Alex Johnson’s vision for accessible community-college education is rooted in his Concord, N.C., childhood.

His grandmother, who cared for him while his parents worked, ingrained in him the importance of schooling and enrolled him in church activities, which provided a sense of continuity and “great lessons of hope and commitment,” according to Johnson. Growing up in the segregated South deeply impacted Johnson. Later in life, he was determined to provide equal opportunities to Black students and others facing discrimination.

His early years planted the seeds of what would become a lifelong commitment to “promoting access to and equality in education, developing students’ leadership skills and promoting community outreach initiatives so there is the intersection of civic engagement with educational delivery.”

Johnson was appointed in 2013 as the fourth president of Cuyahoga Community College. Soon after, his leadership began to be recognized locally and nationally. Tri-C administrators and faculty describe him as mission-driven, approachable and personable. Some of his major accomplishments include:

• Dramatically increasing Tri-C’s graduation rate from 4.5% in 2013 to 25% in 2021, exceeding national averages.
• Increasing financial giving to support student scholarship and personal needs from $39 million to more than $100 million.
• Gaining public support for a $227 million capital bond issue in 2017, spurring the biggest reconstruction in the college’s history. Projects funded through this effort include the Western Campus STEM Center; the Westshore Campus Liberal Arts and Technology Building; The Public Safety Simulated Scenario Village at the Western Campus; and the Advanced Technology Training Center at the Metropolitan Campus – all of which received the LEED certification for sustainable design and construction.
• Creating career paths and educational opportunities through the development of Access Centers.
• Successfully navigating the college through the COVID-19 pandemic by restructuring classes for an online environment while maintaining a sense of community and continuity for students through weekly virtual town hall meetings.
• Twice receiving the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Prize Top 150, considered the signature recognition for high achievement and performance among American community colleges. Tri-C was the only Ohio school that was named to a newly released Top 150 list.
• Helping Tri-C’s Nursing, Creative Arts, Public Safety, Hospitality Management, Information Technology and Manufacturing programs becoming recognized as Centers of Excellence.
• Inspiring Tri-C’s selection as an intermediary for the Workforce Connect Healthcare Sector Partnership.

Johnson is the author of several books, including his most recent, 2021’s “Capturing Change,” which trains leaders how to handle difficult circumstances such as natural disasters and financial crises in new ways.

Prior to leading Tri-C, Dr. Johnson served as the President of the Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh (2008-2013); Chancellor of Delgado Community College in New Orleans (2003-2008) as well as President of Tri-C’s Metropolitan Campus (1993-2003).

During his nine-year tenure as President of Tri-C’s Metropolitan campus, he secured a $10 million donation – the largest in the college’s history—to create The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Humanities Center and established a permanent endowment to support the center and its initiatives.

According to American Council on Education President Ted Mitchell, “Alex Johnson is an inspirational and innovative leader who has expanded access to higher education and increased the opportunity for social and economic mobility for hundreds of thousands of students at Cuyahoga County Community College and the other institutions he has served so well.”

Dr. Johnson’s leadership extends deep into the community. He serves on more than a dozen local boards. He led a citywide commemoration of Carl and Louis Stokes; co-chaired the selection committee for the Cleveland Community Police Commission; and supported the creation of Tri-C’s Stand for Racial Justice Alliance. In February 2021, he took a lead role in national efforts to close equity gaps and accelerate student success as the chair of the Achieving the Dream (ATD) Board of Directors.

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Thanks to an elementary school teacher who encouraged him to audition, Milton Maltz was cast in the title role of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” the first triumph in an iconic career that spanned from stage to radio to television to broadcast business icon.

He began his career as a child actor on radio dramas originating in Chicago. He also appeared in television broadcasts during that medium’s infancy. He later went on to write, produce, and direct. He is especially known for “The Fight for Freedom,” an acclaimed series of radio programs that chronicled the struggle to create the nation of Israel. Maltz wrote, produced, and directed the series.

With courage, business acumen and creative thinking, Maltz transformed a single, small radio station into Malrite Communications Group, Inc., one of the most successful radio and television companies in history with stations stretching from New York to Los Angeles. He founded Malrite Communications in 1956 and served as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until selling the radio portion of the company to The Walt Disney Co. and the TV holdings to Raycom Media in 1998.

A respected and active member of the broadcast industry and a member of its Hall of Fame, Maltz created the National Association of Broadcasters’ Task Force for Free TV, served on its Political Action Committee, and was a Director of the Radio Advertising Bureau and Vice-Chairman of the Independent Television Association.

Maltz and his wife, Tamar, moved to Northeast Ohio in the early 1970s when he purchased two radio stations: WHK-AM and WMMS-FM. He turned WMMS into Malrite’s flagship station. Under his leadership, the station adopted its iconic buzzard insignia and was named the best rock station in the America.

Since their arrival in Cleveland, the Maltzes have made an indelible impact on Northeast Ohio with their philanthropic activity and deep commitment to arts, culture, and education. They have given tens of millions of dollars to Jewish and non-Jewish arts, medical, cultural, and civic organizations in Cleveland and across the United States.

At 5 years of age, Maltz faced hate for the first time — an experience that was indelibly etched in his mind. While walking home from school, he was attacked and beaten by other children simply because he was Jewish.

Later in life, Maltz turned the hate and anti-Semitism he encountered into something extraordinary: the founding of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage. It is much more than a stirring building and collection. The Maltzes wanted to address hate through education, and for over 13 years, the museum

has offered $100,000 “Stop the Hate” scholarships as part of a contest encouraging young people to write essays about hate and tolerance while simultaneously earning money for college. Maltz also created the annual Maltz Heritage Award through the museum to honor individuals whose leadership, vision, and humanity have changed Northeast Ohio for the better and to build bridges of understanding with those of other religions, races, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds.

Maltz was instrumental in bringing the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to Cleveland.

“The New York board members didn’t want it here,” Maltz recalls. “We owned a station that was a rock station in New York and many of those guys on the board would come to me to have their talent played on our air. And I would say, ‘Look I can’t force you, but how are you going to vote for the home of the Rock Hall?’ That’s all it took.”

