Christopher Che, Elizabeth Salinas Newby and Ruth Olmsted Bring Wealth of Knowledge and Experience
Wilmington College looks forward to welcoming three new members to the Board of Trustees when the group converges upon campus for its annual fall meeting on Oct. 7 and 8.
(PICTURED) From the left are Christopher Che, Elizabeth Salinas Newby and Ruth Olmsted.
They include Christopher Che, a WC graduate and entrepreneur; Elizabeth Salinas Newby, a Quaker author; and Ruth Olmsted, a College alumna who is retired from a career in education.
President Trevor Bates expressed his pleasure with the trio's willingness to serve Wilmington College. "Each possesses valuable knowledge and experience that will help Wilmington College continue to RISE," he said. "I look forward to their wise counsel and their individual roles contributing to the Board's leadership of the College."
Che is president and CEO of the Che International Group, LLC (CIG), which he founded in 2005. CIG is a multi-national holding company that identifies, acquires, supports and grows scalable subsidiary companies in diverse industries through startups, strategic acquisitions, joint ventures and alliances to help customers maximize supply chain diversity while promoting supply chain excellence.
Che is an accountant by profession and a veteran senior financial executive with more than 35 years of vast and dynamic business management experience. CIG’s subsidiary acquisition experience includes Hooven-Dayton Corporation, Digital Color International, Cog, LLC, and TrueChoicePack Corporation. Consistent with his vision to influence global supply chain excellence, Che founded Transworld Supply Network in 2018 and Transworld Delivery Corporation in 2020.
He resides in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his wife Rose and is the father of two sons and one daughter.
Newby completed her undergraduate education in communications, public relations and counseling psychology at Earlham College and did her graduate work at Ball State University. She has worked in the areas of mental health, education, social work and counseling in clinics, hospitals, public schools and in the Department of Social Services as a child abuse investigator dealing with trauma and sexual abuse cases of children and the elderly.
Newby was appointed executive director for Iowa's Latino affairs for and later worked in the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration in Minnesota, and currently serves as a parent educator and counselor primarily for Hispanic families. She is the author of a book, A Migrant With Hope, and the editor of two other books, A Philosopher’s Way and Between Peril and Promise. She is featured in two book anthologies, Immigrant Women, American Culture: An Anthology of Civilization Texts and A Certain Kind of Perfection: An Anthology of Quaker Writers
Newby and her husband, Jim, who have one daughter, Alicia Marie Clark, enjoy playing golf and spending time at her home, Newbeginnings, on the coast of North Carolina.
Olmsted, who earned both her Master of Arts degree and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, spent her entire career in academe, from part-time/adjunct teaching in 1974 while working toward my PhD in Comparative Literature, through full-time teaching at two colleges and a prep school, and finally 26 years at Excelsior College.
Excelsior is an external degree program for adult learners who complete their studies through coursework and assessment of prior learning. These adult learners include three unique populations: nursing students, active duty and veteran military students, and Orthodox Jewish students.
Since her retirement in 2019, Olmsted has continued service to the Orthodox population as a consultant in test development and portfolio assessment for Excelsior and for Elyon College and Genesis University, which serve this population exclusively.
A Quaker, Olmsted serves as co-clerk of her Monthly Meeting. She has taught at William Penn College and Wilmington College and belongs to the Friends Association for Higher Education. She has been involved with Friends Committee for National Legislation since 1979. With her father, former WC Provost Sterling Olmsted and Mike Heller, she edited the second volume of the Nonviolence and Social Change series, Mohandas K. Gandhi: The Last Eighteen Years.
