Medical sector firm’s board includes veteran Alabama political figures, including longtime lobbyist
Editor’s Note: The print edition of the Times-Standard-Herald published Thursday, Jan. 8, includes an earlier story about the potential buyers of the Judson College campus. This updated story includes new information pointing to the company that is almost certainly the buyer.
The Texas company now moving to redevelop the former Judson College campus is tied into a much larger network of vaccine contractors, cold-chain logistics firms and Alabama political insiders, and the linchpin tying it all together is veteran Montgomery lobbyist named Liberty Duke.
Duke, who has represented the new owners in their pitch to Marion city officials Monday night, Jan. 5, now also serves on the board of directors of Callan JMB Inc., a publicly traded cold-chain logistics company that grew out of Coldchain Technology Services LLC, a Spring Branch, Texas firm that handles temperature-controlled shipping for governments and pharmaceutical clients.
At that Jan. 5 meeting, Marion City Council approved a 20-year municipal tax abatement for “Judson College Properties LLC,” described in public meetings as a Texas-based firm that purchased the shuttered campus and plans to redevelop it. A social media post by Perry County Commission Chairman Albert Turner later in the week identified the entity as “Judson Property, LLC.” No record for a relevant entity under either name appears in online searches of businesses registered in Alabama, Texas, or Delaware.
Liberty Duke appeared before the council as a representative of the entity, outlining a multi-phase project that has been in the works since February of 2025 in coordination with the Governor’s Office, the Alabama Department of Commerce and local officials.
While little has been disclosed publicly about Judson College Properties LLC itself, Duke’s other roles help sketch out the circle of companies now poised to redevelop the Marion campus.
Callan JMB Inc. – headquartered at 244 Flightline Drive in Spring Branch, Texas – describes itself in SEC filings and investor materials as a vertically integrated logistics and fulfillment company that provides “thermal management logistics solutions to the life sciences industry,” bundling packaging, technology and emergency-response services.
Those same filings state that Callan JMB “originally formed as Coldchain Technology Services, LLC, a Texas limited liability company,” and that the company’s executive offices remain at the Spring Branch address long used by Coldchain.
Callan JMB is still a relatively small but tightly held operation. SEC filings show it was originally formed as Coldchain Technology Services, LLC, then reorganized into a Nevada holding company called Callan JMB Inc. on February 14, 2024, with Coldchain as its main operating subsidiary. The company completed a $5.12 million initial public offering in early February 2025 and began trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the ticker CJMB at an initial price of $4 a share. Its prospectus notes that chief executive Wayne Williams and chief medical officer Dr. David Croyle together controlled 100 percent of the stock before the IPO and still hold a large majority of the voting power, and that most of the new money is earmarked for sales, marketing, customer expansion and general working capital rather than bricks-and-mortar expansion.
In practical terms, Callan JMB is a specialty shipper: through Coldchain it provides “thermal management logistics solutions” for the life-sciences industry, including cryogenic and frozen shipping for vaccines, personalized medicines, stem cells, embryos, diagnostic materials and other high-value biological products. Its public materials describe a mix of proprietary packaging, tracking software and emergency-response services aimed at hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies, with operations based at 244 Flightline Drive in Spring Branch, Texas and additional facilities in Illinois and Oregon. The company also markets itself as an emergency-preparedness contractor, managing medical stockpiles and building sites for agencies and large customers, positioning itself squarely at the intersection of public-health logistics and disaster response.
According to Marion city records and public remarks, it is a Texas-based company represented by Duke, and working through the new entity Judson College Properties LLC, that now controls the Judson campus and is seeking local tax breaks to redevelop it. In light of these facts, all signs point to Callan as the likely firm behind the Judson purchase.
Duke is a long-time Alabama lobbyist and political operative whose business interests are closely intertwined with school-based vaccination programs, pharmaceutical logistics and state-level policy.
Alabama Ethics Commission lobbyist registries list Duke as a registered lobbyist for ERIS Inc., a Montgomery-area consulting and lobbying firm; HNH Immunizations Inc., a Union Springs-based mass-vaccination company; Coldchain Technology Services; and several related clients, including “Safely Opening Schools,” Dragonfly-B.I.G., and Union Springs pharmacist Benjamin G. Main, who owns HNH Immunizations.
A current online lobbyist profile lists her address as the same address used on federal provider records for Health Heroes of Florida and on multiple school-district vaccine clinic notices for HNH Immunizations/Health Heroes.
In federal and state documents, Duke is reportedly identified as an executive, principal, or director of: ERIS Inc., described in SEC filings as a firm providing “management, consulting and lobbying services for a broad spectrum of businesses and associations;” Health Heroes Inc., a mass-vaccination company that runs school-located flu and other vaccine clinics in multiple states; and HNH Immunizations Inc., another mass-vaccination outfit that contracts with public school systems to deliver on-campus clinics.
Those operations have built out a large network of school-based clinics. One recent Mobile County Schools schedule, for example, lists HNH Immunizations and Health Hero teams rotating through dozens of schools over a three-day period, with thousands of doses administered each year.
Duke’s vaccine work has overlapped closely with Alabama politics. A 2020 Alabama Daily News report identified her as a lobbyist working with former state Sen. Gerald Dial and the Alabama Association of School Nurses on a COVID-19 “Safely Opening Schools” plan that would have expanded school-based testing and mitigation across the state.
Dial, who once headed the Alabama Rural Action Commission under Gov. Bob Riley, focusing in part on rural health and infrastructure, now sits with Duke on the Callan JMB board as an independent director, according to the company’s SEC filings and investor materials.
Callan JMB’s SEC prospectus portrays the company as an emergency-response specialist: crews and equipment that can be deployed on short notice to support government agencies, NATO and UN operations, and Fortune 500 firms with temperature-controlled packaging, fulfillment and monitoring.
The filings describe services ranging from “12-hour or less U.S. deployment” for emergency preparedness to reusable specialty packaging, remote temperature monitoring and inventory-management software designed for “highly regulated industries where thermal monitoring and compliance are crucial.”
In other words, the same people now tied to the redevelopment of the historic women’s college campus in rural Marion are simultaneously positioning themselves as national players in pharmaceutical distribution, emergency-response logistics and school-based vaccination campaigns, all with deep connections inside Alabama’s political and education systems.
Duke’s appointment to Callan JMB’s board was made effective February 4, 2025, and she is slated to serve on all three major board committees, chairing the compensation committee and sharing audit and governance duties with Dial and fellow director Mark Meller.
Coldchain Technology Services and its successor, Callan JMB, have secured government contracts at multiple levels. Federal spending databases list Coldchain as a vendor on U.S. government awards, and the company appears as a contractor for the City of Chicago as well.
At the same time, HNH Immunizations and Health Heroes continue to receive business from school systems across Alabama and in other states, operating on school grounds with local administrative support and, in some cases, public-health funding.
Now, tied to its purchase of Judson, the same network is set to benefit from local tax abatements and other incentives in Marion and Perry County. City officials have already granted a two-decade abatement on municipal taxes for the project, and discussions have referenced cooperation with state-level economic development agencies.
