2022 Crandall Challenge

Citation Winners

Challenge Honor Roll

Mark Cummings, WG’74

Atherton, CA

Mark is a current and longtime advocate and supporter of organizations raising the alarm about the need for more cybersecurity. He is a founding member of CTO, and a board member: Bace Cybersecurity Institute (BCI). BCI is dedicated to education, public policy, R&D, etc. to address this problem.

In another initiative, Mark have been a co-organizer of an initiative focused on meeting the existential planet wide problems we face including global warming, pandemics, food scarcity, water scarcity, and nuclear weapons. This initiative is conducted under the title of “Death or Utopia”. A video of the initial webinar that kicked it off is available on You Tube.

Willem de Bruijn, WG’67

Atherton, CA

At Wharton I knew that the consumer had to be paid to maintain ways of living that keep the environment unblemished. I spent the rest of my life to prove why this has to be done and how it can be done. I succeeded. In the meantime I developed an information system for a multinational to manage its investment programs in Europe and helped to organize a world congress one water resources.

To launch the Ethical Market Economy with as objective to enable mankind to live inharmony with Nature. The scope is to solve the planetary ecological problems. I made the theory about the EmE sound

To survive with more than seven billion people, they must always spend all their money only on goods and services that leave the environment unharmed. In that case, they manage their cost of living to maintain that state of the environment together.

Charles Dixon, WG’70

San Francisco, CA

Very active Board member of Fillmore Jazz Ambassadors (FJA) whose missions is to create a thriving bay area jazz environment that sustains, develops and honors jazz practitioners. Fillmore is a district in S.F. known as “Harlem of the West”. It focuses on creating a thriving jazz environment for current and future generation of musicians. Charles worked with the founder (Darlene Roberts)  to established FJA as a leading jazz organization and community in S.F

“I Devote my  retirement to uplifting my  underserved community. In whatever capacity possible.”

David Foster, WG’72

Salem, VA

I am Chairman of a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization called RAIL Solution. It is a grassroots, all-volunteer advocacy group promoting the energy, economic, and environmental advantages of rail transportation, I have been involved with this group since its founding in 2003.

Railroad electrification is the low hanging fruit, because it is standard technology in use worldwide and requires no big R&D expense or lead time. But Americas railroads need more than that to maximize public benefit in years ahead. We need a core national network of railroad mainlines that are multi-track, high capacity, grade-separated, and electrified. This is analogous to what the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System did for roads. Such a Steel Interstate system would be the backbone for movement of goods and people in decades to come, forging multifold benefits to the public in mobility, environment, safety, transportation cost, and competitiveness.

David Gingras, WG’75

Bala Cynwyd, PA

Served as President of the Manhattan Council, BSA serving the mayor of New York City. He served as President of LuLu Shriners and the Shriners Hospital of Philadelphia. He served as President of the Philadelphia University Alumni Association and Trustee of the University. He is also a Colonel in the New York National Guard and was active in response and recovery to the World Trade Center incident.

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.

Karl Ideman, WG’70

Glastonbury, CT

Chair of South Congregational Church Missions Committee to oversee outreach to our local and worldwide community; Chair of the Connecticut Pre-Engineering Program (CPEP) to provide access to higher education for underserved people in Connecticut in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; Committee Chair of the National Association of Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (NASCHIP) to provide access to commercial health insurance for uninsurable people with high cost health conditions in 35 states; Volunteer Consultant on the Internal Revenue Task Force as part of President Reagan’s Private Sector Survey on Federal Cost Control;Co-Consultant with Urban Institute on the State Coverage Initiatives by Academy Health as sponsored by the Robert Wood JohnsonFoundation; Trustee of the Defiance College for 20+ years and member of the Institutional Advancement Committee, and the Long RangePlanning and Strategic Initiatives task force to enhance the institution’s programs, quality and culture.

I found out about a foundation from a fellow trustee on the Defiance College Board and since have learned about the win-win scenario when a living donor can be matched with a kidney failure recipient. The result is longer and better quality of life for the recipient and significant immediate reduction in costs to all the other interested parties. I am now trying to help construct a high-tech process for this foundation and its partners to incentivize transplants and to deliver their services to large organizations that have the empathy and the resources to support a Kidney Transplant Program to spread their health plan’s high-risk costs and also to subsidize the out of pocket costs for the donors and recipients. This Program would complement the work of the NationalKidney Foundation and others whose processes and methodology differ.

