The Wagner College Alumni Association will recognize 10 alumni and friends of the college for their service and professional achievements during its annual awards ceremony at noon this Saturday, June 8, in the Spiro Sports Center:
- Fred Lange ’53 H’06 (Sussex, N.J.) will be named the John “Bunny” Barbes ’39 and Lila T. Barbes ’40 Wagner Alumni Laureate, the college’s highest award for alumni service.
- Harold Archinal ’50 (Toluca Lake, Cal.) will be presented with the Distinguished Graduate Award, the highest alumni honor for professional achievement.
- Keith Giglio ’85 (Manlius, N.Y.) and Jodi Pulice ’78 (New York, N.Y.) will be named Wagner Alumni Fellows for their career contributions to the community.
- John Iasparro ’72 M’76 (Staten Island, N.Y.) and Henry “Hank” Murphy ’63 M’69 (Staten Island, N.Y.) will receive the Kevin Sheehy ’67 M’70 M’92 H’99 Alumni Leadership Medal.
- Lisa Krawciw ’10 (Merrick, N.Y.) will be presented with the Wagner Alumni Key for her commitment to civic engagement.
- Ruth Qualben, M.D. (Brooklyn, N.Y.) will be recognized with the Rev. Lyle Guttu Award for her contributions to creating an environment to support and encourage student conversations about the role of spirituality across different faiths.
- The husband-and-wife duo of Mary Caracappa ’82 and Anthony Hurtado ’79 (Staten Island, N.Y.) will be presented with the Certificate of Appreciation for providing critical career advice and guidance to Wagner College students.
Wagner College President Richard Guarasci and Alumni Association President Charles “Tad” Bender ’06 of Stamford, Conn., will present the awards.
Tickets for the Alumni Association Achievement and Service Awards ceremony are $40 per person. Tickets may be purchased by calling the Office of Alumni Relations at 718-390-3224, or you may purchase tickets as part of the overall Reunion Weekend registration at wagner.edu/alumni/reunion.
FRED LANGE ’53 H’06 of Sussex, N.J., will receive the Alumni Association’s highest service honor, the John “Bunny” Barbes ’39 and Lila T. Barbes ’40 Wagner Alumni Laureate. The Barbes Award is named after two of the college’s biggest supporters, who served Wagner in many capacities for decades following their student careers on Grymes Hill. Lange graduated from Wagner with a bachelor’s degree in economics and subsequently was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2006. Long a presence on Wall Street, where he worked as a securities analyst, director of research and portfolio manager, he capitalized on his experience in 1972 by creating Lange Financial Services, a private money management firm where he serves as president and founder. Lange was elected to the Wagner College Board of Trustees in 1995 and was named a Lifetime Trustee in 2007. As a trustee, Lange was chair of both the Finance and Investments committees. He has invested much time and generously given of his expertise to help the college address crucial, long-term money management issues. As a result, the college has never been in better financial shape. Lange was a member of the executive committee for “Putting Wagner First: The Campaign for Wagner College,” which successfully raised more than $57 million, the most money ever raised to date. A member of the New York Society of Security Analysts, Lange has been widely quoted in articles on various investment-related topics, especially in the Wall Street Journal. Since 1995, Lange has also been a trustee for the Olstein Mutual Fund.
HAROLD ARCHINAL ’50 of Toluca Lake, Cal., will be honored with this year’s Distinguished Graduate of Wagner College Award, the college’s highest alumni honor for professional achievement. Archinal, who graduated from Wagner with a degree in history, had a successful 34-year career at Walt Disney’s Buena Vista International in the area of international film distribution. Starting out as a clerk for Walt Disney’s Buena Vista Distribution Company in 1954, Archinal became president of Buena Vista International in 1972, a post he held until his retirement in 1988. Archinal’s leadership helped Walt Disney set numerous box office records for its animated releases, new products and reissues of films. In 2009, Archinal was named a Disney Legend.
KEITH GIGLIO ’85 of Manlius, N.Y., will be named a 2013 Wagner Alumni Fellow. Giglio graduated from Wagner with a degree in English and earned a master of fine arts degree from New York University. He is currently assistant professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He has also taught at all levels of screenwriting for the University of California, Los Angeles Writers Program. Giglio’s film credits include “A Cinderella Story,” “Another Cinderella Story” and “A Cinderella Story: Once Upon A Song,” of which he was the executive producer. His screenwriting credits include Disney’s “Return to Halloweentown,” “Pizza My Heart,” “Joshua,” “Noah,” “Broadway Brawler” and Walt Disney’s animated musical, “Tarzan,” for which he is also credited as the story consultant. Giglio is also president of Laughing Gas Productions, which works with non-established screenwriters to help develop their material for production. A member of the Writers Guild of America, Giglio has also been a writer’s assistant to Andy Breckman, a writer for “Saturday Night Live” and co-creator of the Emmy Award-winning television series, “Monk.”
JODI PULICE ’78 of New York, N.Y., has been named a Wagner Alumni Fellow for career achievement in business. Pulice founded JRT Realty in 1996 as a woman-owned, full-service commercial real estate firm. JRT Realty, the nation’s largest certified woman-owned commercial real estate firm, is certified as a Minority- and Woman-Owned Business Enterprise by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council and the National Minority Business Council. Her accomplishments include successful leasing and sales transactions exceeding $2 billion. As president of JRT Realty, Pulice is currently responsible for leasing and managing a 13 million-square-foot portfolio for TIAA-CREF and is a member of the leasing team for One World Trade Center.
