Today we heard from Ginny Morrow, Past President of the Rotary Club of Knoxville. Ginny was raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and graduated from The University of Alabama with a degree in accounting. Today she had a table of Alabama Alumni friends along with President Chris here for support in the heart of Big Orange Country no less! Since Ginny’s dad really had hoped for a boy, Ginny had the determination to always excel. So growing up Tuscaloosa Ginny loved swimming and, as a matter of fact, at one time she had the state record in the 50-yard breaststroke for all of two weeks. She also loved gymnastics which helped her in cheerleading at Tuscaloosa High School where Coach Bear Bryant allowed them to play their football games at the former Denny Stadium the University of Alabama campus. Ginny was an excellent student with straight A’s and upon graduation from college landed a job in Nashville with Price Waterhouse, one of the Big Eight accounting firms.
When she worked for Price Waterhouse, she was the first female to ever work in that office. After five years, her husband Bill was asked to move to Knoxville, so they left and Ginny helped open the office of Arthur Andersen here, another Big Eight firm. On her very first client visit she was met with opposition by one of their clients who said “You’re not only a woman you went to the wrong school!”, after learning she was an Alabama graduate. As it turns out, this client became a good friend and one of her best mentors over the years. While she was at Arthur Andersen, she was only one of 12 women worldwide with the firm. That’s hard to believe in our current culture. She actually had the opportunity to become a partner at Arthur Andersen but she learned she’d have to move to Illinois or New Jersey and that just wouldn’t work for her and Bill. That’s when her entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and she purchased ProTemp Services which she ran for 11 years. She then went on to form a couple of consulting firms in Knoxville and really enjoyed that chapter of her life. She was part of the 1986 Leadership Knoxville class which was only the second class of LK. Ginny said it was a fun time to be a woman back then. She was on the Fort Sanders Alliance Board, the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce Board and was the first female member of our own Rotary Club of Knoxville in 1988. She told the men at RCK that “she would try not to embarrass them…!” She said it wasn’t until 2002 for Townes Osborn to be the first female president of RCK and she followed her steps in 2021-2022. Of all her Rotary years, one of her highlights was to be selected as Rotarian of the Year in 1991-1992.
Ginny has had a remarkable career and has impacted so many people along the way. She’s blazed the trail for women in the workplace and in leadership positions here in East Tennessee. She’s an exemplary person who embodies the Rotary Four-Way Test! I was so impressed she deserves a Big ROLL TIDE Cheer from the RCK members.