University of North Carolina Wilmington has chosen one of its business instructors to serve as interim director for the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the university announced Monday afternoon.
 
The appointee is Chuck Whitlock, an entrepreneur who spent much of his career in the Pacific Northwest, according to a statement from Ron Vetter, UNCW’s associate provost for research and dean of the graduate school. Whitlock started his new job Monday.
 
“As the interim director, Chuck will help ensure that the university can continue to meet the business needs of the CIE while supporting the entrepreneurial community in Wilmington,” Vetter said in a news release.
 
“Chuck has served on the board of Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon. He taught a business course with an emphasis in entrepreneurship at Clark College and currently teaches business classes here at UNCW,” Vetter said in a news release. “He also owned one of the most successful executive training organizations in the Pacific Northwest. His members employed over 50,000 employees and did in excess of $50 billion in sales.
 
“Chuck fostered 20-25 new businesses each year for the 20 years he ran the business,” Vetter continued. “He is a successful author of business books and true crime books published by mainstream publishers. He has produced segments for and appeared in hundreds of nationally-televised shows over the past decades, including Oprah, The Today Show, Inside Edition, CNN, 60 Minutes and Extra.”
 
Whitlock will serve on a “time-limited, temporary” basis, according to the news release, which stated that the university plans to conduct an external search for a permanent director this fall, “thereby giving the incoming chancellor an opportunity to have input on the job description as well as his long-term vision for the center.”
 
Zito Sartarelli, UNCW’s chancellor-elect, begins his duties July 1.
 
The CIE has been without a director since the departure March 26 of Jim Roberts, who was hired in May 2013 by then-chancellor Gary Miller to head the center.