Blaze Bowers (he/him) is a Regional Director for Client Relations & Engagement for Grand River Solutions. In this role, Blaze facilitates relationships with prospective and current clients. Blaze serves clients in the Southeast, including Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. He partners with schools, businesses, non-profits, and institutions of varying types, collaborating to assess organizational needs, identifying relevant solution services, and supporting clients through the implementation of products and services. Blaze engages with Grand River Solutions leadership and team members in strategic planning and business development, while collaborating to identify emerging needs and future solutions in the various client sectors.

Blaze is an experienced executive and cabinet-level higher education student affairs and compliance administrator and university-level instructor, having served as Chief Student Affairs Officer, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Compliance, a Title IX Coordinator, an Institutional Compliance Officer, and an adjunct faculty member. In his previous role, Blaze served as Assistant Vice President for Academic and Student Support Services & Senior Title IX and Institutional Compliance Officer at Lincoln Memorial University (LMU), where he also served as an Instructor of Criminal Justice and Political Science. At LMU, Blaze pioneered and coordinated the institution’s Institutional Alcohol and Drug Compliance Taskforce, the Institutional Title IX Committee, and the University’s first Pregnant and Parenting Student Academic Adjustments Policy. He also reconfigured ADA/Section 504 procedures and practices and other compliance and student affairs initiatives, policies, and programs.

As an avid higher education law and policy academic and practitioner, Blaze served as a Teaching & Research Fellow for the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law & Policy at Stetson University College of Law. Blaze has served as a Pressnell Fellow for the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association (TICUA) Executive Leadership Institute. He has authored and presented on topics including Title IX, religious liberties, civil rights, accessibility compliance, and the intersection of administrative, constitutional, and higher education law. His work has been featured in the Florida Bar Journal, the Florida Bar’s Education Law Committee Journal, Campus Legal Advisor, Student Affairs Today, Disability Compliance, the Appalachian College Association’s (ACA) Teaching and Leadership Institute, and the Annual National Conference on Law and Higher Education. He has also been quoted in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education and Higher Ed Dive.

Blaze is a candidate for Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Higher Education Administration and a graduate student instructor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Originally from Ohio and West Virginia, Blaze graduated from Grace College & Seminary, earning his undergraduate degree in Secondary Social Studies Education and History. He went on to earn his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Stetson University College of Law. Blaze resides in the Knoxville, Tennessee area.