Harold Tanner, Paul Salvatore to receive ILR alumni awards

Harold Tanner '52, one of Cornell University's most-involved advisers and fund-raisers, will be honored by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations as the recipient of its Jerome Alpern Distinguished Alumni Award. The annual award recognizes extraordinary service and support to the school by ILR alumni whose professions are primarily outside the field of industrial and labor relations. Tanner will be presented with the Alpern award at Celebration ILR 2002 today, April 25, at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.

Tanner has been chairman of the Cornell Board of Trustees since 1997 and a member of the board since 1982. He was co-chair of the university's 1990-95 capital campaign, during which alumni and friends pledged $1.507 billion to Cornell, the largest amount ever raised by a university at the time. Tanner and his wife, Nicki, have been named Foremost Benefactors of Cornell in recognition of their significant support to the university, and their names are among those engraved on the stone wall adjacent to Uris Library, on campus.

Tanner, an investment banker, is a former managing director of Salomon Brothers Inc., where he headed the firm's corporate finance department. He currently is president of Tanner & Co., a private investment banking firm.

An active volunteer, he is president of the American Jewish Committee and was the recipient of its Herbert Lehman Award in 1995. He also is a trustee of the Revson Foundation and Classroom Inc. and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In addition to his Cornell degree, Tanner earned an MBA at Harvard Business School.

Also to be honored at Celebration ILR 2002 will be labor and employment lawyer Paul Salvatore '81, who will receive the ILR School's Judge William B. Groat Alumni Award. The Groat Award, named for a New York State Supreme Court justice who was instrumental in the founding of the ILR School and in drafting its charter, is presented annually to an ILR alumnus who has demonstrated exceptional professional accomplishment in the field of industrial and labor relations and service to the school.

Salvatore is a labor and employment law partner at Proskauer Rose, representing employers in employment law and litigation as well as union-management relations and collective bargaining. His clients include Citigroup, MBIA Insurance Corp., the New York Stock Exchange, The New York Times Co., the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations and Polo Ralph Lauren.

He writes a column on labor and employment law issues for Human Resource Executive Magazine and is a frequent speaker for the Society for Human Resource Management, as well as co-chair of its National Employee and Labor Relations Committee.

Salvatore is a member of Cornell University Council and the ILR School's Advisory Council, co-chair of the school's Fund for Faculty Excellence and immediate past president of the ILR Alumni Association. In 1999, he and a cousin, ILR and American Studies Professor Nick Salvatore, established the Salvatore Family Prize in American History, which is awarded annually to an ILR senior who has excelled in American history.

In addition to his ILR degree, Salvatore earned a J.D. degree from Cornell Law School in 1984.