Over his 30-year career in a number of positions with the federal government, attorney William A. Lewis ’68 has developed an impressive resumé of public service – service that is matched by an unflagging commitment to his alma mater.
From volunteering as a reunion planner to co-chairing leadership-development committees and serving on Susquehanna’s board of
directors, Lewis has actively supported and advanced the university. His contributions have been recognized with the 2005 Alumni Service Award.
Lewis, a graduate of Philadelphia’s Central High School, says Susquehanna’s rural, friendly atmosphere appealed to him on his first visit to campus and continues to draw him back. “These are friendships I’ve kept since I graduated,” says Lewis, a member of Phi Mu Delta fraternity. “That’s the connection you have to a small school.”
Lewis notes that, while the campus may not be sprawling, the political science program at SU prepared him for success as an attorney. Starting his career as a Philadelphia assistant district attorney, Lewis has also held posts with the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the U.S. Department of Energy. He was recently appointed associate director of the Energy Department’s Office of Minority Economic Impact, where he oversees education and banking programs benefiting minorities.
Although he works in the heart of Washington, D.C., Lewis makes time to visit Selinsgrove several times a year, both for board meetings and to judge the annual Gene R. Urey Memorial Scholarship competition, in which prelaw students argue a case before distinguished lawyer alums.
Judging the event is one of the most rewarding ways to volunteer, Lewis says. In addition, he is pleased to help steer the school in new directions as a member of the board. “We’re in a campaign to go from good to great,” he explains. “It’s not a formal campaign – just a challenge to ourselves.” In particular, Lewis – who says academics have remained consistently high throughout the years – believes SU should continue its campaign for better facilities. Updates such as the new Clyde H. Jacobs Fitness Center help to draw even better students, he says.
Although Lewis, who lives in Bethesda, Md., with his wife, Deborah, has spent the greater part of his life in large cities or their suburbs, he is glad he chose SU, in the heart of central Pennsylvania. “Because the classes were small, you could really benefit from working with the faculty,” he says. “You don’t get that at a really big school.”
-- Beth Fantaskey Kaszuba
Alumni Service Award
Jill Stevens '74 Fecker
A passion for science, a fascination with education and an interest in keeping up with her children; these are a few things that fuel the service-filled life of Jill Stevens ’74 Fecker. Fecker is the 2005 recipient of the Alumni Service Award.
After marrying George Fecker ’72 in 1973, she completed her senior year and graduated with a degree in biology. She taught health science at Selinsgrove Area Middle School for two years, then became a full-time stay-at-home mom to son Jesse, and then later to daughter Kristy as well. Fecker began her volunteer work in 1983 at Geisinger Medical Center, working two years in pediatrics as an aide to child life specialists. When Fecker’s own children became school aged, she ventured into the PTA. “Just helping out soon turned into committee chair and treasurer,” says Fecker. “It was the perfect way to get to know the teachers and stay connected with my kids.”
In 1987, Fecker made a successful run for the Shikellamy school board, and served as a board member until 1995. “As chair of the education committee, I had the pleasure of working directly with the academic department chairs,” she says. Fecker’s involvement with the school board led to her becoming a representative for the John R. Kauffman Jr. Public Library in Sunbury, where she served as vice president and president. She also went on to play a major role in the creation of a new library for the city. Beginning in 1992, Fecker served on several committees that addressed issues from fund raising to construction of the Degenstein Community Library, which opened in 2000.
While fulfilled by her volunteerism, Fecker admits keeping things balanced wasn’t always easy. “At the height of my involvement with the school board and the library, I had meetings nearly every night of the week. I definitely struggled with doing all that and still being there for my family. I knew the work I was doing was important and that it was also important for my kids to know that, while I love being their mom, I also needed them to see that I was an individual.”
She also served as vice chair of the United Way’s 2003 and 2004 campaigns. Fecker has been a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Sunbury since 1989 where she has served her congregation in the bell choir, and as a deacon and elder.
Fecker is proud of her accomplishments, humbled by the recognition she’s received and gratified that the message of giving back to one’s community, instilled in her by her parents, is being passed on to her children.
—Mary Cammarata Markle
Alumni Achievement Award
Charles "Rusty" Flack '76
Charles “Rusty” Flack ’76 may sit at the helm of companies employing about 250 people, but he knows what it’s like to perform the humblest of tasks on the way to the top.
Flack, now chairman of the board and CEO of Diamond Consolidated Industries Inc. and chairman of the board of its subsidiary, Diamond Manufacturing Company Inc., explains that, while he joined a family business started by his great grandfather, he wasn’t a pampered protégé.
“I started working in the factory when I was a teenager,” Flack says. “I started out as a janitor, then worked on machinery in the factory.” Following his graduation from SU, the former microeconomics major continued with the business – rapidly advancing to CEO upon his father’s death in 1978. Over the past 25 years, Flack and his brother, Harold, have grown the company seven-fold. Today, Diamond Manufacturing is North America’s leading and largest perforator of metals and other materials for clients such as petrochemical companies and environmental and high-tech firms.
This year, Flack was awarded SU’s Alumni Achievement Award, in recognition of his accomplishments both in business and in terms of alumni and community service. Along with supporting the university through past service on committees such as the Sigmund Weis School of Business Advisory Council – and by giving SU interns opportunities – Flack is a dedicated community volunteer in the Wyoming, Pa., area. His numerous affiliations include board membership for banks, educational institutions, and Wilkes-Barre’s Osterhout Library. Flack was also co-founder of the Wyoming Valley Triathlon Association.