The Kevin Sheehy ’67 M’70 M’92 H’99 Alumni Leadership Medal recognizes individuals who have demonstrated leadership and service to the Alumni Association. One of the two winners of this year’s medal is JOHN IASPARRO ’72 M’76 of Staten Island, N.Y. Iasparro’s teaching career spanned 31 years, 24 of them at Intermediate School 49 on Staten Island. For his alma mater, Iasparro helped create the Wagner Athletics Hardwood Club, has been a longtime member of the Athletics Hall of Fame, which he currently co-chairs, and has helped to fundraise for several initiatives at Wagner College, including endowed scholarships, the Hall of Fame and the Wagner War Memorial to name a few. He is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Wagner College Alumni Association, and continues to be a mentor to past and current members of the Delta Nu fraternity at his alma mater. Iasparro is known and respected for his “go get ’em” personality, which has helped to strengthen the ties fellow alumni have with Wagner College. As a member of the Staten Island community, Iasparro was a founding member of the New Dorp Football Hall of Fame, a committee member of the Staten Island Hall of Fame, a member of the Staten Island Advance High School Football All-Stars Selection Committee, and was the recipient of Thomas O’Connor Memorial Award for service to the Staten Island community.
The second winner of the Sheehy Alumni Leadership Medal is HENRY ‘HANK’ MURPHY ’63 M’69 of Staten Island, N.Y. Murphy was principal of Public School 11 on Staten Island, a position he held for 15 years, from 1986 to 2001. Under his leadership from 1971 until 1986, the Staten Island Drug Prevention Program was honored as one of the nation’s five outstanding prevention programs by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Murphy currently serves on the New Educators at Wagner Advisory Board and was one of the founding benefactors of the program, which is led by Carin Guarasci, an education professor at Wagner College. New Educators at Wagner is a special post-graduate teacher development program that fosters transformational learning among early career educators. The Hank Murphy Award annually recognizes outstanding educators in the community. Murphy’s commitment to his alma mater goes beyond the classroom, helping to support several fundraising initiatives, including the Wagner War Memorial, the Delta Nu Endowment, the Most Valuable Player athletics awards and the Kevin Sheehy Scholarship. He is a fixture in his Class of 1963 and is a member of the 50th Anniversary Planning Committee. In 2011, Murphy and with his wife Margaret generously donated an extensive sports art and memorabilia collection to the college. The Margaret and Henry Murphy Sports Memorabilia Collection includes posters, prints, photos, artifacts (such as catching gear signed by New York Yankee icon Yogi Berra) and dozens of autographed baseballs and other sports items. The collection also features serigraphs signed by artist Leroy Neiman, including depictions of Major League Baseball Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio. Richard Guarasci, president of Wagner College, said, “In his career and his life, Hank has demonstrated what it means to be a truly engaged member of the community, which is what we hope every Wagner graduate will become.”
LISA KRAWCIW ’10 M’12 of Merrick, N.Y., will be presented with the Wagner Alumni Key, which recognizes alumni of the last decade for professional and personal contributions to the college and the community. Krawciw’s commitment to civic engagement and making change in the world serve as an inspiration to alumni and future students of Wagner College. As a Habitat for Humanity volunteer, Krawciw spent time helping build new homes for families in Ecuador. She has volunteered in homeless shelters and soup kitchens in Boston and New Orleans and helped with rebuilding efforts in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Krawciw has worked with schools for the disabled to help raise much-needed funds to support the services and programs offered to children with disabilities.
RUTH QUALBEN, M.D. of Brooklyn, N.Y., is the recipient of the Rev. Lyle Guttu Award for spiritual contributions to the Wagner, local and international communities. Dr. Qualben has continued the legacy of facilitating interfaith dialogue at Wagner College established by the late Paul Qualben ’44 and her brother-in-law, the Rev. Dr. Philip Qualben. The “Faces of God” lecture series, the “Faith in Life” series and a course entitled “The Qualben Seminar: Conversations on Religion and Spirituality” have provided a forum where students and the community come together to examine contemporary spirituality studies, including such topics as shamanism, Kabbalah, women’s roles in religion, the Enlightenment experience, the spirituality of nature, rock and roll, and African-American music.
MARY CARACAPPA ’82 and ANTHONY HURTADO ’79 of Staten Island, N.Y., will be honored with the 2013 Certificate of Appreciation for their commitment to supporting the students of Wagner College. Caracappa and Hurtado have been instrumental in helping students navigate the career-exploration and job-search process.
A bacteriology major at Wagner College, Hurtado has developed a career as a healthcare information technology professional who founded his own healthcare IT company. He has successfully led numerous system and product installations, upgrades and transitions for laboratories and hospitals. His first career as a microbiologist included positions at Maimonides Medical Center, Beth Israel Medical Center, New York Hospital and Lincoln Medical Center. Hurtado’s unusual career path has been an invaluable example for recent students and has provided them with a real-world perspective on how to apply a college degree to shape one’s career.
Caracappa is managing director in Morgan Stanley’s Firm Strategy and Execution division. Students at Wagner have been able to learn from her 27 years of experience at Morgan Stanley and her past positions as controller at General Occidental Holdings Management Company and auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Caracappa has spent time meeting with students and serving on a panel for Women in Leadership.
The dedication and commitment to the students of Wagner expressed by Caracappa and Hurtado have undoubtedly inspired and aided many students in achieving their dream career, and for that the Alumni Association will honor this alumni couple with the 2013 Certificate of Appreciation.
