Triad Business Journal Honors Martin, Obare, Foster and Gatling as Power Players

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Oct. 2, 2023) – The Triad Business Journal has named fourNorth Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University leaders to its seventh annual Power Players list, which highlights Triad leaders playing a significant role in the region’s bright future.

N.C. A&T Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr., Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering (JSNN) Dean Sherine Obare, Ph.D., Core Technology Molding Corp. President and CEO Geoff Foster and Fox Rothschild partner Kimberly Gatling are included among the honorees, who have demonstrated a commitment to community engagement and economic growth.

Martin, an A&T alumnus, is the university’s 12th chancellor and has brought more than 30 years of transformative leadership experience in higher education to the role. He is the first alumnus to serve as the university’s chief executive and is the longest serving chancellor in the University of North Carolina System. Under his leadership, A&T has been the nation’s largest historically Black university for 10 consecutive years and is recognized this year among the top 25 most innovative universities in America by U.S. News & World Report. The university’s Harold L. Martin Sr. Engineering Research and Innovation Complex is named for him.

Obare oversees JSNN, a partnership school launched 14 years ago between A&T and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Since becoming dean in 2019, Obare has worked toward her goal of recruiting and retaining more women into the nanotechnology field. She also oversees JSNN’s academic and research pursuits, for which faculty members have received funding from organizations such as the National Institutes for Health, National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Foster, an A&T alumnus, is the founder of Core Molding Corp., an injection molding company. A 25-year veteran in the plastics field, he received a U.S. patent for his process in 1999. He also established a pipeline of talent to his company and the industry by serving as an adjunct professor at A&T in the Department of Applied Engineering Technology. He is an advisor for the Society of Plastics Engineers, serves on the Board of Visitors at A&T and received recognition as Greensboro Chamber of Commerce Minority Small Businessman of the Year in 2015 and Distinguished Alumni from the A&T School of Science and Technology in 2017, among other honors.

Gatling, an A&T alumna who also serves as Fox Rothschild's national chief diversity and inclusion officer, is member of the firm's privacy and data security group, with her practice is in intellectual property prosecution, licensing and litigation. Elected chairwoman of the university's Board of Trustees in September, she will play a key role in determining the successor to Martin, who will retire at the end of the academic year. She is board chair of both the United Way of Greater Greensboro and the Moses Cone-Wesley Long Community Health Foundation. She also has been an associate director at Truliant Federal Credit Union.

Power Players will be recognized later this year with a reception and in an Oct. 27 special section.