In 1997, the Maltzes founded the Maltz Family Foundation to focus on their major charitable interests. Institutions and organizations supported by the foundation include the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Case Western Reserve University’s performance center, the Lieber Institute for Brain Development at John Hopkins Hospital, the Cleveland Play House, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, the Anti-Defamation League, the State of Israel Bonds, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.

Maltz was instrumental in the creation of the acclaimed International Spy Museum, in Washington. He currently serves on the Board of the Central Intelligence Agency Officers Memorial Foundation.

Still going strong in his 90s, Maltz completed a new book in 2021, “Passion for Broadcasting: Stories of My Life,” a memoir that spans his from child radio actor to today.

The Maltzes have been married for 71 years.

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In April 2002, Joan E. Southgate, then 73 years old, was out on her daily “stay healthy” walk along East Boulevard in Cleveland when her thoughts turned to slavery.

“Suddenly I was stunned by something I had always known,” she remembers, “American slave families walked hundreds and hundreds of miles running to freedom. Who were those amazing people? How could they do it? Did they take children and small babies slung across their hips? What did they do? How did they do it? Families in flight! Even the children had to be brave. And some, perhaps many, found help through the Underground Railroad.”

She then heard the whisper from an ancestor, a command:

“Walk.”

Soon after, starting in the small town of Ripley, Ohio, on the Ohio River, Southgate started on what would become a 519-mile walk retracing a path of the Underground Railroad – north to Cleveland, east into Pennsylvania, then New York and across the border into Canada to Harriet Tubman’s church in St. Catharines, Ontario.

Along the way, she visited Underground Railroad sites, gave presentations at schools, and slept in the homes of welcoming strangers — her own “safe houses” — all to “honor and praise the freedom seekers and the conductors who helped them.”

Southgate, who enjoyed a fulfilling 30-year career as a social worker before her iconic walk, then began on another life calling: establishing Restore Cleveland Hope, a grassroots nonprofit dedicated to telling the story of Cleveland’s role in the Underground Railroad (the city was called “Station Hope” by 19th century freedom seekers) and preserving one of its stops: the historic Cozad-Bates House.

“This piece of history belongs to all of us,” Southgate says. “We’re all freedom seekers.”

“I want all children to know the truth, strength, creativity, and courage the slaves had … it should be taught as curriculum in every school.”

An educator at heart, Southgate had a desire to create a place to learn about Cleveland’s crucial role in the Underground Railroad, and she was able to secure the historic Cozad-Bates House in University Circle for the project. The Cozad-Bates House was the only pre-Civil War home still standing in University

Circle and the Cozad family were well-known abolitionists who helped run the Cleveland-area Underground Railroad – one of the last stops before slaves entered Canada to freedom.

The home was scheduled to be demolished for a parking garage, but through Southgate’s energy and activism, the building was saved. The now-restored house, located at Mayfield Road and East 115th Street, is home of the Underground Railroad Education and Resource Center, which features a robust schedule of programs and events.

Southgate co-authored a book, “In their Path: A Grandmother’s 519-Mile Underground Railroad Walk,” which highlights her 519-mile journey.

Cleveland Public Theater produced a play titled “The Absolutely Amazing and True Adventures of Ms. Joan Evelyn Southgate” with performances in April and May 2022. The 100-minute, one-act play touches on many aspects of her life.

Now in her 90s, Southgate – who’s also a poet, mother of four and grandmother of nine – is still actively fulfilling her dream of being an educator and ensuring that important parts of American history, such as the Underground Railroad, are taught to children and explained in a way that instills a sense of pride in the fight for equality for all.

Southgate says that even though her walk has ended, her mission continues.

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As a youngster, Dick Bogomolny studied violin under the Cleveland Orchestra’s principal second violinist. He later served as concertmaster of the Harvard University Orchestra and principal violist of the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra.

“In junior high, I set some goals. I wanted to play the violin, I wanted to play football and I wanted to get good grades,” he says. He accomplished all three. Upon the death of his father, however, the young Mr. Bogomolny felt responsibility to return home to run the family business with his mother – also an accomplished violinist.

He attended college at night while operating the Eagle Ice Cream Company, later graduating from Western Reserve University and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. He was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1961, though was destined to become a business entrepreneur.

Under Mr. Bogomolny’s leadership, Eagle Ice Cream Company became the largest and most modern ice cream manufacturing facility in Northeast Ohio. Fisher Foods, Inc. purchased the company in 1968 and installed Mr. Bogomolny in key leadership positions. In 1972, he left Fisher Foods and joined supermarket magnate and “second father” Julius Kravitz in the purchase of Pick-N-Pay. In 1975, at the age of 40, he became president and CEO.

Two years later, Pick-N-Pay Supermarkets merged with the much bigger First National Stores (operating under the name Finast) to become one of the largest supermarket chains in the country. In 1978, after the death of Mr. Kravitz, Mr. Bogomolny assumed the additional role of chairman.

Mr. Bogomolny sold controlling interest in First National to Royal Ahold NV in 1986. With support of city leaders, he built and operated seven new superstores in Cleveland’s inner city – and hired neighborhood residents to work in them.

“Most of our customers could walk to the stores, but we also provided buses where needed,” notes Mr. Bogomolny. “I remember women looking at the stores and saying things like, ‘We don’t believe someone would do this for us.’” At the time of Mr. Bogomolny’s retirement five years later, his nine-state chain had 300 stores, close to $2.5 billion in sales, and approximately 14,000 employees, he recalls. In May of 1992, Mr. Bogomolny became the first American to be elected to the supervisory board (board of directors) of Royal Ahold NV.

Mr. Bogomolny has devoted much of his time, talent and resources to humanitarian causes, at one time serving on 22 nonprofit boards. He is particularly gratified to have been a founding member and advisor to the Northern Ohio Foodbank.

As founding chairman of The Negev Foundation, Mr. Bogomolny helped finance agricultural research in Ramat Negev, Israel. and later introduced advanced crop growing technology to the Hopi Native American tribe in Arizona.

