Tony Zeiss, who transformed the face and expanded the mission of Central Piedmont Community College, announced that he’ll retire in July after nearly a quarter-century as its president.
Since taking over in 1992, the Indiana native led the college through a period of unprecedented growth.
To keep step with an expanding economy, it grew from one campus to six and became a national leader in workforce development that now serves 70,000 students, about double from when he started.
Zeiss, 70, said he’d originally planned on leaving a few years ago. “But gosh,” he said, “there were just so many things going on.”
The Central Piedmont Community College Foundation retained us to produce a tribute video for his retirement party on May 16th at Quail Hollow Country Club. With such a long and illustrious career it was a challenge to gather enough stories and anecdotes that could provide a 30,000 foot view of his impact and accomplishments and tell it in a time period that didn’t exceed the audience attention. The LA Management crew proceeded to interview individuals who could tell a portion of his story including Dr. Zeiss’ wife Beth, Foundation Board members and Gov. McCrory.
