WCC Foundation director to retire in January
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on November 15, 2015 3:05 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Jack Kannan, executive director of the Wayne Community College Foundation, recently announced he will retire in January, with plans to develop a local film festival.
Jack Kannan, executive director of Wayne Community College, has been contemplating the timing of his retirement for a while now.
In a few months, he will turn 71, he said.
But age is not the reason behind recently telling his board and Dr. Kay Albertson, WCC president, of his plans to leave the office Jan. 31.
He has also been lining up plans for his next job.
"When I retire, I'm going to retire from the college," he explained. "David Weil's offered me an office (downtown). I'm going to develop the regional film festival.
"My plans are to take my wife and any of my friends that wish to go. I'm going to go out to Sundance and the Wichita Film Festival, Savannah Film Festival and then I'm going to go to Myrtle Beach, Wilmington (locations of other successful film festivals) and I'm going to come back and spread all the data out."
He said he has had the support from the college and its Foundation, as well as the Paramount Foundation, to pursue the lofty goal to develop a local film festival.
It helps, he pointed out, that he already had five years of experience working with the Praxis Film Festival -- initially on the WCC campus and in the last few years dividing it between WCC and the Paramount.
"I have talked to Anita Croasman, our director, and she's going to work with me on this venture," he said. "And with the downtown's revitalization, now it's just a matter of going down there, talking to the people about being supportive of what you can see in the future, if we will be successful."
Kannan's ultimate game plan is to go even further with the film festival, taking the venture across the river -- with a third venue for the public to check out short and full-length movies from fledgling filmmakers. He has long said he has his sights set on Mount Olive as another location.
At the outset, though, he plans a slow build.
"I'm going to do it for five years, no pay. This is my gift back to the county, to the community," he said. "In two years, if I find out it's not going to work, I will just drop it."
That doesn't seem likely, however. Kannan has a way of attracting support. It is what he has built his career on, in the 25 cumulative years he has worked at the college.
The Goldsboro High School graduate and Vietnam vet was first hired at the college as a counselor back in the early 1970s. He later left to work in the private sector.
In the interim, he was a trustee at the college, serving as finance chairman at the time WCC began exploring starting a Foundation.
"During that period of planning a Foundation, I served on the first board of directors for the Foundation," he said.
After two terms as a trustee, still working in the private sector, he was looking to make a move. Dr. Ed Wilson, who later became WCC president, was associate vice president at the time and pursued Kannan to return to the fold.
Kannan's role was part-time director of the Foundation and then went to full-time.
"It was perfect timing. God just looked after this," Kannan said. "I came in. I think we had a few hundred thousand dollars (to work with) and now we have over $6 million. So we have given millions away for scholarships."
The statistic is even more impressive, he points out, because Wayne County doesn't have major corporations providing $100,000 gifts like community colleges in cities like Raleigh may have.
What Wayne County lacks in large corporations, though, is more than made up for in generous individuals, Kannan said.
Folks like Dillon Wooten, president of Wooten Oil Co., an early backer of the Foundation golf tournament, which grew to be the largest in the state among similar ones held at community colleges.
"I had a couple major donors and went to one in the early part of my (career). I was told, you have got to get (people) to come on your campus," Kannan said. "We don't have football, basketball, etc. So we came up with Arts and Humanities. That's where (then-director) Bill Brettmann came on."
Drawing people to the campus -- for lectures, concerts and other events -- generated not only individual and community support, but financial as well.
"And the leadership that started with Dillon, moved to Larry and Fran Boyce, Jeff Jackson and his daughter, Meghan, allowed us to have a successful golf tournament, which is now an invitational scholarship tournament," he said.
He's been asked the secret of his success -- for drawing varied and illustrious presenters, as well as patrons, to the campus.
Simple, he says. Instead of focusing on fundraising, his efforts center around relationship-building, or "friend-raising."
"I don't work. It's a fun job," he said. "I really hate calling it a job. It's a relationship. I can't say it enough."
Having individuals, families and groups make donations to the college Foundation, earmarked for scholarship, not to Kannan or for administrative budgets, has been perhaps the most rewarding aspect of his job.
"They give me money, the donor and I give it to the students and the parents thank me," he said. "It's not my doing. I'm the conduit."
Kannan will be leaving the office on a high note, he says -- the 23rd annual scholarship invitational reached another milestone this year, with $167,000 raised and the Foundation's largest endowment in its history, in excess of $800,000.
Humbled by the accolades, Kannan has also been surprised as word trickled out of his impending retirement.
"The phone's been ringing," he said with a laugh of the unexpected offers now coming his way. "I will listen, but I'm not interested. I've got a plan.
"I would just like to see what they have got to say."