Emeritus chairman, former chairman and former president of the Musical Arts Association/The Cleveland Orchestra, Mr. Bogomolny served on the steering committee that raised $115 million for the organization and provided the lead gift. Under his leadership, The Cleveland Orchestra collaborated with a group of seven major arts and education organizations to create the Violins of Hope – Cleveland project.

Mr. Bogomolny is a former vice chairman of the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation; emeritus trustee, Jewish Federation of Cleveland; chair emeritus of the Cleveland Institute of Music; and former chairman of the Northern Ohio Regional Board of the Anti-Defamation League. He is a life member the ADL national executive committee.

He has been honored for his civic leadership and community service by the then Jewish Community Federation, Chamber Music America, the Jewish National Fund, and the Oheb Zedek Cedar Sinai Synagogue, among other organizations.

Mr. Bogomolny and his wife, Patricia M. Kozerefski, reside in Gates Mills. The couple adopted a daughter from China and are parents to three sons from his previous marriage. They have seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

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Margot James Copeland grew up in Petersburg, Virginia, the only child of a Baptist minister and an 8th-grade math teacher. The retired chair and CEO of KeyBank Foundation credits her success and her “conviction for community and education” to her family, her hometown and to the hard-fought changes brought about by the Civil Rights Movement.

Ms. Copeland attended Hampton University in Virginia, majoring in physics at the HBCU and becoming a National Science Foundation scholar. Ms. Copeland earned a master’s degree in educational research and statistics from The Ohio State University, where she is recognized as an Esteemed Alumna.

Her career began at Xerox Corporation and advanced to roles of increasing responsibility at Polaroid Corporation, AmeriTrust Bank and Picker International (now Philips). Ms. Copeland’s passion for community service was supported by each of her employers.

She joined the Junior League of Cleveland – a rarity for Black women at the time – and later became the organization’s first Black president. In 1991, she was accepted into Leadership Cleveland. From class member, she became the program’s executive director. She had served in that role for nearly a decade when she was recruited to lead the Greater Cleveland Roundtable, which created a robust diversity consulting and training practice. Additionally, the Cleveland Council of Economic Inclusion was founded under her leadership, and remains a force today for advancing diversity, equity and inclusion throughout Northeast Ohio.

In late 2001, Ms. Copeland joined the KeyBank Foundation, which had a 15-state footprint from Maine to Alaska. “During her tenure, she led the strategic investment of more than 85,000 grants exceeding $700 million and the transformation of the KeyBank Foundation from a charitable giving department into a nationally recognized philanthropic investment organization.

In 2014, Ms. Copeland became the second person ever to be honored with the Community Impact Award from American Banker, a recognition she refers to as “prized.”

Ms. Copeland says, however, that her “proudest moment was when Cleveland was awarded a Say Yes to Education chapter.” As a national board member, she helped bring attention to the community’s application and guided it through the competitive process.

In 2010, Ms. Copeland was elected national president of The Links, Incorporated, an organization of women devoted to strengthening African American communities. In that role, she was invited to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signing of the My Brother’s Keeper initiative and delivered remarks on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. During Ms. Copeland’s presidency, The Links awarded $4 million in scholarships and program grants, including a $1 million donation to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Currently, Ms. Copeland serves on the board of trustees for Cleveland Clinic, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Port of Cleveland, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum and AARP National. She also was the co-vice chair of the Cleveland Bi-Centennial Commission and served on the boards of the Great Lakes Science Center, Playhouse Square Foundation, Philanthropy Ohio, University Hospitals Health System and myriad other organizations.

Appointed by Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, she recently concluded nine years with the Kent State University Board of Trustees.

Ms. Copeland lives in Shaker Heights and is the mother of three adult children.

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Beth Mooney graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the University of Texas. She was repeatedly asked by prospective employers how fast she could type. “My first job in banking was as a secretary,” she says. “And let’s just say I wasn’t really very good at my entry-level job. I knew banks had management-training programs and I kept thinking, ‘Why can’t I do that?’”

Early on, while pursuing her MBA from Southern Methodist University, Ms. Mooney laid the groundwork that would serve her well over the span of her career. By the time she was 30, she had become the youngest senior vice president of the largest bank in Texas. She went on to become president, Bank One (Ohio) in 1999 before taking executive positions at Tennessee and North Louisiana Banking Group, AmSouth Bancorp (now Regions Financial Corp), and Key Community Bank. By 2011 she was chair and CEO of KeyCorp.

When Ms. Mooney began her career, there was not a lot of diversity in management and leadership in the banking industry. “One thing I always say is, ‘when you walk into a room and you’re the only woman … sit down and act like you belong. And never lead with your differences; always seek the common ground.’ I felt it was not just my opportunity to fit in, but my obligation, in the best sense of the word, to square my shoulders and take my seat at the table.”

Ms. Mooney retired from KeyCorp (and primary subsidiary KeyBank) in 2020. She holds the distinction of being the first female CEO of a Top 20 U.S. bank and was named the Most Powerful Woman in Banking in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and ultimately Banker of the Year in 2017 by American Banker. She is credited with leading KeyCorp through an economic crisis that crushed its competitors. Through an ambitious acquisition, she increased KeyCorp’s size by 40%, making it the 13th largest bank in the U.S., and nearly doubling the value of its stock.

Ms. Mooney embraced and enhanced the Key4Women initiative that lends money to women-owned businesses, offers financial advice, and fosters networking and mentoring opportunities. She also increased KeyBank’s Business Boost & Build Program by securing a $24 million grant for JumpStart Inc. The program transforms neighborhoods through support of small businesses and job creation.

KeyCorp is the only national bank with 10 “outstanding” ratings under the Community Reinvestment Act. “This measures our products, services to and impacts on minorities and underserved parts of our communities,” Ms. Mooney explains. “In 2016, we announced a $16.5 billion, five-year commitment to affordable housing, home lending, and small business start-ups for the underserved. It was transformative philanthropy at a time no one was doing it.”

Ms. Mooney is chair of Cleveland Clinic Board of Directors and has served in leadership roles for the Cleveland Orchestra/Musical Arts Association, Greater Cleveland Partnership, ideastream, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, Say Yes to Education and United Way of Greater Cleveland, among myriad other local nonprofits. In addition, she is on two national nonprofit boards and is a trustee of The Brookings Institute and The Conference Board.

