Since 1991, the Society of Entrepreneurs has sought to put the spotlight on individuals who have that particular drive to take risks and make things happen in a way that is profitable for both their businesses as well as the community.
Whether they started from scratch or got involved in a family business, SEO members have gone above and beyond the usual metrics of success.
This year, the Society will induct six new members representing four dynamic businesses. They are Kellan Bartosch and Davin Bartosch of Wiseacre Brewing Co.; Pace Cooper of Cooper Hotels; J. Kenneth “Chip” Marston of The Marston Group; and Barry Yoakum and Todd Walker of archimania.
The new members will be inducted at the 33rd Annual Dinner and Awards Banquet on Saturday, April 18, 2026, at 6 p.m. at the FedEx Event Center at Shelby Farms.
This is the first year that the SOE is honoring a member with the Walker S. Uhlhorn Jr. Legacy of Leadership Award. Uhlhorn, who died last year, was the visionary who founded the Society in 1991. He defined an entrepreneur as someone “not easily deterred and creative enough to see solutions to problems and the willingness to take the risk necessary to bring a vision to reality.”
The SOE member who will receive the Legacy of Leadership Award this year is Jack Soden, CEO of Graceland. He embodies not only the entrepreneurial spirit, but has made a priority of giving back to the community, exemplifying how a vision can transform a city and leave a lasting legacy.
photograph by jon w. sparks
Jack Soden
CEO, Graceland
First Recipient of the Walker S. Uhlhorn Jr. Legacy of Leadership Award
Jack Soden’s years at the helm of Graceland have been marked by overcoming obstacles, while creating the top tourist attraction in Memphis, having drawn millions of visitors since opening in 1982.
How did he do it? From the beginning, there was doubt he’d get the job, and even if he did, plenty of naysayers were convinced it would never last. After all, he was just a nice guy who had no background in tourism or music.
One of the key things to appreciate, however, is that he didn’t land the job by agreeing with most everyone else that it should be sold off while the world gradually forgot about Elvis. He didn’t buy into that concept for a minute.
In fact, Priscilla Presley, the trustee and manager of Elvis’ estate after Vernon Presley died, was impressed by Soden’s thoughtful approach. In spite of the doubters, she felt that cash-poor Graceland could be turned around and that he was just the one to do it.
“The tipping point was simply that I was from Kansas City, Missouri,” Soden says. “In other words, the Midwest. Since she’d been separated from Elvis, she lived on the West Coast, and didn’t trust anybody.”
Everyone was pitching her one idea or trying to sell her on another. But Soden, an investment banker, had some ideas that Priscilla felt were worth following up on.
“We got bigger and more profitable and frankly did more things that were simply good quality, such as films, documentaries, and licenses. We did a series with Hallmark and were raising our standards as much as we could.” — Jack Soden
In truth, Soden was intrigued by the idea of taking this property in Whitehaven and seeing if the Elvis brand could continue to sustain it. It was going to be difficult, he knew, but he was ready, in part because he wasn’t much challenged by his current job.
“I always said I wasn’t a very good stockbroker,” he admits. “I would take ‘no’ for an answer. I was really open for something that I could be excited about.”
He flew to Memphis to meet with the estate’s other co-executors. “They planned to have a polite lunch and then put me on a plane and say thanks and get back to looking for a solution for Graceland,” Soden says. “But they were surprised, I guess. I was enthusiastic, but not pounding the table enthusiastic, and told them this is a unique opportunity and whoever you go with, you ought to stay focused.”
It shifted the conversation enough that they allowed him to make a business plan to open Graceland. “And that’s when the stress and the fun started happening,” he says. “Because I loved the idea and it was so easy.”
What followed were the first steps in Soden’s plan that would make Graceland a continuing success, skeptics notwithstanding. He visited the top-five historic homes in America to see how they did it and he took careful notes: Monticello, Mount Vernon, the Biltmore Mansion, the Thomas Edison House, and Hearst Castle. He figured he could make it work.
On June 7, 1982, Graceland opened to the public. The dissenters were still there, but there were plenty more eager visitors. Plus, he realized that it was easier to please people that have no expectations.
Soden uses a technique that he calls “creative worry.” He’ll tell you, “I worried about details, the basic elements and moving parts. So, if one of these things goes off the track, you’ve already thought it through. It made sense to me to pre-worry things. There was something about the Elvis legacy you could just tell was going to be different.”
