Gary Branch, the longtime president of Coastal Alabama Community College, has announced he will step down at the end of September, citing ongoing health concerns after nearly four decades leading the Baldwin County-based school. Branch, who will turn 76 later this year, delivered the news in an emotional address to college employees, telling them that the phrase “I love students” sums up the legacy he hopes to leave behind.
Branch’s tenure is believed to be one of the longest of any sitting community college president in the country. He took the helm in 1981, when the institution was known as Faulkner State Junior College and operated a single campus in Bay Minette. Under his leadership, the school grew into Coastal Alabama Community College, now spanning 10 campuses and 16 instructional sites across Southwest Alabama, with enrollment climbing from roughly 1,100 students to nearly 8,000.
Much of that growth came through the addition of campuses in Fairhope and Gulf Shores, expansions that brought higher education access closer to fast-growing communities along the Eastern Shore and the Baldwin County coast. The current footprint of the college is also the product of a major consolidation that merged Faulkner State with Alabama Southern Community College and Jefferson Davis Community College into a single institution, a process Branch oversaw in the college’s most recent chapter.
Branch has said the merger, while complex, was not the hardest part of his final years on the job. “The past two years have been the most difficult of my life,” he told employees, “not because of the consolidation, but because of the health issues that I’ve had.” He has undergone three major surgeries in recent years, with the possibility of another in the coming months, and said his doctors and family had urged him to scale back his responsibilities.
Reflecting on his career, Branch pointed to one of his earliest decisions as president as emblematic of the institution he wanted to build. Shortly after taking office in 1981, he ordered the removal of a Confederate flag that had been prominently displayed behind the desk in the president’s office. “I wanted this institution to be a place where every student felt welcome,” he said of the decision.
Branch also guided the college through a serious financial crisis early in his presidency, a period he has described as one of the most precarious in the school’s history. Colleagues say that experience shaped his approach to budgeting and long-term planning for decades afterward, helping steady an institution that has since become a fixture of workforce training and higher education access across the region.
At his retirement announcement, Branch downplayed his own role in the college’s growth, crediting faculty and staff for the institution’s success. “I give you the support that you need, the encouragement that you need,” he said. “I don’t do it, you do it. I’m so proud that I had the wisdom and the ability to offer you a career.”
Addressing employees for what is likely the last time before he steps down, Branch expressed confidence that faculty and staff would extend the same loyalty and dedication to whoever succeeds him. “I know you will because I’ve experienced that,” he said. “So to whoever it is who follows me, I can just say that I’m leaving this college in a whole lot better shape than it was in when I arrived. This is considered to be one of the crown jewels in our system because of the things we do together.”
College officials have not yet announced a timeline for naming Branch’s successor. His retirement, effective at the end of September, closes out a 37-year run that spans more than half his life and reshaped higher education access throughout Southwest Alabama.