University Park

Twenty-three Penn Staters to receive Alumni Fellow Award

University Park, Pa. -- Twenty-three Penn State alumni will be honored this fall for their outstanding professional accomplishment and given the lifelong title of Alumni Fellow, the highest award given by the Alumni Association.

Since the Alumni Fellow award was established in 1973, 549 alumni have been recognized and honored with the title of Alumni Fellow, designated a permanent and lifelong title by the Penn State Board of Trustees. The Alumni Fellow program is administered by the Penn State Alumni Association in cooperation with the University's academic colleges and the office of the President. Alumni are nominated by an academic college or campus as leaders in their professional fields and accept an invitation from the President of the University to return to campus to share their expertise with students, faculty and administrators.

"Alumni are the University's most valuable resource," said Roger L. Williams '75, '73g, '88g, executive director of the Penn State Alumni Association. "The Alumni Fellow program gives us the opportunity to showcase the incredible contributions Penn Staters make to our nation and the world."

This year's Alumni Fellow recipients, along with their year of graduation, current title and place of employment, are:

Joan Lordi Amble '75, Executive Vice President & Corporate Comptroller, American Express;

Joseph Rosario Borda '67, President and Founder, Gulf Landings Corporation;

Pedro A. Cortés '99g, '00g, Secretary of the Commonwealth, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania;

Mary E. Frank M.D. '73, Family Medicine Physician;

Alan S. Furst '67g, Novelist;

Perry L. Geib '02, President and Founder, ATSIM Inc.;

Elmer "Bud" Goodman '48, Founder and Owner, EA Goodman & Company;

Rick Gray '79g, Director of Entertainment Development for Wynn Design & Development and General Manager Entertainment Operations, Wynn Las Vegas;

Franco Harris '72, President and Owner, Super Bakery, Inc.;

Steven B. Hinchman '80, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Production, Marathon Oil Company;

Edward Frank Kocjancic '54, President, Edward F. Kocjancic Inc.;

T. Timothy Murray '75, Senior Managing Director, Bear Stearns & Co., Inc.;

Kenneth J. Newell '76, President and Chief Executive Officer, Manorhouse Management, L.C.;

J. Bonnie Newman '69g, Senior Fellow and former Executive Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University;

Robert E. Newnham '56g, Alcoa Professor Emeritus of Solid State Science at The Pennsylvania State University;

Daniel J. Pedriani '71, President and Chief Executive Officer, AmeriHealth Administrators;

Bob Pozgar '66, '73g, President and Chief Executive Officer, Liberty Technologies Unlimited, Inc.;

Eric W. Rabe '68, Vice President, Media Relations, Verizon;

Robert C. Shaler '66g, '68g, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Director of Forensics Program, The Pennsylvania State University;

Joseph J. Speroni '79g, '82g, Director of Agricultural, Food and Quality Sciences, Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc.;

James H. Stith '72, Vice President, Physics Resources Center, American Institute of Physics;

Stephen G. Taub '73, Chief Executive Officer and President, MAFCO Worldwide Corporation;

William C. Witkowski '62, Owner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Port Erie Plastics, Inc.

These outstanding alumni will be honored at an October 19 ceremony at The Nittany Lion Inn. Three alumni—Frank, Taub and Witkowski—will be honored in separate ceremonies. Each Alumni Fellow will be given a newly designed commemorative award, which will be officially unveiled during the Alumni Fellow ceremony. The award, commissioned by the Alumni Association, was designed and hand cast by Jeanne Stevens-Sollman, an acclaimed medalist who graduated from Penn State in 1971 with a master's of fine arts degree.

The Penn State Alumni Association is the largest dues-paying alumni association in the world with more than 156,000 members. Established in 1870, the Alumni Association's mission is to connect alumni to the University and to each other, provide valuable benefits to members and support the University's mission of teaching, research and service. The Alumni Fellow program is just one of hundreds of annual events and programs, organized by the Penn State Alumni Association, designed to inform, involve and inspire Penn State alumni. For more information on the Alumni Association, go to http://www.alumni.psu.edu

Last Updated March 20, 2009

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