That opening day in 1982 was a big question mark right up until the gates opened. The sell-out number that day was 3,024, but there was no way to know ahead of time if that would happen. “You announced a party to the world and invited everybody and sat back and waited to see who showed up,” he says. But it sold out that day, and the next, and for pretty much the rest of the summer.
But he was still employing his creative worry practice. After a few days, he was cautioning the staff about celebrating. He was thinking, “What if there are 30,000 fans in the world that want to see Graceland and we just saw them? Where’s the next 30,000? And how’s it going to be different?” Worry, worry, worry.
The question that the media and many others were asking was, “How long will it last?” And Soden says, “I’ve been fielding that question since the morning we opened Graceland, standing on the driveway with a microphone. They’d say, ‘Jack, the Elvis fans are getting older, and at some point they’ll be too old to travel, and Graceland won’t have visitors anymore. What will you do?’ And I can remember saying, ‘Well, if we do it right, we’ll be giving tours to their grandchildren.’”
The fans came and continue to come — including those grandchildren. Over the years, there have been changes made that have secured the position of Graceland and Elvis Presley Enterprises. In the early years there were rights of publicity and securing the property across the street that would become the visitor complex.
“We got bigger and more profitable and frankly did more things that were simply good quality, such as films, documentaries, and licenses,” he says. “We did a series with Hallmark and were raising our standards as much as we could.”
It’s notable that not only has Graceland kept up the pace of success, it’s also made it a point of pride to be in Whitehaven. “It’s our neighborhood,” Soden says. “I’ve always thought we needed to wear our Memphian hat. There’s been a migration of the car dealerships and the restaurants from Elvis Presley Boulevard to the south and to the east. But I’ve always said that Graceland is not going to be one of them.”
The proof of that is the development efforts made in recent years. The cheesy souvenir shops across the street years ago have been replaced by the Elvis Presley’s Memphis complex with exhibits, restaurants, shops, and performance spaces. Close by is the Guest House at Graceland, a 450-room hotel built ten years ago. There are ongoing improvements to a three-mile stretch of Elvis Presley Boulevard. Elvis Presley Enterprises has committed to invest in local community projects and hire from the surrounding community.
“We’re raising the bar continually,” Soden says. “Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 film Elvis was just so excellent.” And Luhrmann’s new documentary, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, was set for release in late February with heretofore unreleased footage.
Jack Soden ignored the naysayers and runs the enterprise to this day. And it brings about $200 million economic impact annually. “When I look back,” he says, “I think I’ve had the time of my life.”
photograph by jon w. sparks
Pace Cooper
President / CEO, Cooper Hotels
President and CEO of Cooper Hotels, Pace Cooper joined the company as a third-generation family member in 1985. The hospitality company is a multi-state enterprise of Hilton-affiliated properties generating more than $120 million in annual revenue.
His father was Irby Cooper, who founded Cooper Hotels in 1959 and ran it with his own father, Louis Cooper. Pace enjoyed watching his father go over profit and loss statements in the evening, which also allowed him to stay up late. The influence caught on and even at a very young age he knew business was his calling.
Today, he and his siblings, David Cooper and Laurie Cooper, run the business, which he says is one of the few multi-unit hoteliers with 19 hotels where all of them are part of the Hilton family of brands. “We’ve developed expertise,” he says, “where my sister handles legal matters, my brother handles the physical plant, and I operate as the chief executive officer running supervision of finance operations.”
As for his staff, he says, “We get good people and we stick with them.” He says Cooper’s executive leadership keeps on working to the point where “my kids make fun of me that no one ever retires at Cooper Hotels.”
Cooper is thrilled to work on civic projects, including being chairman of the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority as it embarked on a long-term modernization project. He serves or has served with numerous Jewish organizations, and is presently chair of the Jewish Foundation of Memphis board of directors. He is also a minority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies. His love for the city is unbounded.
As Cooper puts it, “Part of entrepreneurship is running all the way down the road with goals in mind that you can make your mark. And Memphis is probably one of the greatest communities in terms of entrepreneurship modeling that I know about.”
photograph by jon w. sparks
Todd Walker (left) and Barry Yoakum
Todd Walker
Founding Partner, archimania
Barry Alan Yoakum
President / CEO / archimania
Todd Walker, the founding partner of archimania, got his start drawing plans in the dirt with a stick. It’s how he and his childhood friends made things in the farming community in Arkansas where he grew up. His time in college at Mississippi State University and the University of London shaped his thinking on what he wanted in an architecture firm.