In addition to her philanthropy and continued leadership in the community, Ms. Mooney serves on three for-profit boards – Accenture, AT&T and The Ford Motor Company.

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Margaret Wong traveled from Hong Kong to the U.S. in August 1969 at the height of the Vietnam conflict. She and her younger sister each carried two suitcases and student visas that allowed them to enroll at an all-girls’ Catholic junior college in Iowa. The sisters then attended Western Illinois University. Ms. Wong followed that with law school at the State University of New York Buffalo.

Despite her newly-minted status as a lawyer, finding work – and keeping it – was a struggle. “There were many forces at work. I was foreign born. A woman. Asian. Employers at the time were not eager to hire women, let alone Asian women. So eventually I hung out my own shingle, renting an office with one desk.”

It was a good move. Today Margaret W. Wong & Associates, LLC, has more than 60 employees working in nine offices in eight states. Ms. Wong is founder and managing partner of the award-winning immigration and nationality law firm.

But that hasn’t been Ms. Wong’s only business venture. In the early 1980s, Ms. Wong and her family opened Pearl of the Orient restaurant “to fill the void of really good Chinese food.” Everyone in the family worked there, herself included. After a few successful years in Shaker Heights, she helped her brother open a second restaurant in Rocky River; that popular location closed in the summer of 2021 after more than 35 years.

Ms. Wong also assisted her husband, Kam Hon Chan, with his thriving pharmacy business.

Over the years, the firm has had a number of precedent-setting cases, and in the past year had several cases before the United States Supreme Court.

“The fight for social justice is long,” she says. “The enjoyable part is knowing you are fighting for a just cause … and when it’s finally recognized as such, you can celebrate.”

Ms. Wong points out that the Cleveland Asian community started in the late 1800s, so she considers herself a relative newcomer. “But both my job and family have made me a senior statesperson, both locally and nationally,” she acknowledges. With that comes responsibility.

Ms. Wong has volunteered her time and resources to diverse organizations, including American Immigration Lawyers Association, Asian American Bar Association of Ohio, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Cleveland Public Library Foundation, Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio and the University at Buffalo, where Ms. Wong has endowed 15 scholarships and co-chaired a successful $30 million capital campaign. She also created a $100,000 scholarship at Cuyahoga Community College (from which she received an honorary degree) and in 2011 established the Margaret W. Wong Endowed Forum on Foreign Born Individuals of Distinction at the City Club of Cleveland. She is a life member of both the Eighth Judicial District Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Ms. Wong and Mr. Chan, who died in 2014, have two adult children, Steven and Allison. Ms. Wong’s children work in her law firm, along with her sister and her sister’s sons.

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Born in Rochester, New York, Thomas W. Adler moved to Shaker Heights with his family in 1952 at age 12. Severe early childhood asthma caused him to miss a lot of school and fall behind academically. “As a result, I suffered from low self-esteem when I was young,” he recalls. But that all began to change when he was introduced to swimming at a summer camp and he excelled at it.

Once in high school he set Shaker pool and District records. That experience gave him confidence and helped get him get accepted into the University of Wisconsin. It was also at Shaker Heights High School that he met his wife of 57 years, Joanie. They married shortly after graduation from college. The two have three children and two grandchildren.

“The rough start as a kid was probably a source of some of the drive I had later,” Mr. Adler says. “I think I had to prove to myself that I could accomplish things of my own.” He also was highly motivated by his parents, particularly his father, a leader in the men’s apparel industry.

By his mid-30s, Mr. Adler was Chairman of the Executive Committee of a large Cleveland commercial real estate firm. At age 38, he co-founded his own company that specialized in selling investment-grade properties to pension funds. When the firm was bought in 1986 by San Francisco-based Grubb & Ellis, he was invited to serve on the management committee and start a new national division. At age 50, he left and founded a consulting firm, Cleveland Real Estate Partners.

Mr. Adler sold his interest in that company to his younger partners and became a full-time volunteer and philanthropist by the age of 60. In 1999, he helped start what is now known as Playhouse Square Real Estate Services. In 2006, he became Board Chair of Playhouse Square Foundation. His work at Playhouse Square, pro bono from the start, led Mr. Adler to get involved with Cleveland State University, which would later move its Theatre and Dance program, as well as its School of Film and Media Arts, to Playhouse Square. As a trustee of CSU, Mr. Adler helped lead the school’s first campaign, which raised over $100 million, and has been instrumental in the successful effort to engage the business community more with CSU.

Mr. Adler also is heavily involved in the American Jewish Committee (Life Trustee), the Jewish Federation of Cleveland (Trustee Emeritus and recipient of its Eisenman Award), the Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio (Life Director and recipient of its Humanitarian Award), United Way of Greater Cleveland (Director and recipient of its Volunteer of the Year Award), University Hospitals (Director), Downtown Cleveland Alliance (Director Emeritus), Shaker Heights and its schools, and more.

In 2015 Mr. Adler was named one of the most connected powerbrokers in Northeast Ohio by Crain’s Cleveland Business.

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As a child, Jeanette Grasselli Brown grew up reading the Popular Mechanics magazines that her father would leave around the house. The two would “spend hours looking up at the black sky, trying to challenge each other with what the stars could be.” Her father was not surprised when young Jenny Gecsy gravitated toward a STEM curriculum and career – decades before STEM was part of the national conversation. Her mother, on the other hand, needed time to get used to the idea.

“Women’s careers, then, were most often in nursing, teaching or administrative work,” Dr. Grasselli Brown allows. “My mother thought I would go the usual route of being a mother and homemaker – which was highly respected and wonderful, and I aspired to that as well – but I certainly never thought there would be a conflict between being a scientist and having a home and being close to family and friends.”

The only daughter of Hungarian Catholic immigrants, Dr. Grasselli Brown grew up in Cleveland’s Hungarian neighborhood near Buckeye Road.

After graduation from John Adams High School, she attended Ohio University, where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1950. She holds a master’s degree from what is now Case Western Reserve University and has been awarded 13 honorary doctorate degrees and an executive management certification from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Grasselli Brown’s career with BP and predecessor The Standard Oil Company (Ohio) spanned nearly 40 years. She worked first in various research positions before moving into management.

