This is Richland County CEO member, River Logan, with a post to say goodbye to CEO. First of all, I want to say thank you to all of our wonderful investors who have been so supportive of our class as well as generous with their time and money. I also want to thank our incredible board this year. They made each of us feel welcome and were so encouraging throughout this whole process. Now, a huge thank you to all the mentors, but I have to give a special shout out to Sonja Holtz. Thank you for believing in me even when I did not. Your thoughtfulness and kind words never went unnoticed. I am so thankful God brought us together, and I am excited to continue this relationship. You will always be someone I look up to. Lastly, I want to thank our amazing facilitator, Sheri Gray. Thank you for guiding us through this process and being there for us when we made mistakes.

Now to the program itself, thank you for being the thing I needed before I grew up and entered the real world. My absolute favorite memory from this year was setting up for our class business, Winter RUNderland. Even though it was a little stressful, we all got to know each other better through that time we spent together. This memory ties in to the biggest lesson I learned in CEO which is how to work with others. Even though our class was not very close at the beginning of the year, we are all uniquely bonded now. We could not have gotten here though without working through problems and stressful situations. It was these situations that taught me the most about working together to solve problems and using the strengths of others to create solutions. The relationships I made through this program are definitely going to be the thing I miss most about it.

If I had any advice for the next class, it would be to open up to the people in the program whether that be your peers, mentor, board members, or facilitator. They all want to see you succeed and they all have so much knowledge to give. Cherish the time you have in CEO because before you know it, you’ll be leaving a different person than you started. I cannot wait to see the amazing things that the Class of 2027 will do.