“What I loved about college was sitting in design rooms and studios and talking to classmates about how to make a design better,” he says. “Carrying that through in archimania is what has been important to the sustainability and longevity of doing really good design work.”
Walker’s partner, Barry Alan Yoakum, has been CEO since 2003 and has overseen groundbreaking projects worldwide as well as spurring a host of national and international awards. His achievements and reputation all started when his third-grade teacher told him, “Barry, you’d be a good architect.” That not only got him out of nap time, it energized his zealous love for building things, from cardboard to polished concrete.
Walker and Yoakum make archimania succeed because they’re both different and alike. “I tell everybody we have similar pursuits and we have different pursuits and yet together that’s what makes very strong business,” Yoakum says. He says they initially ask clients why they want to make a change and what they really want to do. Once they’ve done the digging into the client’s vision, then they can talk about scale and scope.
“We’ve been fortunate to work on so many projects that are for the public,” Walker says. There’s the Ballet Memphis building and archimania’s role as architect of record for the new Memphis Art Museum downtown, among others. “We think we’re artists on one hand, but we have to be scientists or engineers on the other,” he says. “That’s the intersection that makes really good architecture.”
photograph by jon w. sparks
Kellan (left) and Davin Bartosch
Kellan Bartosch
President / Brewer, Wiseacre Brewing Company
Davin Bartosch
CEO, Wiseacre Brewing Company
Tennessee’s largest craft brewery and a nationally recognized brand, Wiseacre Brewing Company has grown to produce nearly 35,000 barrels annually and distribute in 22 states.
Brothers Kellan and Davin Bartosch started their brewing enterprise in 2013, but in truth, it got its start from the time they were kids. Davin is 19 months older, so they grew up doing a lot together. Around the third grade, though, Davin showed a true talent for cooking, a gift that would grow to include a high-level understanding of the art and science of brewing.
Kellan, meanwhile, had a talent for business, and the combination of the brothers’ talents has proven to be a success. As Davin puts it, “Making things that taste good has always been an interest to me. The brewery as a business was always much more Kellan’s idea.”
Kellan says, “Growing a business is very different than starting a business. We were really prepared to make great beer and sell great beer and have a good brand. But then hiring and managing people becomes one of the most important things you do. And when we’ve been able to find amazing people for key positions, it really changes your life as a business owner.”
That leads to a corporate culture that reflects the brothers’ sense of fun and purpose. It has a name: BEEFY. It stands for Bliss, Education, Excellence, Folks, and Yourself. “It’s silly,” Kellan says, “but when your staff makes fun of it in a fun way, that’s when I feel that it’s worked.”
And that attention to devotion in the workplace translates into care for the community. He adds, “We’ve developed a system here of trying to navigate that and try to support people where we can.”
photograph by jon w. sparks
J. Kenneth “Chip” Marston
Founder & Managing Partner, The Marston Group
Chip Marston’s father was a general manager of a multi-market radio and TV network in West Tennessee. The youngster was fascinated by how it all operated and what his father did to keep the business vital, and that influenced young Chip to study accounting at Memphis State University. He was always good at handling numbers, but his true love has been learning about people and their stories. He enjoyed being in a position to help. “What I loved most was solving problems on a person-to-person level,” he says, “and being able to explain it in everyday terms.”
That was the impetus for him to start The Marston Group, an accounting and advisory firm that is one of the region’s most respected enterprises. The accounting part is important, but it’s the advisory aspect that touches Marston’s soul. “I felt like the tax returns and financial statements should be the starting point,” he says. “They unpack the story and I could make sure the client understood what was going on. And that developed into long-term advisory relationships, which is what I’ve treasured most.”
One of his firm’s taglines is “giving insight beyond the numbers,” and he feels that’s why clients have stayed with him for decades.
While his father inspired his love of business, Marston says his mother was instrumental in nurturing his sense of responsibility to the community. He’s had leadership roles with Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, and Make-A-Wish Mid-South, among others. That sense of giving back extends throughout the company as well.
“We encourage our people to find their passion externally, and we give them time to volunteer,” Marston says. “Sometimes it’s as simple as a firm-wide project, but more importantly, we have people who serve on boards. And if any employees want us to become major donors to an organization, we ask them to make their business case, and most times we do it. It keeps everyone really involved.”
