Marty Dickens, the chairman of Belmont’s Board of Trustees, was recently honored as Outstanding Nashvillian of the Year by the Kiwanis Club of Nashville. The award is presented to a citizen who is known for significant service and contribution to the betterment of the city and who enhances the objects of the Kiwanis mission. Past recipients of the award include Martha Ingram, Jack Massey, Gov. Phil Bredesen, Vince Gill, Jeff Fisher and Mike Curb.
Dickens, pictured with Belmont President Robert Fisher, at the award ceremony Aug. 10, also announced this week his retirement as president of AT&T Tennessee, effective Oct. 1. After 38 years in the telecommunications industry, Dickens, 59, told The Tennessean, “My wife and I have thought about this for a while. We will stay here in Nashville and be very active in the community.”
A native of North Carolina with degrees from East Carolina University and Georgia State, Dickens was selected as the president of BellSouth in 1999 and continued in that position after the company was purchased by AT&T last year. In addition to Belmont’s Board of Trustees, he has served on the community boards for the YMCA, Boy Scouts, Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music, Adventure Science Center and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes as well as the corporate boards of Genesco and First American Financial Holdings. He is the past chairman of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and currently heads the Music City Center Coalition, a business group advocating for a new downtown convention center.
