Keith Sanford to take over as head of the Tennessee Aquarium

First Tennessee names Jackson to succeed Sanford as market president

The Tennessee Aquarium is often credited as the catalyst for downtown development in the past 25 years.
The Tennessee Aquarium is often credited as the catalyst for downtown development in the past 25 years.

Keith Sanford, market president of First Tennessee Bank for the past five years, has been hired to head the Tennessee Aquarium.

Sanford, who rose through the ranks to the top job in Chattanooga at First Tennessee during his 36-year career at the bank, succeeds Charlie Arant as CEO of the Aquarium. Sanford has served for three years on the Tennessee Aquarium board.

"I'm honored to follow in the footsteps of leaders like Charlie Arant, Jim Hill, and Bill Flynn as the Tennessee Aquarium prepares for its 25th anniversary next year," Sanford said in a news release.

Arant, a former manager of the IBM office in Chattanooga, has headed the Tennessee Aquarium since 1995.

The riverfront attraction, which opened as the world's biggest freshwater aquarium in 1992, added the IMAX theater in 1996 and the Ocean Journey in 2005 during Arant's tenure.

More than 20 million people have visited the Tennessee Aquarium in the past 24 years. Last year, TripAdvisor designated the Tennessee Aquarium as the fourth-best aquarium in the country and the eighth-best worldwide.

The aquarium's latest project is the Tennessee Aquarium Freshwater Conservation Institute, to be housed in a $4.5 million structure under construction on the Baylor School campus. Its programs will include raising fish such as lake sturgeon and brook trout for release into the wild.

John Giblin, executive vice president and chief financial officer of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, was chairman of the aquarium board's search committee for a new president and CEO.

"We knew we had some big shoes to fill in finding a candidate to continue Charlie Arant's great work," Giblin said in the release. "After a thorough search and review of more than 100 applications, we determined the best person to be the next CEO of one of our city's most cherished institutions was someone who has devoted his entire career to improving the Chattanooga community."

Sanford will be succeeded as market president in Chattanooga for First Tennessee by Jeff Jackson, previously a senior vice president and corporate, commercial and business banking manager. Jackson, an Auburn University graduate who previously worked at IBM as a financial sales executive, joined First Tennessee in 2009.

Read more in tomorrow's Times Free Press.

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