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Couple Hits the Right Shot with PGA Program Gift
Photo by Carolyn Richardson
Couple Hits the Right Shot with PGA Program Gift
By Amy Cagle
For Chad and Carrie Parker, life is always in full swing. They enjoy busy lives and careers in Georgia, engaging in many activities and participating in numerous organizations and groups throughout the city of Atlanta.
The Parkers have been married for almost 25 years, after meeting as students at Mississippi State University and graduating in 1995. The pair connected through a mutual friend, and they’ve been inseparable ever since.
Chad came to MSU from his hometown of Florence, AL, for the PGA program and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing/professional golf management. Carrie, a native of Laurel, MS, earned a professional accountancy degree.
The Parkers share much success through their personal lives and through their respective careers. They credit their MSU degrees and educational foundations from the College of Business for many professional and educational opportunities that have been afforded them.
Growing up, Chad learned the game of golf from his dad and worked at the local country club in high school. Both he and Carrie were employed at the MSU Golf Course during their time in Starkville, and Chad also worked at Old Waverly Golf Club in nearby West Point. Carrie shares Chad’s love of golf, and many of the lifelong friends she has made are from that circle.
The couple has established the Chad and Carrie Parker Excellence Endowment to assist the College of Business perpetually and provide support for student scholarships, faculty support, facility enhancements, visiting lecturers or other enhancements for the PGA Golf Management program. For Chad and Carrie, it is important to make education a priority for others, and their endowment-level gift makes this possible.
“Carrie and I are blessed to have parents who understand the value of an exceptional education,” explains Chad, who is President and General Manager of Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club. “We are also fortunate that our families were able to provide for our college education. However, we realize that’s not always the case. We hope the excellence endowment will provide opportunities for those students who might not otherwise have access to the same opportunities that we had.”
The experience and education Chad amassed at MSU come into play for him every day at East Lake, the thriving private golf club heralded as home of the TOUR Championship, the PGA TOUR’s season ending event that crowns the FedEx Cup Champion. He joined the club’s staff in 1996 and became the Head Golf Professional the next year. Six years ago, he achieved PGA Certification in General Management, a distinction held by only three percent of the 22,000 members of The PGA of America.
The Parkers, shown here at East Lake Golf Club, both worked at the MSU Golf Course during their college years.
Photo by Carolyn Richardson
Chad is very active in the area of golf tournament management, having hosted 19 PGA TOUR events and three major amateur events, including the 101st U.S. Amateur Championship in 2001 and the East Lake Cup from 2015 to the present. He also has a passion for merchandising and has been honored 17 times by the Association of Golf Merchandisers as having one of the “Top 100 Golf Shops” in the United States. He was named Merchandiser of the Year by the Georgia Section PGA in 2002 and won the inaugural Golf World “Best Merchandising” award in 2004. In 2011, Chad was given the Horton Smith Award by the Georgia Section PGA for his continuing contributions to professional education. The organization also presented him the President’s Award in 2016 for his overall promotion of golf, level of impact on the game of golf, ability to inspire fellow professionals and level of professional expertise.
Chad was named to the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Top 40 Under 40” in 2009 and was recognized as a “Community Champion” by the Georgia Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in 2010. He currently serves on the boards of Crimestoppers Atlanta, Leadership Atlanta, Cink Charities, the Atlanta Sports Council and the Atlanta Humane Society. He is also a proud graduate of the 2018 class of Leadership Atlanta, one of the oldest sustained community leadership programs in the nation.
Another passion for Chad and Carrie is assisting the community by organizing charity golf tournaments. With the help of Stewart Cink and others, Chad and Carrie created The Healing Place Charity Championship in Chad’s hometown of Florence to raise money for a nonprofit facility in Muscle Shoals, AL, that provides ongoing education and support programs for grieving children, adolescents and their families/caregivers. The event has raised more than $2 million in its 15-year run. In 2010, Chad coordinated the formation of the East Lake Invitational, a celebrity pro-am style golf tournament staged to benefit the East Lake Foundation. With the assistance of tournament hosts Billy Andrade and Stewart Cink, the event has raised more than $3 million for charity in 10 years.
The couple love creating an environment of hospitality for charity tournaments together. However, they spend their typical days very differently. While Chad guides East Lake, Carrie – who, in addition to her MSU degree, earned a Master of Tax Accounting degree from the University of Alabama – is devoted to her own career.
Carrie is a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, a multinational professional services network in Atlanta that is one of the Big Four accounting firms. Specifically, she is a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) tax partner, having specialized in this area for more than 20 years, and she also leads the firm’s Global Structuring team in the Southeast, which brings together the M&A, International Tax Services, Transfer Pricing and State and Local tax practices to offer clients holistic solutions as they execute their business strategies around the world. Before becoming partner, Carrie completed a secondment with the M&A tax practice of the firm’s Washington National Tax Services office. She is a frequent speaker on M&A tax issues at the firm’s national training courses and in the Southeastern tax community.
"We are big believers in education,” says Carrie. “My undergraduate degree gave me the building blocks for success, as did Chad’s degree, and we want to be a small part of the success of other students following behind us at MSU."
Because of their demanding work schedules, Carrie and Chad are infrequent visitors to MSU. However, Carrie has occasionally assisted in interviewing candidates at MSU for tax internship positions at her firm. And last fall, Chad visited campus and spoke to the PGA Golf Management Club members, in particular focusing on the senior class, where he shared real-world insights. Those insights included the anticipation of a changing landscape for golf and how he hopes to help MSU students prepare for an environment where the culture and diversity of golfers will change.
As MSU’s PGA program prepares for its 35th year, it is working to expand boundaries with support from the Parkers. Since its inception in 1985, the program has produced more than 750 graduates, many of whom now hold positions at Top 100 golf courses, at PGA Sections and at PGA headquarters, among other notable posts.
“The Parkers’ generous gift will help enhance the opportunities for each student in the PGA Golf Management Program, and the positive impact of their endowment will resonate for generations to come,” says Jeff Adkerson, PGA Golf Management and Golf Operations Director at MSU.
The MSU PGA program enjoys a strong reputation, with a 100 percent placement rate of graduates who have worked at more than 1,300 golf facilities and organizations worldwide. That number continues to grow.
“Carrie and I are happy to give back to a program that has offered us many wonderful opportunities through the game of golf,” says Chad. “Our endowment is meant to bring perpetual support for the PGA program to help students gain experience and accomplish great things, both in and outside the game of golf.”
