2020 Crandall Challenge
Citation Winners
Reid Becker, WG’74
Zirconia, NC
Reid’s career included starting his own medical diagnostic business. When he ‘retired’ , he become part of a STEAM Tech Team, volunteers who work to support Science, Technology, Engineering Art and Math programs in the schools located in the Greenville, SC metro area. The volunteers are retired professionals active in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of Furman University. The programs include: E-Nable Prosthetic Hands , Vex competition robotics, Biomolecules, Quadcopters and Drones 3-D printing and designs. “E-Nable” is a worldwide movement of tinkerers, engineers, 3D print enthusiasts, occupational therapists, university professors, designers, parents, families, artists, students, teachers and people who just want to make a difference by printing on 3D printers hands that they give for free to children all over the world. Over 700 hands were created by over 3200 volunteers around the globe.
Filemon Berba, WG’64
Antipolo, Philippines
Following his career in several Philippine companies that included electric and water public utilities, electronic and pharmaceutical industries, Filemon has devoted his retirement to the Philippine Foundation for Science and Technology (PFST). This Foundation, of which he was a founder, has the objective of creating a critical mass of young people exposed to science with the intent of preparing them for engineering and technological careers. As President and Chair of the PFST Board of Trustees, he has developed outreach programs that involve 400,000 Philippine high school students each year. They created the Philippine Science Centrum, the first interactive science museum in the country. Since the Philippines is an archipelago, they created 7 mobile exhibits that over the years have been visited by 7 million students and teachers. They have trained 6000 teachers all over the country. Filemon also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Philippine Science High School, the University of the Philippines and the Batangas State University, both of which have a student population of over 35,000.
Russell Redenbaugh, WG’69
Glen Mills, PA
Russell built a successful career as a registered investment advisor. He did this while overcoming barrier set implicitly for someone who is sight impaired. Appointed as a Commissioner of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission for 15 years under three U.S. Presidents.
William Sands, WG’66
St. Paul, MN
Bill is involved in the Neighborhood Development Centers (NDC) established for residents and neighborhood groups of all communities to have the talent, energy and ideas to develop and revitalize their own neighborhoods through entrepreneurship. They do this through four integrated programs: *Entrepreneur Training; Small Busi ness Lending and financing; Technical Assistance and Business Incubators. NDC has initiated the “Build from Within Alliance” with organizations across the country who are adopting and adapting the NDC model. Together with his wife Susan, Bill has funder the Sands Family Social Venturing Fellowship for Carlson School of Management Students at the University of Minnesota.
Challenge Honor Roll
Barrett Binder, WG’76
Philadelphia, PA
Robert Cavanaugh, WG’75
Piano, TX
Francis Dupont, WG’70
Guilford, CT
Julio Estrada, WG’69
Lima, Peru
Julio is a guide for teaching Peruvian culture. He devotes his retirement knowledge and skills in strengthening and building tourism in Peru. He is involved in improving the environment in Peru in innovative ways, in a country highly dependent on oil. Julio is also an actor in theater groups in Peru.
John Heinrich, WG’68
Scottsdale, AZ
President of The Association of Former Intelligence Officers, Arizona Chapter, which is a group that seeks to provide interesting speakers on current intelligence events, such as Afghanistan, Ukraine and the Middle East. We recruit speakers from all over the US, using Zoom Rooms for talks. AFIO’s goal is to build a public constituency for a sound, healthy and capable U.S. intelligence system. We provide education and current assessments of the important role of intelligence in ensuring the security of the Unites States, its infrastructure, businesses and individuals from a wide range of current threats.
Created Solutions Forum as a therapy group for entrepreneurs, since they can talk over anything in the groups of one/one meetings and it’s all confidential. Published an e-book in 2021 on How to Start, Run and Sell Your Business, which we give away to prospective clients, even before they become clients, to establish a framework for what we might do. As an outgrowth of the book, we restarted ‘Entrepreneurial News’ as part of the Solutions Forum website, and we make the blog posts freely available to everyone. We think our readership is about 10,000per month. We helped about 50 businesses in the Maricopa County area over the last 18 years, and the average sales gain has been over $100,000 in 18months. We have kept companies in business through COVID. Hundreds of jobs were either saved or created. We facilitated five PPP loans for members, keeping about 150 people employed.
Linda Kates, WG’75
New York, NY
Howard Kropnick, WG’72
Roslyn, NY
Howard was Founder, CEO and President of a leading medical communications company focused on promotional and educational programs for pharmaceutical products. Upon ‘retirement’ he re-invented himself. Howard is a town historian, land and motor parkway preservationist, author, lecturer, automobile racing and car culture enthusiast, child abuse prevention volunteer and owner of four historic automobiles. As if that wasn’t enough for devoting his experience and talents to community efforts, Howard is also an actor. Since 2012, Howard has been the official Town Historian of North Hempstead, Long Island; it can be considered a model of the role and function of town historians, which are usually not recognized or appreciated despite the fact that they exist in a very large number of communities all across the USA.
