Awards

In 1964 Robert Douglas Haas, co-valedictorian of the University of California at Berkeley's senior class, delivered a commencement address that in its own way had the impact and prescience of Mario Savio's famous speech. Haas noted a "missing link" between students and faculty and administration, and urged all parties to break down the barriers of impersonality and disengagement, and turn the student-professor relationship into one of "mutual give-and-take."

Robert Haas has now been named the California Alumni Association's 2009 Alumnus of the Year, in part for consistently parlaying the sentiments of that 1964 speech into an extraordinarily successful career and a lifetime of serving the community and combating inequality. The former CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., Haas devoted his life's work to connecting that missing link and breaking down barriers—between races, ethnicities, employer and employee, and the have and have-nots. "Bob is highly deserving of this award, as he is one of Cal's most successful and humanitarian alumni," says Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. "[He] embodies the qualities and character that we all believe are the product of a Cal education—he has combined professional achievement of the highest order with an unwavering commitment to the community and the greater good." Read more from the California magazine

Chair of the Board for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Chris D. Boskin says that the love of her life right now is a program she started three years ago through Sun Valley Adaptive Sports, called "Higher Ground." The program gives recently wounded veterans the chance to heal and explore the wilderness of Idaho through rafting, skiing, and rock climbing. Boskin was drawn to helping veterans through personal experience, both growing up in a military family (her father and uncle attended the Naval academy) and as a caregiver for her husband during his convalescence from an auto wreck ten years ago. A 37-year veteran of magazine publishing, Boskin says of her career in the traditionally male-dominated business side of media, "it's always fun to be a pioneer." She has worked for the New Yorker and the Hearst Corporation, and helped found Worth Media and Countryside magazine. Now semi-retired, Boskin is a media consultant and serves on the boards of Internews, an international nonprofit that trains journalists from around the world, and of College Track, a tutoring program for high school students in Palo Alto.

"Writing books is like having children," says Terry McMillan, whose newest "child," still a work in progress, will be her seventh novel. Getting to Happy will continue the story of her characters from Waiting to Exhale, a bestseller that was made into a Hollywood movie. After earning a degree in journalism at Cal, she moved to New York City for graduate school in film, but soon dropped out and began working as a legal assistant. Though this decision caused friction with her mother, McMillan is adamant that young people should be as adventurous as she was while they have the chance.

As a member of the Harlem Writers Guild, McMillan learned to read her work aloud, a technique that has served her since in her teaching at the University of Wyoming and the University of Arizona. Her hard work paid off and her first novel, Mama, was published in 1987, soon followed by Disappearing Acts, in 1989. Teaching brought McMillan back out west where she settled in the San Francisco Bay Area to raise her son. "I'm a lot more productive when I'm teaching," says McMillan, who one day would like to teach at Berkeley. Right now, she is once again immersed in the writing process. "You spend a lot of time on paper and in your head figuring out things," she says.

Douglass C. North, recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economics (with Robert Fogel), is now the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts and Sciences at Washington University, where he holds appointments in economics and history. At an early age, North displayed talent in photography, winning competitions in high school. At Cal, he studied political science, philosophy, and economics. He served in the Merchant Marine during World War II, and learned navigation, read widely in economics, and resumed his pursuits in photography. In the last year of the war he faced a decision about his future: photography or economics. Renowned photographer Dorothea Lange, with whom he had worked during college, urged him to follow in her footsteps; her husband, Cal economics professor Paul Taylor, urged North to follow in his.

North writes in his Nobel Prize autobiography that he chose economics because he wanted to "improve society." He wrote his dissertation at Cal on the history of life insurance and his research throughout his career has focused on understanding why economies do or do not work, and ultimately, how people make decisions under different conditions. He has written countless articles and a number of books, including The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, and most recently Understanding the Process of Economic Change in 2005.

Mark DiPaola grew up with entrepreneurship in his blood. One of his first ventures was "Mark's Restaurant"—that is, the kitchen table, where at age 5 he would serve his dad breakfast. By 2002 when he founded Vantage Media, a search engine marketing company, it was already his "sixth or seventh business," he says. The company refers clients, including Netflix and eHarmony, through online search ads. What differentiates the company is that customers, as he explains, pay only if the person who clicks on the ad is actually eligible for their service. After selling a portion of the company in 2007, DiPaola set up the DiPaola Family Foundation with his parents and two brothers.

Today he stays busy with the foundation, a generous donor to the Haas School of Business and the campus; identifying new companies to invest in with D3 Ventures, an angel investing firm; and maintaining balance in his life after "seven years of 100-hour weeks." Last fall also marked the first Career Conference for juniors and seniors at Haas, a program made possible by funding from DiPaola.

For 20 years, Patricia Giordanino Hines has helped place people with severe mental illnesses back into the community as the Director of the Transitional Volunteer Program of San Mateo County. On top of that, she has dedicated her time to various Cal scholarship programs in order to help the University's "outstanding young men and women."

Hines served on the CAA Board of Directors, was Chair of the CAA Scholarship Committee for two years, and helped conduct interviews for the CAA Leadership Award and The Achievement Award Program. She was President of both the Cal Alumni Club of the Peninsula and the Cal Alumni Club of Rossmoor and is currently on the Board of Directors for Rossmoor and a member of the Charter Gala Committee. As President of the Cal Alumni Club of Rossmoor, she was also instrumental in gathering support for the Achievement Award endowment.

A proud member of the "Golden Crew of '52," Mardy Robinson arrived at Cal to study political science, and joined her Class Council. In addition to serving as editor of the 1952 Blue and Gold, she was a member of the California Club, Mortar Board, Prytanean, Panile, Gavel & Quill, and Kappa Kappa Gamma. For the last 57 years, she has been Class Secretary, and has coordinated gift-giving and reunions for her fellow Bears.

Robinson has served as the Board President for the American Field Service at Acalanes High School, a board member of the Ombudsman Services of Contra Costa, and as a coordinator of an interracial, intercultural day camp for children that is run by the Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church. An ordained elder and deacon, Robinson also acts as a host for visiting clergy.

Through his own commitment to community service, Jason Sherr hopes to set a positive example and inspire others to contribute. Sherr has served as the President of the Orange County Alumni Club since 2001, was a member of the CAA's Young Alumni Council followed by a term on the Board of Directors until 2007, and is a member of Bear Backers and the Charter Hill Society. He has served as the Master of Ceremonies at new-student receptions since 2002 and has represented Cal at college nights for several years. Sherr is the Vice President of the Newport Beach Public Library Foundation, is Chair of the program committee, and has coached junior varsity baseball for Corona Del Mar High School for the last 12 years. In addition to all this he still finds time to teach a spin class and take his new daughter, Savannah, on trips to Disneyland.

As an undergraduate, Nicole Harris received a scholarship from the California Alumni Association herself. Now working as Corporate Counsel for PG&E, she says she wants to "return the favor." As an undergrad Harris volunteered at the Student Legal Clinic, and after graduating from Berkeley School of Law (then Boalt) in 1995 she served on the Young Alumni Council from 2003 to 2005. Harris has focused her efforts on TAAP because she believes one of Berkeley's biggest strengths is its diverse student population. Thanks to a program Harris designed, TAAP benefits from the generosity of Cal graduates at PG&E, which matches their contributions. Her work preparing promotional materials and the marketing campaign for the cause has raised $80,000.

Harris also contributes to the San Francisco Bar Association's Law Academy program and School-To-College program, a yearlong high school mentoring and tutoring curriculum that inspires underserved and ethnically diverse students to attend college.