland security held on campus.

Mr. Jones graduated from Tech in 1986 with a degree in electrical engineering, and holds a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Central Florida.

He serves on the Audit and Business Committee.

Mr. Fred Lowery, a Tech alumnus, serves as senior vice president and president of Life Sciences Solutions and Laboratory Products at Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, with revenues of more than $24 billion and approximately 70,000 employees globally. He also was recently appointed to the DuPont Board of Directors.

After graduating from Austin-East High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1988, Lowery attended Tech on a football scholarship.

“At Tech, I learned how to frame and solve problems from my experience in engineering,” he said. “But I also learned how to interact with people in a way to bring out the best in every situation. Being able to frame a problem and come up with the right answer is important, but inspiring people to embrace a solution or, better yet, empowering them to improve it, is a much higher calling.”

Lowery says Tech’s student population must reflect the current and future workforce demographics and the demographics of the country, and he has made it his mission to help lead Tech’s Ethnic Diversity Scholarship Initiative to its $2 million goal. While Tech’s student body has become more diverse throughout the years, Lowery has made it his mission to ensure this continues to grow.

Lowery established the Fred M. Lowery Award Scholarship to encourage students from Austin-East High School to attend Tech. He also established the Chi Lambda Chapter Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Scholarship to attract more black male students to Tech.

“My philanthropic efforts are centered on helping people reach their potential and supporting the institutions that have been the most influential in my life,” said Lowery.

Mr. Lowery graduated from Tech in 1994 with a degree in mechanical engineering, and holds a master’s degree in manufacturing management from Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute of Engineering and Management).

He serves on the Executive Committee.

Cookeville native Thomas Lynn is a local banking pioneer and philanthropist who joined First National Bank of Tennessee in 1992 and played a key role in the expansion of the bank into Sparta, Algood, Crossville and Fairfield Glade.   

In 2010, he was named Chairman of the Board, First National was organized by a group of community leaders who believed that banks should bring value to the communities they serve. As a banking professional in Cookeville for close to four decades, Lynn has served the Upper Cumberland by helping launch new non-profits and taking leadership roles in a number of civic organizations and endeavors. As a founding board member of the Putnam County YMCA in 1979, Thomas later served as the president.   

Lynn’s commitment to Tech, where he met his wife Kay, is evident throughout campus.  In 2004, Thomas orchestrated a charitable concert featuring country music legend Vince Gill that raised $140,000 to support the building of a new home for the School of Nursing.

Over the years, Thomas has served as the President of the College of Business Advisory Board and in 2008 as Chair of the Dean and Director of Development Search Committees for the college. Lynn and his family became the first donors to renovate classrooms in Johnson Hall. Together with Kay, his mother, Jeanette; his sister, Pam; and brother-in-law, Dr. Daniel Coonce they established the U.L. Tommy Lynn classroom suite. Most recently, the Lynn siblings and their spouses established the first College of Agriculture and Human Ecology classroom endowment in honor of their mothers, Jeanette Lynn and Anna Coonce.  

In 2009, Lynn and a group of local philanthropists came together to establish the Mustard Seed Ranch. The Ranch is a community-sponsored interdenominational Christian ministry that provides a loving and caring home for children to heal from their past and build the foundation for a promising future. 

In addition to his duties with Mustard Seed, Thomas served as a District Steering Member for the Friends of Scouting fundraising drive for over 15 years and as a board member of the Cookeville Chamber of Commerce, serving as president in 2012.       

Thomas and Kay have four children, Patrick Lynn; Jack Lynn (Lindy); Katherine Lynn Hill (Matthew); and Bobby Lynn (Madison).   

He serves on the Audit and Business Committee.

Ms. Rhedona Rose is the chief administrative officer and executive vice president of Tennessee Farm Bureau, the largest farm bureau in the United States.