“I’ve always been a believer that if the system was good to you, you need to give back,” he explains.
But his proudest “achievements,” he adds, are his children, Charles III ’05, and twins Jamie Ann and Alex ’09. “They’re the best, without any question,” Flack says.
Flack notes that the best part of his SU experience was “meeting my best friend, partner, and love of my life,” Kathi Stine ’76.
Having built a solid business, positioned himself as a community leader, and established a happy home, has Flack achieved everything he wants?
“Never,” he jokes. “I’ve wound up doing things I never dreamed I would do – and there are still things I want to do.”
—Beth Fantaskey Kaszuba
Young Alumni Award
Kevin Akner '85
Legend has it that a little over 40 years ago, contractors working in the Akner home sympathized with Valerie Akner when she brought her fourth child home from the hospital. They told her to go get some rest while they kept her newborn son in the room where they worked, swaddled in a drop cloth for protection. To this day, Kevin Akner ’85 insists he is still comforted by the smell of sawdust. The founder and owner of Akner Contracting Company, Inc. in his hometown of Rockville Center, New York, is the recipient of the 2005 Young Alumni Award.
After earning a B.A. in finance in 1985, Akner began working for a small Wall Street firm. Almost instantly, he knew that it wasn’t the business for him. “I felt terrible leaving, I felt I had wasted my education and let down my parents.” For the next year, Akner worked for a contactor and his self-confidence was restored. “After 11 months of working for someone else, I was sure I knew everything there was to know about running a contracting business. After two weeks running my own contracting business, I realized I knew nothing,” Akner recalls. Despite his self-proclaimed ignorance, Akner apparently knew just enough to keep his business going and growing. Twenty years later, Akner Contracting has gone from a one-man, one-pickup business to a multi-million dollar, full-service high-end custom remodeling company.
In addition to his business, Akner is husband to Tracy Gerard ’85 Akner, and father to Derek, 14, Austin, 11, and Luke, eight. And, he has made time to give back to his community in significant ways. Akner has been chairman of the town zoning board, member and president of his chamber of commerce, president of Friends of Senior Services Inc. and coach to his sons’ lacrosse teams. “Kevin saw he could make a difference, and that really fueled him,” his wife says. She adds, “He is loyal, dedicated and articulate. And he likes to have fun. People just seem to latch on to him.”
Akner says his time at Susquehanna has certainly contributed to his success. “From my geometry classes to Larry Augustine’s public speaking class, I call on my liberal arts background every day.” He adds that some days he feels like more of a psychologist than a contractor. “I’ve been in homes when marriages were falling apart, babies were being born, even through death. If you can’t read people and talk to people, this business isn’t for you.”
–Mary Cammarata Markle
Alumni Weekend 2005
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Burt and Marjorie Barton '46 Winder in front of Selinsgrove Hall on Saturday, June 4, 2005, during Alumni Weekend.
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Alumna weds long-lost sweetheart after 60 years apart
Their story is the stuff of movie scripts, lifted from the pages of a Danielle Steele novel. The opening sequence would be riveting. Imagine scenes of Marjorie Barton ’46 reveling in her first airplane ride, piloted by her sweetheart, J. Byrton “Bert” Winder, on December 7, 1941. The celluloid love story is interspersed with cuts to fighter planes, brandishing the Japanese rising sun, roaring towards Pearl Harbor. Little did the lovebirds know, on that tranquil Sunday, that the winds of war were about to tear them apart.
When the United States became embroiled in World War II, Bert was commissioned a second lieutenant, and left his first love behind. When on leave from flying in the American, European-African and Asiatic-Pacific theaters, the dapper military officer visited Marjorie at Susquehanna, where she was studying business education. But, separated by war, the couple went their separate ways.
Bert married Marie, a student nurse from Delaware in 1944, and, following the war, the Winders settled in Middletown, Del. There they raised two children and marked 57 years of marriage until Marie’s death in 2002 from Alzheimer’s disease. After graduating from Susquehanna in 1946, Marjorie married Leon Myers the following year and settled outside Hughesville, Pa., where they raised four children before divorcing in 1979.
Despite the full lives each lived apart, fate brought the star-crossed lovers back together in 2003 – more than 60 years after their first date on Oct. 8, 1939. Marjorie was participating in a pen-pal project with fourth graders from Cochran Elementary School in Williamsport when her journal buddy, Jahalil Moore, wrote and asked about her memories of World War II. The question sparked memories of Bert and prompted Marjorie to track down her long lost love.
E-mails and phone calls ensued, and, before long, they were speaking to each other several times a day and Bert was making frequent visits to Marjorie’s Williamsport home. On Sept. 18, 2004, Bert proposed to Marjorie, then 82 and 79 respectively. And with Marjorie’s daughter, Beth Ann Myers, serving as the maid of honor and Bert’s grandson, Andrew Byrton Cheney, acting as best man, the couple exchanged wedding vows on Nov. 27, 2004.
So is love better the second time around? “It was pretty good the first time around,” says Bert, who was recently elected to the Delaware Aviation Hall of Fame.
“We’re fortunate to have found each other again,” Marjorie adds.
—Victoria Kidd
William A. Lewis '68
