40 Years, 40 Alumni: Lynne Berry and a Bigger View of Home

 

Lynne Berry did not come to Leadership Greater Huntsville as an outsider looking to learn Huntsville. As a multi-generational Huntsville native, she thought she already knew her hometown pretty well.

But, as is the case for many of our alumni, she quickly discovered there was much more to learn.

(Ribbon Cutting for opening of Leadership office on Gallatin Street in 2010.)

A Bigger World, Right at Home

"LGH certainly broadened and deepened my knowledge and perspective," says Berry, a graduate of LGH's very first class — Flagship Class 1. "It's easy for us to live in a small part of our world, interact with the same people, go to the same places. LGH introduced me to new people, places, and concepts."

Leadership provided Lynne with more than a larger social network. It reshaped how she understood some of the institutions that have defined Huntsville for generations.

Growing up, she knew that two of her uncles worked "on the Arsenal," but she knew little about what their work there entailed or the larger role Redstone played in the community. Through LGH, she came to better understand the distinct roles of the Army and NASA at Redstone Arsenal — knowledge that took on new meaning when she later went to work for Marshall Space Flight Center.

"Anytime you see a bigger world," she reflects, "it's possible for you to see new pathways for yourself in that world."

 

 

Building Bridges

Lynne's LGH experience began in a Huntsville that looked very different from the community we know today. In 1986, LGH brought Black and white business and community leaders together, creating opportunities for relationships that might not otherwise have  had the opportunity to form.

For Lynne, one of those relationships was with Dr. Jeanette Jones, a professor at Alabama A&M University.

"I don't know that our paths would ever have crossed if it were not for LGH," she says.

Those relationships became one of the lasting pieces of Lynne's LGH experience, connections that extended beyond a single program year and helped shape the way she approached leadership and community.

Nearly four decades after graduating from Flagship Class 1, Lynne received an honor that held particularly deep meaning for her.

In 2024, she received the Martin Luther King Unity Award at the 39th Annual Alpha Phi Alpha Martin Luther King Unity Breakfast.

"My heart was never more full," she says. "I recognize that untold doors have been open to me simply because of the color of my skin. For members of the Black community to feel that I have worked for unity touched me very deeply."

When asked what she still carries with her from her LGH experience, Lynne points to something that has been at the heart of Leadership Greater Huntsville for 40 years: what can happen when people come together around a shared purpose.

"There is great energy when you get a group of people together for a good purpose," she says. "When you educate them and encourage them to lead, many of them will — because they will feel the encouragement and support of their classmates."

And when asked to sum up what Leadership Greater Huntsville means to her, Lynne returned to the ideas that have woven throughout her own experience: relationships, community and vision.

"LGH creates a kind of family, and many of them will, because of the program, find new ways to work together and with others to make this community a better place. And it encourages vision. Helen Keller once said, 'The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.'"

 

(LGH Staff at Lynne's house 2011.)