Blog Archives

Dr. McCoy brings more than two decades of experience in higher education and industry partnerships to her role with the Mary S. Peake Fellowship. he co-developed the Peake Fellowship’s Higher Ed Enterprise Leadership Program called i-HELP which is now rolling out with support from the U.S. Commerce Department. She currently serves as leader of the Tougaloo College partnership with Brown University which is celebrating its 60th year. She also serves as Tougaloo College’s Director of Career Readiness, Innovative Leadership-Quality Enhancement Plan, and Faculty Development. In previous Tougaloo roles she led the College’s internship programs.

Prior to Tougaloo, Dr. McCoy served as Academic Dean for the parent of the New England Business College (NEBC). NEBC now forms the online education program of Cambridge College, a national leader in non-profit adult learning. Previous roles also included Doctoral Mentor and Adjunct Professor for Online Programs at Capella University, Professor of Psychology for Strayer University, and Graduation Coach for Hinds Community College.

Dr. McCoy earned a PhD in Urban Higher Education at Jackson State University, an MS in Counseling Psychology from the University of West Alabama, and a BA in English and Journalism from the University of Alabama.

CDR Tiffany Duffy (ret.) completed her U.S. Coast Guard career developing a comprehensive and uniform approach to environmental regulatory requirements for maritime operations in U.S. waters. She is currently a Senior Director of Operations at CSX, an approximately $15 billion railroad industry leader. She leads efforts in the safe movement of 1,848 trains and more than 3.5 million carloads of products and raw materials a year.

Tiffany Duffy began her 24 years of Coast Guard service after a neighbor suggested that she join. She graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy with a BS in Marine Environmental Science before entering the maritime transportation domain as a federal government regulator on foreign and domestic vessels. She earned an MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Southern California, CMD Duffy applied her learning to her work on multilateral missions and treaties which neutralize chemical weapons, reduce air emissions, cut greenhouse gasses , and reach carbon neutrality. Throughout her career CDR Duffy has benefited from mentors and offered coaching whenever possible, and continues that role for the Peake Fellows.

Frankie Smith is a business innovator building on 7 years of roles in finance & accounting. He sees his strongest skill as bringing together a range of people and ideas to solve problems that matter. After working for a publicly traded retailer while earning his MBA and undergraduate business degrees, he is beginning a career in consulting across industries with Grant Thornton in the CFO Advisory Practice.

In addition to using his experience to mentor others, Frankie has actively benefitted from mentorship through his career. In 2022, Frankie was selected for the Thurgood Marshall Leadership Institute where he received coaching from subject matter experts across multiple industries. Frankie earned both a Bachelor and a Master of Business Administration degree with a concentration in Accounting from Savannah State University. For the Peake Fellowship, Frankie has a passion for coaching Fellows who want to create new business models for the future.

Dr. Brad Perkins helped to envision the Peake Fellowship’s platform and pilot efforts in community healthcare innovation when he was the Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Innovation Officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. He currently serves as Chief Medical Officer for Karius, a leader in liquid biopsy for infectious diseases. Previously, Brad had served as co-founder and Chief Medical Officer at The Commons Project Foundation, Chief Medical Officer with genetics pioneer Dr. Craig Venter at Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI), and Executive Vice President for Strategy and Innovation and Chief Transformation Officer at Vanguard Health Systems, a multi-state, for-profit, integrated health services provider with nearly 46,000 employees.

Before entering the private sector, Brad served two decades in the U.S. Public Health Service and the CDC where he led the Meningitis and Special Pathogens Branch and investigated global bacterial disease epidemics. He co-discovered the bacteria that causes Cat Scratch diseases and conducted research leading to development of several new bacterial meningitis and pneumonia vaccines, which became global standards for vaccine therapy. In 2001, Brad led the field and laboratory investigations into U.S. anthrax attacks and helped build the nation’s emergency response capability. He also led CDC efforts to improve population health for specific demographic groups. Brad earned a BA in Microbiology and an MD from University of Missouri. He did his residency at Baylor College of Medicine and earned an MBA from Emory University.

Bill Suarez is a team-building professional accomplished in designing, developing, and maintaining cloud management systems, applications, cybersecurity, network infrastructure, and technology service organizations. For decades, Bill has specialized in reducing the total cost of ownership for maintaining technology best practices based on each organization’s business objectives. Throughout his career, Bill has developed strong partnerships between enterprise users and solution providers to ensure customers keep current on system updates and cybersecure innovations.

Most recently, Bill joined Whalley Computer Associates to formalize its technical account management function that extends to enterprises across the U.S. and Canada. Previously, Bill helped build and manage the infrastructure for industry pioneers including software engineering tool developer Rational Software, which was acquired by IBM for $2.1 billion in 2002, and cybersecurity management tool provider Carbon Black, which was acquired by VMware also for $2.1 billion in 2019. Along the way, he had been a customer of the Whalley services team that he now helps to lead.

Bill has also served as vice chair of his local agricultural commission to make the local agricultural businesses as economically and environmentally sound as possible. Bill’s industry experience in both implementation and strategy reinforces the impact he makes for ecosystem members across market categories and geographies.

Dean brings to Peake his in-depth experience on critical infrastructure for high-security & operational mission systems. Dean began his career as an engineering co-op student working for the U.S. Department of Defense. After engineering positions with Boeing and Booz Allen Hamilton, Dean founded Entegra Systems, a technical and mission services company. As Entegra CEO, Dean sought to create the kind of company that he would want to work for — one with an open door policy; that embraced diverse backgrounds, skill sets, and technical disciplines; that offered great benefits and work environment; and that addressed vitally important and meaningful work. Entegra became known for those traits under Dean’s leadership. In 2021, the firm was acquired by Acclaim Technical Services.

Dean earned a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Clemson University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering, with a concentration in Telecommunications, from Johns Hopkins University. Dean’s experience building high-impact service organizations reinforces the growth of each community partner.