Five business leaders have signed on to participate in four Cottrell Speaker Series events — two in the fall and two in the spring — hosted by the University of North Georgia's Mike Cottrell College of Business.

The first event will feature a pair of UNG alumni: Mike Higley, '81, vice president of operations for FedEx Sub-Saharan Africa, and retired Army Lt. Gen. James L. Terry, '78, senior vice president for business development and ground strategy at Cubic Global Defense. Their talk is set for noon Oct. 3 in the Dining Hall Banquet Room on UNG's Dahlonega Campus.

Bobbi Larson, development officer for the MCCB, said Higley and Terry have been friends since they were in the Corps of Cadets together at UNG. They will share how military values translate into the business world. Higley and Terry serve on the MCCB Dean's Advisory Council.

Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Higley oversees import and export operations in Sub-Saharan Africa. He started at FedEx in 1982 after a short stint in law enforcement.

Terry served for more than 37 years in the U.S. Army before joining Cubic Global Defense in 2016. He works to expand business opportunities for the company's ground training systems and services for the Army, Marine Corps, special forces and the Middle East region.

Next in the Cottrell Speaker Series lineup is Northeast Georgia Health System President and CEO Carol Burrell. She will speak at noon Oct. 29 in the Cleveland Ballroom in the Martha T. Nesbitt Academic Building on the Gainesville Campus.

Burrell is the leader of NGHS, which has more than 8,000 employees, three hospitals and dozens of outpatient locations across the northeast Georgia region. In 2017, Georgia Trend magazine named her the state's most respected business leader. Burrell also is a UNG Foundation trustee.

Starting off the spring speakers will be Tanika Cabral, vice president of global marketing for the Coca-Cola Co. She will speak at noon Jan. 30 in the Cleveland Ballroom in the Nesbitt building.

In addition to leading Coca-Cola's global marketing, Cabral heads up the Subway global account team for the Atlanta-based company. Cabral has served as the global president of Women's LINC, Coca-Cola's 6,000-member resource group focused on the professional development of women. She also received the YWCA Corporate Women of Achievement Award for her work to uplift women and girls.

Rounding out the speakers will be Alan Amling, vice president of corporate strategy for UPS. He is slated for the Feb. 13 event at noon in the Dining Hall Banquet Room.

Amling started at UPS in 1982 and worked as a seasonal employee for four years. Since returning to the company in 1992, he has held various leadership positions. He gave a September 2015 TED talk titled "The future of delivery in our new on-demand economy."

The speakers will discuss their own professional journeys and share advice for the audience. Larson said while MCCB students are the target audience, other students, faculty, staff, and alumni are welcome to attend.

Video simulcasts are planned for all of the speaker series events, with the Dahlonega talks being simulcast to the Gainesville and Oconee campuses and the Gainesville talks being simulcast to the Dahlonega and Oconee campuses.