President Kyle Farmbry invited three Guilford alumni with deep experience in finance to serve on an Alumni Finance Advisory Team, and they will provide input and guidance to the College as it navigates some fiscal challenges.
Amy Evans Hisler ’02 of Charlotte, N.C., Steve Trout ’82 of the Chicago suburb of Western Springs, Ill., and Thomas Swindell ’04 of Washington, D.C., accepted volunteer roles in helping the College community understand the challenges and develop ways to resolve some of them.
“Many colleges and universities are experiencing challenges. We need to better understand our own, and Amy, Steve and Thomas have the knowledge and experience to help us do that,” says Kyle. “I’m grateful for their service and looking forward to their insights.”
Amy, a licensed Certified Public Accountant, has 20 years of accounting and auditing experience in higher education and has served as Controller at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for nearly three years. She was an Associate Controller for three years. Amy was Dean of Financial and Administrative Services at Davidson-Davie Community College and before that, an Assistant State Auditor. She earned an MBA from East Carolina University in 2004 and a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Business Management from Guilford.
Steve is a Senior Vice President at Wintrust Financial, a $55 billion community bank holding company, where he leads a team that lends to local governments in the upper Midwest. His previous work included sales and credit at a state economic development agency and a money center commercial bank and budgeting for a major U.S. city. He has an MPM from the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs, an MBA from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Anthropology at Guilford.
Thomas is Chief Finance and Operations Officer at Beauvoir, the National Cathedral Elementary School in Washington, D.C. Before that, he was Executive Vice President of Finance for After-School All-Stars, one of the country’s largest nonprofit organizations working to close the opportunity gap for low-income youth. He has worked with the Friends Committee on National Legislation and other organizations. Thomas earned an MSA in Accounting and Finance at UNC Greensboro and a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Spanish at Guilford.
Kyle says the three alumni – working with members of the College’s Finance team and others on campus – also will help build strategies for educating the internal and external Guilford community about higher education finance in general.
He listed the creation of the Alumni Finance Advisory Team among actions being taken for improved financial management and stability in his Presidential Update delivered to faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends Sept. 6.
Amy, Steve and Thomas are part of the Alumni & Friends of Guilford (AFOG) organization and were identified for this opportunity by Jessie Starling ’00. They worked together on the Save Guilford College effort in 2020-21. Jessie, Karrie Jo Manson ’82 and Esther Hall ’74 are AFOG Steering Committee members.