PIRATE NATION TASTE FOR SUCCESS

When Ryan Mitchell ’01 came to ECU, he thought he had seen the last of the family barbecue restaurant in Wilson where he had been working since age 13.

“I was just a country kid at heart growing up, a country kid with big city dreams,” said Mitchell, son of renowned North Carolina pitmaster Ed Mitchell.

Those dreams involved playing college football for the Pirates, earning an economics degree and working in the banking industry.

Soon, he realized supporting his father’s growing business with his financial knowledge was the place for him, and he left the corporate world — sort of. Now, Ryan Mitchell is the CEO of Pitmaster Enterprises and co-founder of True Made Foods.

“I was able to combine my passion for helping people, cooking and hospitality with my business degree,” he said.

True Made Foods produces a line of Ed Mitchell’s barbecue sauces and condiments that are a healthier alternative to traditional sauces that are high in sugar. The national brand can be found in major grocers such as Walmart and Harris Teeter.

“My dad was diagnosed with diabetes in 2017, and so we decided to take our legacy and his business and create products and barbecue sauces that are made from all-natural recipes with no added sugar,” Mitchell said. “That has been really a game-changer as far as impacting the community and getting our name and our brand out to the world.”

As plans come together for a Raleigh restaurant, the Mitchells were approached about sharing their recipes and journey, one that started with a 35-pound pig cooked in the

Book Signings

• Saturday, July 8, ticketed pig-picking on the Downtown Greenway in Greensboro, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

• Thursday, July 20, 6:45 p.m., Smithsonian Associates (virtual event) parking lot of the family’s small grocery store in Wilson. Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque, released in June, is no ordinary cookbook.

• Sunday, Aug. 27, 2 p.m., Lenoir Book Club, Buxton Books, Charleston, S.C.

“(It’s) a life story narrative based around my dad and my family and all it took to be a relevant pitmaster coming from eastern North Carolina and all the things we had to go through to get our business noticed and to compete and rise through the ranks with being a pitmaster and all of the things that come along with being a minority business,” Ryan Mitchell said.

He has fond memories of his time with teammates and coaches on and off the football field at ECU, and he credits professors for taking an interest in and helping guide him toward his goals. He said ECU’s family atmosphere can’t be beat.

“It was an amazing, amazing part of my life,” he said. “Between classes and playing sports and the people who I had a chance to meet, it was definitely one of the propellers to get me to this stage in my career.”

Plus, as he points out, ECU and barbecue just naturally go together.

“East Carolina and eastern North Carolina vinegar-based barbecue sauce, that’s a marriage that’s taken over the world. It’s where it’s at,” he said.

Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque, written by Ed and Ryan Mitchell with Zella Palmer, is available through HarperCollins Publishers at major and independent retail and online bookstores for $35.

– Ken Buday

For Maj. Daniel Self ’20, completing an online master’s degree in security studies at East Carolina University helped him to bridge the gulf between his experiences as a fires officer — Army speak for artillery — and the American public that is a main reason for his service in uniform.

The Virginia native moved just west of Moore County after high school and was commissioned in the Army after graduating from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. A year of 120-degree days in Afghanistan and another six months in the Middle East fighting ISIS showed Self how America fights its battles. The rigor of academic debate and civilian viewpoints from his ECU experience, however, changed the way he viewed his role as a military leader.

“It wasn’t anything like what I expected. I could engage in debate with the instructors,” Self said. One of those mentors, Armin Krishnan, is an expert in the ways modern warfare is morphing: intelligence, surveillance and the ethics of war. Krishnan remembers Self as a strong student.

Self remembered the discussion and debates about the ethics of use of drones as challenging and intellectually liberating.

“(Krishnan) didn’t have a military background, but when I was a young lieutenant, walking patrols in southern Afghanistan, unmanned aerial vehicles were like my lifeblood,” Self said. “I would always go back and forth with him. He had his opinions, and I had mine. Looking back at my education at ECU and those instructors, I wish I could go back and talk to them again about what’s going on in Ukraine.”

Self follows the progress of the war in Ukraine closely. He is the executive officer, second-in-command, of a high mobility artillery rocket system battalion at Fort Liberty in Fayetteville. HIMARS systems have played a pivotal role in supporting Ukraine’s defense of its homeland, an accountability that resonates with Self.

“The Army is a microcosm of the United States. We come from all over the place — Northeast, Southwest, the country, the city — walks of life. But at the end of the day, we’re accountable to the people,” Self said.

One way he tries to stay accountable is by mentoring cadets he met through ECU’s Corps of Cadets. They ask him questions and for career advice, which he relishes as a responsibility that comes from being a leader.

Self is now a proud Pirate, but on the road to graduation as an online student he endured the taunts of his purple-and-gold Pirate nurse wife.

“She has a leg up on me. She picks on me all the time with, ‘What’s your favorite experience about being around ECU?’” Self joked.

He values the bonds that he has with other ECU grads in the Army and works to grow the Pirate brand. A young soldier in his unit wants to be a nurse and participate in ROTC. There are a select few schools in North Carolina that offer both, and Self told her ECU was the right choice.

“If you want to do ROTC and get your Bachelor of Science in nursing,” he said, “there’s only one school on that list.”