The first female executive to lead the Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation, Ms. Rose began working at Tennessee Farm Bureau in 1986 and became director of public policy and chief lobbyist in 1995. She served in that capacity until she was named executive vice president in December 2010, being named chief administrative officer in 2017.

In 1984, Ms. Rose graduated from Tennessee Tech with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture. She also holds a master’s degree from Texas A&M.

She serves as chair of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee and also serves on the Executive Committee.

Mr. Camron Rudd is Chief Operating Officer for Hörmann North America, a family-owned entry systems manufacturer headquartered in nearby Sparta, Tennessee. He has held progressively responsible positions with the company since his start as engineering department manager in 2005.

Mr. Rudd is a 2005 graduate of Tennessee Tech, holding degrees in both mechanical engineering and foreign languages with a concentration in German. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Cookeville-Putnam County Chamber of Commerce and was the 2021 recipient of Tech's Outstanding Young Alumnus Award.

Mr. Rudd and his wife Miranda, also a Tech alum, live in Cookeville with their two children.

He serves on the Academic and Student Affairs Committee.

Braxton Westbrook is a Tennessee Tech University graduate and Johnson City native. He graduated magna cum laude, in cursu honorum from Tech in 2024 with bachelor’s degrees in political science and computer science and is expected to graduate with his M.S. in computer science in May 2026.

An active participant in campus life at Tech, Westbrook has been part of the Student Government Association for more than five years, most recently as student body secretary, serves as a director for the Tennessee Tech University Foundation Board, and is a past chair of the Tennessee Tech Honors Council. 

Outside of his involvement at Tech, he previously served as lieutenant governor for Tennessee Intercollegiate State Legislature (TISL) and has been a student intern at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. 

He serves on the Academic and Student Affairs Committee.

Capt. Barry Wilmore, a captain in the U.S. Navy, is a veteran of two spaceflights and has accumulated a total of 178 days in space.

In 2021, Wilmore will command the inaugural flight of Boeing's Starliner as part of NASA's crew flight test to the International Space Station.

In September 2014, Mr. Wilmore launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket as a member of Expedition 41. He served as a flight engineer until November when he assumed command of the station upon arrival of the Expedition 42 crew. He returned to Earth in March 2015. During this mission, he logged 167 days in space and performed four spacewalks totaling 25 hours, 36 minutes. In 2009, Capt. Wilmore served as a pilot aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis for STS-129, traveling 4.5 million miles in 171 orbits.

Capt. Wilmore has accumulated more than 7,000 flight hours and 663 carrier landings, all in tactical jet aircraft, and is a graduate of the United States Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS). During his tenure as a fleet Naval officer and pilot, Capt. Wilmore completed four operational deployments, flying the A-7E and FA 18 aircraft from the decks of the USS Forrestal, USS Kennedy, USS Enterprise and the USS Eisenhower aircraft carriers.

He has flown missions in support of Operations Desert Storm, Desert Shield and Southern Watch over the skies of Iraq, as well as missions over Bosnia in support of United States and NATO interests. Capt. Wilmore successfully completed 21 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm while operating from the flight deck of the USS Kennedy. His most recent operational deployment was aboard the USS Eisenhower with the "Blue Blasters" of Strike Fighter Squadron 34 (VFA-34), an F/A-18 squadron based at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia.

As a Navy test pilot, Capt. Wilmore participated in all aspects of the initial development of the T-45 jet trainer to include initial carrier landing certification and high angle of attack flight tests. His test tour also included a stint at USNTPS as a systems and fixed wing Flight Test Instructor.

Prior to his selection to NASA, he was on exchange to the United States Air Force as a Flight Test Instructor at the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Capt. Wilmore, from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Tennessee Tech. He also holds a master’s in aviation systems from the University of Tennessee.

He was a letterman and team captain of the Tennessee Tech football team and was inducted into the university’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2003. He currently holds the number two spot in Tech's record books for most tackles in a game, and number three on tackles per season.

He serves on the Academic and Student Affairs Committee.