CALS will honor an 'outstanding' group of alumni, faculty and staff

By Jeannie Griffith

A well-known television meteorologist, a former Ben & Jerry's CEO and a retired manufacturing executive who has led a double life as a champion of democracy and human rights are among the leading lights to be honored at the CALS Outstanding Alumni Awards Banquet this Friday, Nov. 12.

The ALS Alumni Association, which sponsors the event, has chosen seven alumni and a husband-and-wife team of researchers as recipients of this year's awards. Those selected for the Outstanding Alumni Award are: Ned W. Bandler '49, retired senior vice president and director of Unilever United States Inc.; Nathan R. Herendeen '64, M.S. '69, a field crops extension associate with Cornell Cooperative Extension; Kevin R. Malchoff '74, M.B.A. '75, U.S./Canada Group president of Rich Products Corp.; Celia E. Rodee '81, a first vice president at JP Morgan Chase; and Perry D. Odak '68, president and CEO of Wild Oats Markets Inc.

Odak, whose impressive resume includes a turn as CEO of Ben & Jerry's, has successfully founded or reinvigorated a series of entrepreneurial ventures by translating strong social and environmental missions into financial returns. His actions as head of Wild Oats Markets have earned the company top-retailer honors among the Top 100 Corporate Citizens named by Business Ethics magazine.

Bandler has served more than 38 years on the board and executive committee of Freedom House, a pioneer human rights organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Wilkie. Bandler also has served as senior adviser to the Institute for Representative Government, which works with the parliaments of emerging democracies, and is vice chair of the African Medical and Research Foundation, a health-worker training and service organization operating in 17 African countries. He was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad and reappointed by President Bush in 2002.

Mishtu A. Mukherjee '90, who is known to viewers of the Weather Channel and CBS4 in Boston as Mish Michaels, is this year's recipient of the Young Alumni Achievement Award. In addition to her forecasting and on-camera duties, Michaels is currently a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded project to create an exhibit on weather forecasting at the Museum of Science in Boston. She also teaches and conducts research as an adjunct member of the meteorology faculty at the University of Massachusetts. In addition to her other alumni activities, Michaels is a member of the President's Council of Cornell Women.

Outstanding Faculty/Staff Awards will be presented to W. Ronnie Coffman, Ph.D. '71, who is Cornell's director of international programs and chair of the Department of Plant Breeding, and to the dynamic duo of Thomas Eisner, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Chemical Ecology, and research support specialist Maria Eisner, whose sophisticated electron micrographic renderings have helped make her husband's research accessible to a much wider audience.

CALS, which is currently observing its centennial year, has had 80,000 alumni to date. Of those, 160 have been honored since the inception of the Outstanding Alumni Award in 1977.