Staff

Dr. Patrick Long

Director

Pat brings to the Center extensive experience in grappling with the competing requirements of regional development and resource conservation. He comes to ECU from the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado at Boulder, where he established the nation's first sustainable tourism center. Long holds tenure in ECU's College of Business and applies a much-practiced interdisciplinary approach in guiding the development of a new MS degree offering in Sustainable Tourism, as well as directing the Center's plans for multi-campus partnerships. He served for a number of years as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Rural Tourism Foundation as well as President/CEO of that organization. His scholarly publications have appeared in Annals of Tourism, the Journal of Travel Research, the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, the Journal of Business Research and Tourism Management, among others.

Vita  |  Profile

Dr Bob Edwards

Director of Academic Program

Edwards joined the ECU faculty in 1995, after earning his PhD in Sociology from The Catholic University of America. He received permanent tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in 2001 before rising to the rank of Full Professor in 2008. Prior to his arrival at ECU, Edwards worked for ten years in local government and the nonprofit sector in Washington, DC. During the 1980's, he worked for an African-American Community Action agency in Arlington, VA, and an Inspector, Tenant-Landlord conflict mediator and Community Development Specialist in Arlington, VA's Department of Planning, Housing and Community Development. He later worked for Maryland's Montgomery County Public Schools as an institutional researcher and policy analyst. Edwards has also founded and directed non-profit organizations providing services to minority and immigrant communities. He has extensive professional experience in community relations, coordinating inter-agency programs, program administration and evaluation, as well as policy analysis, and social and environmental equity impact assessment.

Dr. Joe Fridgen

Associate Director for Academic Programs

Joe holds a PhD in environmental psychology and social psychology from the University of California, Davis. His interests focus on helping communities understand the relationship between natural resources, recreation resources, and tourism and their contribution to economic development and sustained environmental quality. Having most recently served as chair of ECU's Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies and previously as chair of the recreation and tourism program at Michigan State University, Joe brings a wealth of knowledge to the Center regarding both sustainable tourism and university operations. He believes the human environment interface is critical to the sustainable use of resources and amenities in tourism settings and destinations and is interested in this interrelationship from a perceptual and behavioral perspective as they relate to planning, marketing, and promotion. In addition, he is interested in applied research related to tourism organizations, tourism agencies, and the leadership roles they play in the development and management of tourism activity, travel flows, and long-range planning. Besides managing the MS in Sustainable Tourism, Joe assists communities and destinations in understanding tourists' perceptions, images of their destination, and marketing related to those images and perceptions.

Profile

Dr. Huili Hao

Research Director

Huili comes to the Center from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she completed her doctoral degree in Public Policy with a concentration in urban and regional planning. Her research interests lie in community sense of place, coastal community sustainable development, tourism and second home development, and brownfields redevelopment. Her recent research focuses on tourism impacts and second home development in amenity-rich communities, as well as tourism-impacted businesses and organizations' perceptions of potential drilled oil risks for coastal North Carolina. As Research Director, Huili brings to the Center a combination of sophisticated research methods, integrated project conduction expertise, and experience in academic and applied research and student interaction.

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Dr. Carol Kline

Assistant Professor

Carol received her Ph.D. in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management from North Carolina State University, where she instructed classes and provided outreach to North Carolina communities on issues of sustainable tourism. Her research interests focus on rural tourism development: how to create a supportive environment for tourism entrepreneurs, the role of sustainable food systems in tourism, the impacts of tourism on the community, and early tourist markets in burgeoning destinations.  Carol has worked in a variety of geographical and cultural settings including New England, Colorado, Germany, the Republik of Moldova, Grenada, Peru and the Southeastern U.S.   She led a Study Abroad course to Ghana, West Africa for three years, and believes that teaching and learning in an international context is an invaluable opportunity for faculty and students. 

Profile

Yvette Pierce

Administrative Assistant

Yvette Pierce is the Administrative Assistant for the Center for Sustainable Tourism. She brings with her over 20 years of employment experience. She has been with East Carolina University (ECU) since 2006. Prior to coming to the Center, she worked as the Administrative Associate for ECU Pediatric Hematology/Oncology department.  Yvette served honorably for three years in the US Army as a Supply Specialist.

Alex Naar

Director of Sustainable Tourism Outreach

Alex has been recreating in North Carolina since he was a little boy and went to summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was there he fell in love with what our state has to offer and began a lifelong commitment to environmental protection. While attending high school in Asheville, Alex became an avid outdoorsman: backpacking in Pisgah National Forest, rock climbing in Linville Gorge, and fishing in the high country. He has provided hundreds of children with various outdoor adventures while serving as a summer camp counselor and program director and continues his interest in summer camp programs and outdoor recreation in North Carolina. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he joined the first generation of trained sustainable business people. While in Boulder he also worked with the Boulder County Government program Partners for a Clean Environment conducting environmental outreach and education with local businesses. Alex is being funded through the ECU Office of Economic Development (OED) and working jointly with the OED, the North Carolina Department of Tourism, Film, and Sports Development and the Center for Sustainable Tourism.

Dr. Derek H. Alderman

Research Fellow, Cultural and Heritage Studies

Derek's interests lie in assisting communities with the development of cultural tourism resources, specifically those related to heritage or historical issues. As a cultural geographer, he also examines the relationship between the politics of place-making and tourism promotion and how tourist spaces serve as arenas for the negotiation of identity, social power, and memory. Derek is especially interested in working with African American communities and analyzing how their experience is incorporated into the southern landscape.

Profile

Dr. David Edgell, Sr.

Research Scholar, Planning and Policy

David’s interests are in providing communities with a full range of sustainable tourism services, developing strategic tourism plans, suggesting tourism management strategies, implementing tourism marketing concepts, and introducing tourism policies. As a professor of tourism within ECU’s Hospitality Management Program, an international consultant on global tourism solutions, and a researcher, he has considerable interest in the past, present, and future development of tourism. His career has included such roles as undersecretary of the US Department of Commerce for Travel and Tourism, commissioner of tourism for the US Virgin Islands, and vice president of strategic marketing. Sustainable tourism management, in all its varieties and vagaries, has fascinated his interests for many years, and as a result, David has prepared state and local strategic tourism plans, prepared business plans for resort developments and international tourism destinations, provided direction in sustainable tourism as an economic development strategy, and consulted on special heritage and cultural tourism projects. Some of his current interests include researching and examining best practices for tourism development in communities, climate change and tourism along coastlines, strategic overview of tourism opportunities in rural counties, and helping to structure new tourism resorts. Among his books are Tourism Policy and Planning: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (with Allen, Swanson, & Smith), Managing Sustainable Tourism: A Legacy for the Future, and Best Practices Guidebook for International Tourism Development for Rural Communities.

Profile