Don M. Green

==Don M. Green==
Don Macks Green (born March 1, 1941) is an American author, public speaker, former bank president, and the Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the Napoleon Hill Foundation located in Wise, Virginia on the campus of the University of Virginia's College at Wise, a position held since 2000. The nonprofit organization was founded in 1963 by the late W. Clement Stone and Napoleon Hill as a mechanism to preserve Hill's legacy. Hill is most known as author of Think and Grow Richand Law of Success. 
Green also serves as the University of Virginia's College at Wise Foundation Board President. The group is charged with providing oversight and counsel in the development of the college in accordance with policy as set by the University of Virginia President and/or Rector and Board of Visitors.
Green is responsible for the generation scholarship funds through his work with the Napoleon Hill Foundation. In 2022, he facilitated the establishment of the Napoleon Hill Keys to Success Bicentennial Scholarship with a $1 million pledge that was matched by the University of Virginia to promote business and entrepreneurship to students in the Southwest Virginia region, totaling $2 million. Green is credited with establishing multiple previous scholarships, six separate endowed scholarships, and a Professorship in Business Fund totaling more than $4 million in support.
==Personal life==
===Early years===
Don Green was born in 1941 in Stratton, Virginia. His father was a coal miner who married a girl who was thirteen years of age. His mother was from a family of sixteen children, all of whom lived to reach their adult years including his mother, living into their nineties. Both of Green's parents had seventh-grade educations and lived through the Great Depression. Green's oldest brother was born when his mother was sixteen, and before she was twenty-two, she had given birth to four sons, and later a daughter born at the age of twenty-seven. Green's father sustained a broken back from a mining accident and refused to seek federal assistance, but alternative supported the family as a coal truck driver while his back healed.
During Green's high school years he built a backyard zoo showing off native wildlife to tourists in the hills of Southwest Virginia featuring rattlesnakes, copperheads, a bobcat named "Tom" and a black bear.
===Education===
Green graduated from Clinch Valley College, now known as UVA WISE, with a two-year degree, followed by a BA (Accounting and Business) degree from East Tennessee State University. He later studied advanced phases of banking at the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers University. (The ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking was hosted by Rutgers until the mid-1980s when it moved to the University of Delaware, and subsequently to Georgetown University. It is currently hosted by the University of Pennsylvania.) 
===Marriage and family===
Green was married 54 years to wife Phyllis Ann Flanary Green, 72, until losing her battle with cancer in 2015. Green has one daughter, Donna Green Sikorski, a son-in-law, Roger, and one grandchild.
==Professional work==
At the age of twenty-one, Green started his banking career as a debt collector for a finance company. He was the youngest branch manager in the company's history with Time Finance, (CIT) in Plainfield, Indiana followed by a stint as a consumer finance manager in Kingsport, Tennessee. He later became Vice President of First State Bank from 1974-1983 in Norton, Virginia. At the age of 41, he presumed the position of President of Black Diamond Bank from 1983-2000. In 2000, he was selected as Executive Director of the Napoleon Hill Foundation by its Board of Trustees and relocated its world headquarters and archive offices in Wise, Virginia.
Aside from banking, Green acquired real estate holdings and started a real estate development company, a dry cleaning business, and other businesses.
== Recognition and civic engagement ==
Green has served as president of the Wise County Chamber of Commerce and currently serves as the University of Virginia's College at Wise Board president. He is a member of the UVA WISE Board of Trustees, the Hoge Masonic Lodge, Kiwanis Club and Shriners. 
In 1998, he was awarded the Outstanding Citizen of the Year award, the Sam Walton Business Leader Award in 1998, the William P. Canto Memorial Education Aware in 1999, and Volunteer of the Year Award by the University of Virginia in 2000.
In 1998, he designed and launched a three-credit college course based on the principles found within Napoleon Hill's book, the Keys to Success, The Seventeen Principles of Success at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. It has been taught annually face-to-face through the business department of the college. In 2022, Keys to Success Course was expanded to an online course format financially supported by multiple grants and through the fundraising efforts of the Napoleon Hill Foundation. It continues to be offered at no cost to all junior and senior high school students in the seven Southwest Virginia region, Russell, Scott, Buchanan, Dickenson, Wise, Tazewell, and Lee, and the City of Norton. 
==Authorship==
Books authored:
* Napoleon Hill, My Mentor 
* Napoleon Hill's Your Millionaire Mindset: A Practical Guide to Increase Your Personal Wealth 
* Napoleon Hill's Secret 
* Everything I Know About Success I Learned from Napoleon Hill: Essential Lessons for Using the Power of Positive Thinking 
Books co-written:
* The Gift of Giving: Living your Legacy with Jim Stovall, president and founder, Narrative Television Network
Contributing writer:
* Dear Napoleon 
Foreword author:
* Napoleon Hill's Path to Personal Power 
* Wishes Won't Bring Riches 
* Wisdom for Winners 
* Success in Hill Country 
* Adversity and Advantage 
* Napoleon Hill's First Editions 
* Andrew Carnegie's Mental Dynamite 
* Napoleon Hill's Golden Rule 
Introduction/preface author:
* Napoleon Hill's Gold Standard 
* Master Mind: Memoirs of Napoleon Hill 
* Success with People 
* Napoleon Hill's Life Lessons 
* Napoleon Hill's Greatest Speeches 
* Napoleon Hill's Timeless thoughts for Today 
* Magic Seeds for Success 
* Napoleon Hill's Daily Journal for Everyday Women
* Napoleon Hill's Daily Journal for Everyday Men 
* The 5 Essential Principles of Think and Grow Rich: The Practical Steps to Transforming Your Desires into Riches 
* Lessons on Success 
* Success: Discovering the Path to Riches 
* How to Own Your Own Mind 
==Media==
Green has been featured in radio, television, newspaper and magazine interviews and a feature film including:
* The Oprah Winfrey Network's Belle Collective with Jean Chatzky Radio Show and Blog (2009)
* The CBS Morning Show, Richmond, Va
* Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy 
* Kingsport Times News
* Coalfield Progress
* Forbes Magazine
* Success Magazine
* Inside Personal Growth Podcast with Greg Voisen 
* Ken Wall's Breakthrough Walls Podcast 
* Inspired for Life Podcast with Chiara Sharp 
* Business Innovators Radio Network with Dave Skattum 
* The Entrepreneur's Library with Wade Danielson 
* INformed People Magazine, September 2021 
* Bloomberg
* The LATAM Leger 
* CISION PR Newswire
* Virtual Strategy Magazine
* UVA Wise Magazine
* UVA Magazine
* Globe Newswire
* Kingsport Times News
* EIN News
* JA Worldwide
* Virtual Strategy Magazine
* Success Profiles: Conversations with High Achievers
Category:1941 births
Category:People from Virginia
Category:American people
Category:Author
Category:Public speaking
Category:Bank presidents and chief executive officers