James Ragsdale, a former finance executive at Anderson University in Indiana, will be the new executive director of the Society of Broadcast Engineers.
When he comes on board in January, Ragsdale will be only the second full-time executive director of SBE.
He was chosen from a field of 28 candidates to succeed John Poray, who will step down at the end of 2020 after almost three decades. Poray gave the society a one-year heads up that he’d be leaving.
[Read: “SBE’s Poray to Retire in 2020”]
Ragsdale was the VP for finance at Anderson University, a private liberal arts school where he managed the operational budget; he was a member of the university president’s leadership team and oversaw the business office, human resources, physical plant, police and security, and auxiliary services.
Prior, Ragsdale was senior financial analyst at Ascension Technologies, where he managed the operational and capital budgets for Indiana Market and St. Vincent Health system. He also was treasurer and controller at Church of God Ministries and practice administrator at Anderson Family Practice Associates.
He holds a bachelor of arts degree in business management and public affairs at what was then called Anderson College; he has a masters of business administration in finance from Indiana University.
The SBE board approved the appointment following a meeting Tuesday.
Society President Wayne Pecena thanked the people involved in the search effort including Past President Joe Snelson, who led the search committee.
The non-profit professional society is based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and has approximately 5,000 members and 114 local chapters.
John Poray was SBE’s first full-time executive director and has been with the society since 1992. He began his career in with the Boy Scouts of America’s Central Ohio Council and went on to work for Kiwanis International, The Apartment Association of Indiana and The Columbus Apartment Association.