She retired as director of corporate research, analytical and environmental sciences in 1989.

“I loved my research career, but I realized by moving into management I could help other women and other people around me,” she says. She was often the only woman in management meetings, which were composed of 80 of the global company’s top executives.

Within her field, Dr. Grasselli Brown is known as one of the foremost contributors to infrared and Raman spectroscopy – techniques used to identify molecular structure and ultimately solve a variety of complex problems.

She has authored 80 articles for scientific journals; writing, editing or co-editing nine books; launched a professional journal; served as the national president of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy; and routinely participated in scientific discussions across the country and the globe. These efforts have brought her innumerable awards, honors and distinctions.

Dr. Grasselli Brown served on the Ohio Board of Regents for 13 years, including two years as chair. Post-retirement, she also served on the boards of directors of six corporations and has been actively involved in more than 25 nonprofit organizations, including her current service on the boards of the Musical Arts Association/Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland Hungarian Development Panel, and Phi Beta Kappa Society (Cleveland Association). She was founding chair of the research committee at Holden Arboretum and is a founding board member of the Great Lakes Museum Science Center.

One of Dr. Grasselli Brown’s priorities today is the Cleveland Water Alliance. She founded the organization in 2013 and heads its board.

Dr. Grasselli Brown is married to Dr. Glenn R. Brown and has two stepchildren and three grandchildren.

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A native of Watertown, New York, Toby Cosgrove was a self-described average student. He graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts before going onto medical school – the only one of 13 he applied to that accepted him – at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville.

Residency training was interrupted by the Vietnam War. Dr. Cosgrove worked in a hospital in Da Nang and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his work as chief of the U.S. Air Force Casualty Staging Flight; at age 28, he and his small team evacuated more than 22,000 wounded.

After returning to the States, Dr. Cosgrove completed his clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital and Brook General Hospital in London.

Diagnosed with dyslexia in his 30s, Dr. Cosgrove says he chose surgery over other professions because it relied less on reading and writing and more on his dexterity. In a cardiac surgery career that spanned nearly 30 years, he earned an international reputation for expertise in valve repair.

Fourteen years after joining the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Cosgrove in 1989 was named chairman of the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. After being named Cleveland Clinic President and CEO in 2004, succeeding Floyd “Fred” Loop, MD, Dr. Cosgrove stepped away from his surgical practice.

During Dr. Cosgrove’s tenure (2004-2017), the number of physician-scientists nearly doubled, from 1,800 to 3,400; patient visits increased from 2.8 to 7.1 million; the number of caregivers soared to 52,000; research funding grew to $260 million; and new construction was prolific.

“One of the reasons Cleveland Clinic is a success is because it’s in Cleveland,” Dr. Cosgrove says.

“Cleveland is a good filter. People are not coming here to go to the beach or to ski. They’re coming here to work,” he says. “So, when you recruit someone here, they are coming to participate.” And then “they inevitably fall in love with the city.”

One such recruit was Tom Mihaljevic, MD, who joined the hospital system the same year Dr. Cosgrove became CEO. In his first “State of the Clinic” address, Dr. Mihaljevic credited his successor with leading the Cleveland Clinic to astonishing heights, noting that in 2017 alone, Cleveland Clinic ran one of the largest graduate medical education and training programs; opened the $276 million, 377,000-square-foot Taussig Cancer Center; built new rehabilitation centers and urgent care facilities; logged thousands of telemedicine visits; and continued to increase its uncompensated care and community activity.

Author of a book (“The Cleveland Clinic Way”) and nearly 450 journal articles and book chapters, Dr. Cosgrove has filed 30 patents for surgical innovations. In July 2018 he was named executive adviser to Google’s Healthcare & Life Sciences team.

Dr. Cosgrove is married to lawyer Anita Cosgrove and has two daughters.

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Art J. Falco grew up in Painesville Ohio and earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Bowling Green State University (where he also met his wife Maryann). He began his career in the accounting department of the former Diamond Shamrock Corp. (a chemical, oil and gas company) in its Fairport Harbor and Chardon offices and also worked at Natural Impressions in Painesville.

In 1985 Mr. Falco joined Playhouse Square as finance director. In 1988 he was promoted to vice president of finance and administration. Three years later, he became president and CEO of Playhouse Square. He succeeded Larry Wilker, whom he cites as a mentor who taught him the theater business.

Mr. Falco held that position until his retirement in June 2019. “I saw an organization where there was a vision beyond the renovation of some theaters … It was more about being a catalyst for the development of the neighborhood,” he says.

It was under Mr. Falco’s leadership that Playhouse Square completed the world’s largest theater restoration project and expanded its business model to include real estate development.

With 11 stages and more than 1 million guests annually, Playhouse Square is the largest performing arts center outside of New York. Its 46,000 season subscribers make up the largest Broadway series season ticket holder base in the nation and its 2,000 volunteers surpasses other arts centers.

Those who know Mr. Falco knows he is quick to spread credit and praise around for the success of Playhouse Square. It’s a combination of the staff, theater-goers, volunteers and much more, he says. “At the end of the day, it’s been knowing what customers want and satisfying their needs.”

Also important to Mr. Falco and Playhouse Square are its many productive, long-lasting partnerships with a wide range of local businesses and educational and arts organizations. “There’s so much talent in this area. That’s what I appreciate,” he says.

Through its Real Estate Services arm, Playhouse Square owns most of its theaters – as well as more than 1 million square feet of real estate. And it manages another 1.5 million square feet of space on top of that. This unique business model allows Playhouse Square to earn more than 90% of its operating budget.

“What I’ve learned is the performing arts – all art – can change lives,” he says. “And it’s not just quality of life; theater increases confidence and self-awareness, exposes the participant and the audience member to myriad subjects they might not otherwise discover, and it just helps create a better, well-rounded person.”