Alvin Lee, WG’71
Baltimore, MD
Alvin created “Park Walk America” to promote better health, fitness, sustainability and environmental awareness with a pilot market in Baltimore, but with the intent of building a national network of urban cities. Its goal is to develop healthy people, healthy communities, healthy businesses and a healthy environment. It is a social enterprise through ABC Ventures, Inc devoted to educating Black America. (“parkwalkamerica.com”)
Brian Maclver, WG’71
Lexington, MA
Brian just retired and started a new career as a volunteer at the Boston Museum of Science, working with inner-city second graders. He is helping kids learn about science and nature. This Science Museum is one of the best in the USA and a major pleasure attraction and science educational center on the east coast for schools in the New England states
Leonard (Len) Rothman, WG’67
Santa Barbara, CA
Professionally, Len was a ‘coach’ to a large number of organizational and systems managers. In retirement, he has been active as a volunteer for the United States Tennis Association working to increase the diversity of their membership both in the 9 southeastern states and at the national level of USTA. Given the history and current makeup of tennis championships, this is an important goal for the US Tennis Association.
Guillermo Schmidhuber, WG’71
Guadalajara, Mexico
Guillermo was professor at the University of Louisville, the University of Kentucky and the University of Guadalajara, the second largest university in Mexico. He lives Guadalajara, Mexico, where he continues writing plays. He also served as Secretary of Culture of the State of Jalisco, where he supported several UNESCO projects supporting world heritage sites in Jalisco, including the discovery of the Teuchitlán site, which turned out to be the oldest pre-Columbian culture of Western Mexico
While Secretary of Culture of the State of Jalisco, he supported several UNESCO projects supporting world heritage sites in Jalisco, including the discovery of the Teuchitlán site, which turned out to be the oldest pre-Columbian culture of Western Mexico. He helped discover two previously lost texts of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; one of them, The Second Celestina, was published with a prologue by Octavio Paz.
A playwright, his most notable plays included: “Obituary”, “The Useless Heroes”, “The Heirs of Segismund”, “The Secret Friendship of Juana and Dorothy”, and “Never Say Adiós to Columbus”. My novel “Women of the Tequila Volcano” was published simultaneously in Argentina and Mexico. He has published several books on the history of Mexico. As a playwright, I he has written fifty plays for which he has received prizes. Several plays have been translated into German, French and English. His books and plays are available on Amazon.
William Staton, WG’71
Charlotte, NC
Bill has focused his professional knowledge and experience in two major ways:
1. Impart financial planning for life to teens by teaching them in local schools for over 25 years.
2. Teaching inmates skills to be entrepreneurs in the business community —VERY UNIQUE: preparing prison inmates (male & female) for the transition back to domestic life. This is a very critical area. His work was written up in a Wall Street Journal article on August 23, 2012. (“On Financial Literacy for Inmates”)Bill has authored a number of books on money matters for the average person. They are available on Amazon.
Elli Streit, WG’65
Tel Aviv, Isreal
Elli has volunteered with several NGOS in Israel ranging from museums, Tel Aviv University, two pharmaceuticals and sport organizations where his involvement as a board member focused mainly in financial management and fund raising. His membership in Rotary club of Tel Aviv involved raising money for granting scholarships to diverse students who needed financial assistance to complete their academics studies.
He served 6 years as a member of Wharton Executive Board where he contributed his international experience in expanding Wharton international alumni clubs. He was involved in setting up the Israeli alumni club and was part of its management team for many years. He was one of the donors to the recently established scholarship fund to support Israeli MBA candidates.
Since Israel is known as one of the Silicon Valley-type tech startup countries, Elli’s main volunteer efforts has been sharing extensive business experience with entrepreneurs helping start up founders avoid mistakes and become more focused on what is really relevant to the growth of their companies. Serving on boards of several healthcare firms gave him the opportunity to participate in bringing to patents new solutions and better treatment.
Elli notes that “Leadership in any business or voluntary organization becomes more effective when it is based on knowing how to motivate people by self example and being always aware that at the end it is the team efforts which push the company/NGO forward”
Alfred Whelan, WG’73
Rockville, MD
Alfred conducts Workshops at Montgomery College in Rockville, MD. The objective is to assist students with resume development and interviewing skills. Many of these students are from foreign countries, with limited English language skills. The majority are trying to transition into careers in technology from previous experience outside that industry.