From the farm to the classroom: FTCC's incoming president has humble roots

The current senior vice president for academic and student services of Fayetteville Technical Community College will be taking over next year as president.

The FTCC Board of Trustees announced Sept. 19 that Mark Sorrells will be the next president beginning Jan. 1.

He will be replacing J. Larry Keen, who's been president of FTCC for the past 15 years.

“We are delighted to have a leader of Dr. Sorrells’ caliber to guide FTCC into the future,” David Williford, Chairman of FTCC’s Board of Trustees, said in a news release. “We’re confident that he is the right person to lead our faculty and staff and to help our students achieve their goals.”

Sorrells, 64, has worked in education for nearly four decades.

“I’m humbled by and grateful for the vote of confidence by the Board of Trustees,” he said in the release. “I will do my best to carry on the legacy of Dr. Keen, who has been a wonderful mentor and friend. I can assure you that we will stay the course and carry out and build on the vision that Dr. Keen has established for FTCC to serve as a leader in economic and workforce development for Cumberland County, the region, and the State.”

The soon-to-be fifth president of FTCC was raised in Western North Carolina.

“I grew up working on the farm and working for the family business,” he said Tuesday, referencing his father's convenience store.

Sorrells said he was encouraged by his father, who along with his mother never attended college, to get out of his hometown and further his education.

“He literally looked at me and said ‘Here’s your ticket out. You’ve worked. Your grandfather saved all the money. You have money to go to college,’ and literally, he said, ‘Get the hell out of this community and never come back because there’s nothing here for you.' And that really stuck in my mind,” Sorrells said.

It was on his third attempt at attending college that Sorrells graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Business Administration. He said that before graduating from the University of Tennessee, he'd twice before tried his hand at college, but wasn't mature enough and dropped out.

After earning his degrees, Sorrells went back to work at the family convenience store.

“I wound up back at home because in 1983 that was the great recession at that point, there weren’t any jobs,” he said. But, the economy was so bad, he said, his father couldn't afford to pay him to work at the store.

Then one day a regular customer who knew Sorrell wasn't drawing a salary asked him if he’d ever considered teaching.

“My response back was, ‘Does it pay?’ and he laughed and said, ‘You need to come and submit an application with the college,’ so I started teaching at Haywood Community College at that point. That was 1985,” he said.

Sorrells began his career in education as a business administration instructor.

Prior to joining FTCC, Sorrells spent 17 years at the nonprofit Golden LEAF Foundation, including 14 years as its senior vice president. Earlier in his career, he served as executive director of North Carolina REAL Enterprises, which the news release described as "a statewide organization implementing entrepreneurial education in participating schools and community colleges as an economic development strategy for rural communities."

Now, Sorrells manages and oversees 86 curriculum programs, corporate and continuing education, student services, academic support divisions, and assessment, accreditation, and faculty development at FTCC.

As the state’s third-largest community college, FTCC serves more than 28,000 students.

Sorrells said education is important.

“I’ve lived and fought my entire career and devoted my career to working in the most challenging areas of our state,” he said. “I am absolutely passionate that education is the pathway to uproot economic and social mobility.”

Sorrells holds a Doctor of Education in Education Leadership from East Carolina University. He completed Executive Programs for Philanthropic and Nonprofit Leaders through Stanford University and was a Fellow with the William C. Friday Fellowship for Human Relations, a program of the Wildacres Leadership Initiative.

Sorrells, who’s been married to his wife, Leslie, for 37 years, has two children, and four grandchildren.

Education and families Reporter Ariana-Jasmine Castrellon can be reached at acastrellon@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville Technical Community College new president Mark Sorrells