Mr. Falco’s role has now changed to senior advisor for special projects to Playhouse Square through its completion (expected in 2020) of The Lumen, a 34-story, 318-unit apartment tower at Euclid Avenue and East 17th Street. He also continues to serve as an adviser and in board roles for the Cleveland Restoration Society, Destination Cleveland, Downtown Cleveland Alliance and Playhouse Square District Development Corporation.

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Bob Gries followed in his father’s footsteps to attend Yale University. But the Cleveland native returned to the city after graduating in 1951 to join the May Company, which his mother’s father had built into the largest department store chain in Ohio.

“I always knew it was my job to stay here and try to make some difference as a fifth-generation Clevelander,” he says.

Mr. Gries is fiercely proud of his lineage. A paternal great-great-grandfather, Simson Thorman, was the first Jewish settler in Cleveland, arriving in the early 1830s from a small town in Bavaria. He established the city’s first synagogue and was elected to City Council.

Paternal grandfather Rabbi Moses Gries was rabbi of Cleveland’s largest Reform temple and was instrumental in the founding of numerous Jewish and community organizations. Maternal grandfather Nathan Dauby was the builder of the May Company and a leading business and philanthropic leader.

Mr. Gries’s father, businessman and philanthropist Robert Hays Gries, was one of the founders of both the Cleveland Rams and the Cleveland Browns football teams.

The younger Gries has continued his family’s rich legacy in business, sports, politics, Jewish causes and philanthropy.

In the early 1960s he started a career in venture capitalism, an industry then in its infancy.

As treasurer of Carl Stokes’s mayoral campaign in 1967, he had a front row seat to history. He continued being politically active with such notable figures as the late George Voinovich and Michael R. White.

Since age 51, Mr. Gries – author of “Aging with Attitude” – has traveled to 45 countries on all seven continents in his pursuit of physical adventures such as long-distance running, mountain climbing, biking and high-altitude hiking.

At age 89 he still serves on the boards of American Jewish Committee, Boy Scouts of America, Cleveland Play House and Vocational Guidance Services – each for 50 years and counting – and a half dozen other organizations.

Mr Gries credits much of his success to his wife Sally Gries, with whom he remains active in the philanthropic landscape of Cleveland.

All but one of the sixth generation of the Gries family live in Cleveland and are finding ways to give back to the city. Six of the seven who make up the seventh generation have grown up in Cleveland. “I hope and expect some of them will settle here and carry on the family legacy,” he says.

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For more than 50 years Carole F. Hoover has built a career that has blended civil rights, support of Northeast Ohio’s businesses, civic leadership and philanthropy.

As a student at Tennessee State University, she was at the forefront of the civil rights movement. After graduation, she became a member of the executive leadership team of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She served alongside her father, the Rev. Dr. Odie Hoover, Jr., then the pastor of Cleveland’s Olivet Institutional Baptist Church.

Ms. Hoover joined the Greater Cleveland Growth Association — now Greater Cleveland Partnership — in 1971 to lead its efforts to support minority-owned businesses. When she rose to the position of president and CEO of the organization in 1994, she became the first African-American woman in the country to lead a major chamber of commerce.

She also has been a part of many of the region’s most significant public-private partnerships and other civic efforts. In 1979, she became vice-chair of the city’s Operations Improvement Task Force, led by then-Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich, which elevated the city out of bankruptcy. She was part of the team that made the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex project and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum a reality. She helped to co-found the Greater Cleveland Roundtable, which was absorbed into the Greater Cleveland Partnership in 2004. In 2016 she served on the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee, Inc., responsible for attracting the 2016 Republican National Convention.

As a former executive committee member of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and part of the Free South Africa campaign that coordinated Nelson Mandela’s first U.S. visit in 1990, Ms. Hoover has been active nationally in civil rights causes. No matter the cause, organization or campaign, she always provides support quietly.

“If you are doing it for the right reasons, you don’t need any credit,” she says. “I think of the dignity of individuals, and it’s all about what you give that can make them feel good, not make them feel like a victim in need of a lifeline.”

Ms. Hoover retired from the Greater Cleveland Growth Association in 2000. Today she manages the real estate and financial investment firm HooverMilstein, a partnership she struck in 1999 with New York financier and philanthropist Howard P. Milstein. She serves on the board of directors of Cleveland Clinic and remains involved in Cleveland’s business, civic and education communities.

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Born in Meridian, Mississippi, Bracy Lewis moved to Cleveland with his parents when he was 10 years old. He was the oldest of five boys.

Mr. Lewis credits both parents for his allegiant work ethic. His father worked during the day at J&L Steel and owned and operated a gas station on East 71st Street and Carnegie Avenue.

After graduating from Fenn College (now Cleveland State University) in 1963, the first in his family to earn a degree, he began working part-time at a friend’s CPA firm, then applied for a teller position at Quincy Savings & Loan. It was during a time when other banks weren’t hiring minorities and discriminatory lending practices, or “redlining,” was understood by many to be common practice.

“The work I did at Quincy was very satisfying because most banks weren’t making loans to African Americans or to minority churches,” says Mr. Lewis, who quickly rose from teller to loan officer to assistant vice president. “I could help African Americans get houses and make loans to churches, and also go out into the community and give talks to various groups of people and educate them about financial matters.”

Mr. Lewis moved from Quincy Bank to Euclid National Bank, where he started as an assistant cashier but advanced into leadership positions, thriving through two acquisitions. After tenures at Bank One – where he rose to senior vice president – and JPMorgan Chase, he retired in 2006 after clocking in almost 40 years.

The organizations he’s served include the Cleveland Restoration Society, Cleveland State University Foundation, Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority, the Jane Hunter Foundation, Karamu House, the Phillis Wheatley Association, the Music School Settlement, Music and Art at Trinity Cathedral, the former Huron Road Hospital, and the Greater Cleveland Growth Association (now part of the Greater Cleveland Partnership).

At Eliza Bryant Village, the African American-founded long-term care facility, his contributions far surpass annual donations. He built a library, provided print and audio books, and recruited a landscaper friend to overhaul the grounds. He planted trees and donated benches. He encouraged others to make significant donations as well.

He is a board member of the Lake View Cemetery Association and has worked diligently to preserve the historic heritage of the East Cleveland Township Cemetery.