Norris Larrymore, Ph.D., WG’74

Brooklyn, NY

C. DeWitt “Pete” Peterson, WG’56

Morristown, NJ

“Pete” has been active in supporting and sponsoring jazz music in southern New Jersey for decades.  In addition to being president of JVOP for years, he has hosted 39 jazz ‘picnics’ in his own back yard since 2007 with attendance ranging from 20 to 150.  His concerts includes leaning jazz musicians in the North east and mid-atlantic states.

His claim to “fame” was that he ran the Jazz Vespers at Old Pine, (JVOP) in Society Hill, Philadelphia for 21 years every third Sunday involving over 400 musicians, 100 speakers, many volunteers from several churches, and many fine memories of 252 services. The Inquirer said it was the largest continuous inter-racial, inter-denominational, inter generational happening in the city. We had just about every jazz musician in the area. Attendance was usually about 200 with lows of 50 and highs of 300 with one at 750 (Grover Washington, Jr,) It died because Old Pine members never supported it in numbers or steady volunteers.

“Pete” was also was founding president of Tri-State Jazz Society from 1988 to 2007. It still is going strong with monthly trad jazz concerts, 300 members, a host of volunteers. Events attract 100 to 250people. Over the years we were in many places: hotels, motels, churches, restaurants, womans’ clubs, community centers, and such. We hire bands from Philly, NYC, NJ, PA, DC, and evenNew England and Ohio. Today the concerts are in as NJ church and a PA Community Art Center.

Victor Puyat, WG’64

Makati, Phillippines

While I was busy with my professional work I was involved in education, I was part of a new school called (PAREF),Parent for EducationalFoundation, its core educational philosophy rests on the principle, supported by research, that the fullness of the child’s education is effectively realized through the integral formation, first of parents, second of the teachers the two most influential teachers of children.

As an adjunct of PAREF I was also with Educhild. As an important influencer of children, parents have to be formed also on how to handle their children. We give courses developed mostly in Spain, that last several months on weekly home based sessions of couples who have to raise their children to be loving, helpful, forgiving, persevering honest adults.

I’m also a director of FAMAF Family Media Advocate Foundation, to provide media outlets articles that affect family ,which is the basicfoundation of the society. Lastly I worked with Families for Family that asserted that population control will lead to an ageing population andwill cause widespread problems.

I started Loyola Memorial Park in early 1966, 2 years after my MBA. The first park was followed by one more in the south of Metro Manila.The Board Members decided to engage in Mortuary Business .In Spite of my objections, they persisted that we should. Again a challenge tome. I did not know anything about Mortuary business. It was an order of the board of directors, therefore I had to find the right people to run it which I was able to do.

Lenonard (Len) Rothman, WG’67

Roswell, GA

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.

Shiego Suzuki, WG’71

Tokyo, Japan

I’ve been a managing director of English Speaking Union of Japan(ESUJ), NPO affiliated with Ministry of Foreign Affairs for more than a decade. It’s objective is to foster globally minded young ones for better international communications, ESUJ has been organizing and sponsoring all Japan inter-collegiate, then, inter- high school English debate contests annually, which has been participated each time by more than 120 schools and 500 students including local heats.

I was the judge first and now the producer and head of the contest. Another important job is to select and send annually the young Japanese representative for the prestigious International Public Speech Contest( IPSC) in London.I’ve been the judge and give training for the selected Japanese representative student. I have introduced English parliamentary debate method for Japanese students for the first time to improve their negotiation skills.Thanks to ESUJ’s effort to promote English debate as a tool to improve international communication skill for Japanese young ones, the Ministry of Education realized it’s importance and has added English debate as mandatory new subject to learn at all middle and high schools from this year 2022.

Dennis Wiggins, WG’76

Bethesda, MD

Jerry Wilkinson, WG’69

Atlanta, GA

Provided time and support to the local and national apartment industry associations and community foundation in Atlanta. Jerry has served in several leadership positions for the National Apartment Association and the Atlanta and Georgia Apartment Associations, along with being a Board members of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Duke University’s New School of Engineering has been names in honor of Jerry and his Family’s long time support.

Continue to explore past Crandall Challenge Awardees