C. Paul Brockwell Jr. says he doesn’t have time to do all the many things he does, but that doesn’t stop him. “I’m just like Ado Annie in ‘Oklahoma,’” he jokes. “I can’t say no.”
In his day job as associate director of communications at the MCV Foundation, Brockwell manages the production of three informational, philanthropic-focused publications that it publishes, and writes longform features about the work being done by doctors and researchers in the medical system.
Elsewhere, you’ll find him volunteering his time on nonprofit boards, the most prominent being his role as chairman of the Library of Virginia’s board,
leading the state library’s 200th anniversary this year. “We’re working on a very special project related to this capstone year,” he says, teasingly. A former member of VPM Media’s Community advisory board, he also served as founding chair of VPM’s Amplify, an initiative to engage younger viewers and listeners in supporting public media.
Brockwell, who got his bachelor’s degree at William & Mary and his master of arts at Syracuse, says that he’s always been focused on including
people that are often not seen at the table. When he worked at the University of Richmond as digital engagement specialist, editing their alumni magazine,
he helped to reconfigure UR’s staff advisory council so “a wider range of voices” could be heard. He also chairs the William & Mary student engagement and leadership advisory board, which works with students and administrators from across the region. “I’m just a nerd who likes getting involved with things and doing what I can to make the world just slightly better.”
Brockwell lives with his husband, Kevin Corn, a pilot in the private aviation field, and is a self-professed TV addict. “I would probably be teaching media studies if I wasn’t doing this,” he laughs. His free time, what little he has, is spent working as a moderator at Grace Baptist Church, Richmond’s third oldest Baptist Church. “It might sound strange coming from someone who is gay, but I’m very involved in the church.”
He also serves as secretary to the board at the Grace-affiliated Sophia Theological Seminary in Dinwiddie Country. “Sophia is an interesting project,” he says. “We’re trying to co-locate a seminary with a working farm. For students, it would be debt-free and they would work the farm.”