“I’m busier in retirement than I was when I was working,” the 82-year-old Mr. Lewis muses.

Throughout his life, Mr. Lewis has readily offered informal mentoring, whether it was sharing his financial expertise with people in drug recovery programs or spending time in a classroom.

He has received numerous honors and accolades for his good works – most notably, the President’s Volunteer Action Award from then President Bill Clinton, the “Lifetime Achiever” award from the Black Professionals Association Charitable Foundation, the Ohio Humanitarian Award for Leadership from then Governor George Voinovich, and a key to the city and a park named in his honor from then Mayor Mike White.

Mr. Lewis also was appointed chairman of a task force organized by Mayor Frank G. Jackson to oversee the development and implementation of a plan for the African American Cultural Garden. He held that position from 2007 to 2012. The first of the garden’s three pavilions was dedicated in 2016.

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The great-grandson of slaves, Robert P. Madison was born in 1923 in Cleveland. His family moved to Alabama, then South Carolina, then Washington, D.C. before returning to Cleveland, where Mr. Madison graduated from East Technical High School.

Initially enrolling in the School of Architecture at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Mr. Madison left college to enlist in the military during World War II. He was a recipient of the Purple Heart and five combat ribbons.

After a brief time studying at the University of Pisa in Italy, Mr. Madison returned to the United States. He enrolled in the Cleveland School of Architecture at what is now Case Western Reserve University. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1948 and worked briefly before enrolling at Harvard University, where he completed a master’s degree in architecture.

While teaching at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Mr. Madison was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship at L’École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He came back to Cleveland and, in 1954, founded RPMI International with two of his brothers. The company would grow to become one of the largest minority-owned architectural and engineering firms in the United States.

Mr. Madison has designed hundreds of spaces around the globe, and he helped shape the Greater Cleveland community with his award-winning designs. Medical spaces, schools and churches, particularly in African American communities, has been especially gratifying for Mr. Madison. “Medical buildings were always very compelling because designing them meant creating spaces where doctors could (save) people’s lives,” he says in his memoir, Designing Victory (Act 3 Publishing, 2019).

The design contributions of Mr. Madison, who in 1974 was inducted into the prestigious College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects (and later served as that organization’s Chairman of the Jury of Fellows), can be seen throughout Cleveland at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, the FirstEnergy Stadium, the Gill and Tommy LiPuma Center for Creative Arts at Cuyahoga Community College, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority HealthLine, the Great Lakes Science Center, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Hilton Cleveland Downtown Hotel and the Cleveland Public Library.

His community service includes board positions with the Cleveland Opera, the Cleveland Orchestra, CWRU, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, among others. He was involved in the NAACP, Urban League, Cleveland State University and Boys & Girls Clubs. And he founded the Robert P. Madison Scholarship for Architecture for African Americans who want to study architecture.

Mr. Madison has two daughters. His wife of 63 years, Leatrice, died in 2012.

Mr. Madison retired in 2016. In 2018, Deeds Not Words, a documentary about Mr. Madison, screened at the DC Black Film Festival and Harlem International Film Festival before being shown in September to a hometown audience at the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival.

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“I don’t know where she got the money that she gave to charity. In a home with not enough money to make it, to give money to others is a noble act,” says Mr. Mandel. “I saw that, I grew up with it. It was like breathing.”

Although he enrolled at Adelbert College (part of what became Case Western Reserve University/CWRU) after high school, Mr. Mandel dropped out in 1940 to go into business with his two brothers. He was just 19 years old when the trio purchased their uncle’s small automotive shop for $900.

Those early experiences shaped Mr. Mandel’s eventual business success and civic impact. Today, Mr. Mandel is chairman and CEO of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation and chairman and CEO of Parkwood LLC, a private trust company.

The Mandel brothers grew their storefront business into Premier Industrial Corp., a global distributor of electrical, maintenance and industrial parts. Mr. Mandel retired as the company’s chairman and CEO in 1996 when Premier was acquired by the British firm Farnell Electronics for $2.8 billion.

The accumulated wealth of the Mandel brothers over those years has supported charitable work in nearly every sector of Northeast Ohio. Recipients have included Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and the Jewish Federation of Cleveland.

For nearly 60 years, Mr. Mandel’s civic volunteerism has helped to shape Cleveland. He served a founding role in several non-profit institutions and was a co-founder of Cleveland Tomorrow (now the Greater Cleveland Partnership), a partnership of 50 of Cleveland’s top CEOs working on economic development initiatives.

In 2013, Mr. Mandel returned to CWRU to complete his coursework. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in social work.

Mr. Mandel and his wife Barbara were married for 70 years.

Mr. Mandel passed away on October 16, 2019. He was 98.
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Sam Miller worked his way through Adelbert College (Case Western Reserve University) with the help of scholarships, then earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1946. Shortly after marrying Ruth Ratner, daughter of Leonard Ratner, Mr. Miller joined Forest City Materials, the Ratner family business, in 1947.

Now 96 and co-chairman emeritus of Forest City Realty Trust, Mr. Miller has made generosity a central part of his life and 70-year career as a result of his humble beginnings, the son of poor Eastern Europe immigrants.

Under the leadership of Mr. Miller and Albert Ratner, his brother-in-law, what began as a lumber and supply company has become a publicly-traded multi-billion dollar corporation that owns, develops and manages residential and commercial properties across the country.

Mr. Miller is widely credited with spearheading this move into home construction, and, reflecting on his career in 2007, said that he was most proud of the communities he developed in Brook Park, Parma and Parma Heights in the mid-1950s: “I made them into the fastest-growing cities in the United States for many years.”

As it grew, Forest City continued its expansion into real estate development, and today has 32 retail centers, 36 office buildings and 115 apartment buildings in its national portfolio.

For decades, Mr. Miller has been a man at the center of civic and business leadership in Northeast Ohio. He also has been an avid supporter of the Jewish community. He is a former board member and is an honorary lifetime member of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, and served on the board of the Cleveland Jewish Welfare Fund. He also has extended his civic and philanthropic resources to Catholic organizations and the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

“I’m very passionate about anything I do,” Mr. Miller told Smart Business magazine in 2003. “My involvement with the Catholic church, my involvement with the state of Israel. I just don’t join organizations to get my name on the board. That is worthless, and you do a grave injustice to the organization.”

