Retired FTCC President Dr. J. Larry Keen (center) receives the Order of the Long Leaf Pine. Former Commissioner Jimmy Keefe, FTCC Trustee Dr. Vikki Andrews, Fire Chief Freddy Johnson Sr., County Commissioners Chair Kirk deViere, Trustee Charles Koonce, and President Dr. Mark Sorrells presented the award.
Retired Fayetteville Technical Community College President Dr. J. Larry Keen has received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine in recognition of a lengthy career focused on service through education.
The award, which is issued by the Office of the Governor, is North Carolina’s highest honor for civic service and is reserved for individuals with decades of state service.
Keen’s certificate was presented by local and college leaders, including County Commissioners Chairman Kirk deViere and FTCC President Dr. Mark Sorrells, during the college’s April 20 meeting with the Board of Trustees and the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners.
“This is a reflection on the quality of the people I’ve had the privilege to work with during my entire life,” he said. “I’m forever grateful to the people, throughout the entire community college system, but really the faculty and staff at FTCC, the Board of Trustees, and Dr. Sorrells, who have all been phenomenal in so many different ways.”
Keen served as FTCC’s fourth president for nearly 15 years before retiring in 2022, calling it “the job of a lifetime.”
During his tenure, Keen steered the college with a tireless resolve, using his people-first approach to foster student success, drive continuous college improvement, and elevate FTCC to become an essential piece of the economic engine of Cumberland County and the surrounding area.
Achievements under Keen
FTCC marked a number of achievements under Keen’s leadership, perhaps the most far-reaching of which is the state-of-the-art emergency training complex that bears his name, the J. Larry Keen Regional Fire & Emergency Training Complex.
The planning and approval for the 30-acre, $45-million project, as well as the first phase of its three-phase construction, were completed during Keen’s presidency. The complex now includes multiple live-burn training facilities, confined space rescue courses, classroom and office space, and the only indoor swift water rescue training facility of its kind on the East Coast.
Dr. J. Larry Keen (second from right) receives the Order of the Long Leaf Pine from Cumberland County Commissioners Chairman Kirk deViere as FTCC Trustee Charles Koonce and FTCC President Dr. Mark Sorrells look on.
The complex, which was completed in January, attracts fire and emergency professionals from up and down the East Coast to train.
Keen’s role in the project helped earn him designation as an Honorary Fire Chief by the Cumberland County Fire Chiefs Association.
“We worked for a number of years in concert with our state leadership in Raleigh, and of course with our county commissioners, to create something that was unique and special for Cumberland County, and I think we were able to do that,” Keen said.
Keen pointed out that the training opportunities the facility provided were immediately put into action in 2024 in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which caused catastrophic flooding in western North Carolina. Multiple emergency personnel who had trained at the swift water facility responded to the disaster.
“We took advantage of opportunities to prepare the people of Cumberland County and North Carolina for the future,” he said. “That, to me, is a hallmark of what we tried to do together — that whatever we do, we try to do for the benefit of people.”
The college secured funding for other major capital improvement projects under Keen’s leadership, including funding for the regional truck driving and logistics training center and for the renovation and conversion of an existing college building into the Nursing Simulation and Education Center housed in what is now FTCC’s Cape Fear Valley School of Nursing.
These projects helped solidify FTCC’s role as a leading partner in workforce development for critical industries in the local community and across the state.
Expanding opportunities
Keen, who retired from the U.S. Army Reserve after 21 years as an officer, was deeply committed to ensuring that FTCC met the specific needs of military-connected students, including active duty personnel, transitioning service members, veterans, and their family members.
At his urging, FTCC opened the All American Veterans Center on its Fayetteville campus with a staff dedicated to helping military-connected students utilize their educational benefits. The college also developed a clear and data-driven process to grant college credit for the formal training that service members receive during their military service.
Additionally, Keen’s leadership helped re-establish FTCC’s intercollegiate athletics program, which had been shuttered for decades. The move ultimately led the college to acquire J.P. Riddle Stadium as a gift from the county, expanding FTCC’s footprint and providing more opportunities for students seeking athletic options at the collegiate level. Today, the Trojan Athletics program serves hundreds of student-athletes in transfer-eligible programs.
FTCC President Dr. Mark Sorrells shakes hands with retired President Dr. J. Larry Keen, who received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine on April 20, 2026, at FTCC.
In an example of his gift for forethought, Keen steered the college to make an early commitment to adapting online education services. This preparation enabled FTCC to move swiftly to remote learning for a wide array of courses when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Keen summed up many of these developments as efforts to remove barriers to learning and expand educational opportunities.
“Seeing people who have had to struggle or fight in some way to gain opportunity, all of a sudden be able to embrace that opportunity to get their education and go on to live meaningful lives, to me that is the important thing,” Keen said. “When you see evidence of that by people conducting their own lives in effective ways, it is gratifying. It’s more than just the buildings and things like that. It’s actually the lives that you touch.”
Committing to North Carolina
Keen arrived in North Carolina in 2002 when he was named Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development for the North Carolina Community College System. He served in that role for five years before becoming FTCC’s president in 2007.
Before that, he was the business and industry development manager for the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education. His career reflects both classroom experience as a faculty member and educational leadership at the community college and university levels.
Keen said he has enduring gratitude for a number of people involved in his professional career — including the FTCC Board of Trustees as it stood in 2007 with Dr. Marye J. Jeffries as its chair for approving his hiring as president; Wake Tech President Dr. Scott Ralls, whom Keen said encouraged him to consider North Carolina for his future while he was still in Oklahoma; H. Martin Lancaster, who was NCCCS President at the time of Keen’s hiring at the state system; and current FTCC President Dr. Sorrells, with whom Keen had worked in a number of capacities even before the pair worked together at the college.
“I’ve been blessed by the people I’ve been around,” Keen said. “God blessed me to be in a position where I could make decisions and influence things, and I pray that I’ve done that effectively for North Carolina.”
