2022 Distinguished Alum of the Year: Lewis Agnew, Class of 2000

Lewis Agnew, began his career in real estate with summer jobs as a manual laborer on construction sites in and around Jackson. His early experience inspired him to study engineering in college, where he obtained a bachelor of civil engineering at Auburn University and then a Master of Science in architectural engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. After practicing as a structural engineer for several years, he received his MBA from Vanderbilt University and switched careers to commercial real estate. He is currently president of the Charles Hawkins Company, one of the oldest, full-service real estate companies in Nashville. The company employs 40 people and oversees a $550 million portfolio of commercial real estate in Nashville and surrounding counties. He also serves as a trustee for the NAIOP Research Foundation - a commercial real estate development association - and is past president of the Board for the Nashville Chapter of NAIOP. He currently serves as treasurer for the Transit Alliance of Middle Tennessee and was named one of Nashville’s Emerging Leaders, NAIOP Developing Leader of the Year, and Member of the Year in the Nashville Junior Chamber. He is an adjunct professor at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt and teaches 4th and 5th grade Sunday school with his wife at St. George’s Episcopal Church. His greatest accomplishment was convincing his amazing and lovely wife Katie to marry him in 2008. They are the proud parents of three daughters - Elizabeth, Mary Anne, and Rebecca.

The Distinguished Alum delivers the graduation address: a. Show up to class, show up to church, show up to your friends’ birthdays. If you meet a special girl, show up again and ask her out. Show up to the funeral for your friend’s parent. Show up to any wedding you get invited to. Show up to counseling if you need it. b. If you don’t show up, no amount of “hard work” or “brains” or “luck” can dig you out of the hole. The smartest, coolest, and strongest person cannot overcome a “no-show.” c. There are endless excuses for no-shows. Don’t be an excuse.

Show up: In my experience, there has been nothing more important than one simple, easy, principle: just show up. Yup, that’s it. I feel so strongly about this principle that I almost dedicated this entire speech to simply showing up. That would have been a very short and boring speech, but the concept of showing up has been a guiding principle of mine for years now.

--Lewis Agnew, May 15, 2022, TRUSTMARK PARK