Vision Henderson County is led by the Executive Director, Gary Heisey. Gary has lived in Western North Carolina for 26 years.
In addition to his role as the Vision Henderson County Executive Director, he is the Executive Director for the Blue Ridge Community College Mission Acceleration Business Accelerator Program, a comprehensive business innovation program designed to assist for profit, not-for-profit and family owned businesses to take them to the next level of success and sustainability.
Gary is also a Blue Ridge Community College Adjunct Faculty member where he teaches business classes for local entrepreneurs and the business community through the BRCC Small Business Center. Gary has authored four workbooks on Branding and Marketing with his company Brand Door.
Prior to his current roles, Gary spent 11 years as the award-winning Blue Ridge Community College Small Business Director. During this time, he directed the BRCC Small Business Center, rated number one SBC training center out of 58 North Carolina Colleges across the state. Gary personally taught over 600 business seminars and assisted over 1,000 start-ups, growth and scale-up companies with management advice, branding, marketing, social media, access to capital, and business planning.
Gary has been recognized by:
- Small Business Administration
- National Association of Entrepreneurship
- 2016 North Carolina Community College Staff Person of the Year Award
- 2014 Dr. Molly A. Parkhill Blue Ridge Community Staff Person of the Year
- Mountain Bizworks (Former Board Chair, Board Member 2014-2020, Chair of the Lending Committee and served on the Executive Finance Committee)
- SCORE (Service of Retired Executives)
- Master’s Degree in Entrepreneurism (Western Carolina University)