Mr. Miller has been honored with induction into the Cleveland International Hall of Fame and the Northeast Ohio Business Hall of Fame, and with lifetime achievement awards from the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland and the Greater Cleveland Peace Officers Memorial Society. He earned the Founder’s Award from the Anti-Defamation League.

The Sam H. and Maria Miller Foundation has made gifts to support causes in the areas of education, the arts, health, children, social services and Jewish and Catholic organizations. Among its major gifts include support to Cleveland Clinic, where the Maria and Sam Miller Professional Excellence Awards have been established.
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Born in Akron and the eldest of eight children, Steve Minter credits his parents, Lawrence and Dorothy Minter, and his Midwestern upbringing, for much of the good he’s been able to do for and with his neighbors.

“My dad was a very skilled laborer, and ultimately became the first African-American county superintendent appointed by the Ohio Department of Transportation,” Mr. Minter says. “He set a very good example. But I was also highly influenced by my mother.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Baldwin-Wallace College and later would complete a master’s degree in social administration from the Mandel School at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU).

During the 1970s he served as the commissioner of public welfare for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And in 1980 he assumed the role of the first undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Education during President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

Otherwise, Mr. Minter has resided and worked in and around Cleveland his entire life, beginning his career as a caseworker at the Cuyahoga County Welfare Department (dashing early hopes of becoming a high school coach), and rising to director.

In 1984, after nearly a decade as a program officer and associate director of the Cleveland Foundation, Mr. Minter became the organization’s director. He served there until his retirement in 2003.

“It’s not to say it wasn’t hard and frustrating at times,” he admits, “but to really be engaged, to help turn around the Cleveland public schools, to effectively deal with the desegregation of the schools, to make progress with early childhood education, to see Lexington Village and Beacon Place [part of the Hough neighborhood revitalization] come to fruition . . .

“I had the opportunity to be a participant. I was able to work with governors, mayors (and) county commissioners, as well as private sector officials in trying to advance Cleveland. What a privilege.”

In September 2003, he was appointed executive-in-residence and a fellow at the Center for Nonprofit Policy & Practice in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. He also served as interim vice president for university advancement and executive director of the CSU Foundation.

Among his many accomplishments and honors, Mr. Minter takes joy in being the father of three accomplished daughters and, in 1991, the co-recipient of the Humanitarian Award from the Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio with his late wife, Dolores (Dolly) Minter.

Mal Mixon, the retired CEO of Invacare, is a self-described “country boy.” Raised in a rural town in Oklahoma, he grew up hunting quail. He also was a musician, taking part in piano competitions, marching with fellow trumpeters in the Oklahoma All-State Band and performing with the Fort Smith Symphony in Arkansas. A standout high school pitcher, he turned down an offer to play minor league baseball. Instead, he headed to Harvard College.

It was there that Mr. Mixon met his wife, Barbara, a Shaker Heights native and a student at nearby Wellesley College. The two were married in 1962, immediately after graduation and just before he would begin his four-year commission in the U.S. Marine Corps as a second lieutenant. Deployed to Vietnam, Mr. Mixon served as an aerial observer until his honorable discharge in 1966. He returned to Harvard and earned his MBA.

In 1968 the Mixons moved to Cleveland, where he has spent a lifetime helping other entrepreneurs. In the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Mayor Carl Stokes called upon the Harvard Business Club to help ease some of the tension and provide support to minority-run businesses. It was a call that Mixon would continue to answer throughout his life, later creating a minority fund and raised $30 million from banks and companies to help nurture budding African American entrepreneurs who lacked investors. He endowed a chair in entrepreneurial studies at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and guest-lectured there. He made a significant gift to Case Western Reserve’s “Sears think[box],” a building that houses inventors and entrepreneurs. While on the board of Cleveland Tomorrow, he helped start its venture capital firm Primus Venture Capital Inc. He also helped create BioEnterprise Corp. and launch MCM Capital Partners.

“I never did anything in my life where I didn’t want to be the best,” Mr. Mixon asserts. The desire to succeed on his own terms is what drove Mr. Mixon to pursue a leveraged buyout of Invacare in 1979 at the age of 39 – with a mere $10,000 in the bank. Then the vice president of marketing at Technicare, the Cleveland-based division of Johnson & Johnson that operated the subsidiary, Mr. Mixon raised $1.5 million and borrowed another $4.3 million. The company employed 350 people in three Ohio plants and posted annual sales of $19 million.

As Invacare’s CEO, Mr. Mixon was in tune with his customers’ needs. “I became very emotionally involved in my customers’ problems,” he says. “They wanted color and styling and they wanted to be independent.” As he learned more about his customers, Mr. Mixon got involved in their causes – personally working on, for example, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

When Mr. Mixon retired in 2015, the company had more than 4,000 employees in 80 countries, with $1.7 billion in sales. Invacare had become a world leader not only in wheelchairs, but in the distribution of home health care products.

Mr. Mixon is chairman emeritus of Cleveland Clinic and was board chair at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM). Mr. Mixon also sat on the boards of Lamson & Sessions, The Sherwin-Williams Co. and Park-Ohio Holdings Corp.

The Mixons have two children and six grandchildren.

Mr. Mixon passed away on November 30, 2020. He was 80.

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Though Rev. Moss retired in 2008 as senior pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, he still travels the country speaking and preaching, and he serves as the church’s pastor emeritus.

Rev. Moss earned a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College and a Master of Divinity degree from Morehouse School of Religion Interdenominational Theological Center. He became a pastor in 1954 and would later earn his Doctor of Ministry degree from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton.

Under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – a close friend – Rev. Moss served as regional director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference while living in Cincinnati.

In 1975 Rev. Moss became lead pastor of Olivet, established in 1931 in Cleveland’s Fairfax neighborhood.

“The role of a church is to minister to the whole person, the whole community, without regard to religious affiliation, color or economic circumstance. The spirit of the church ought to be inclusive,” Rev. Moss says. “The church ought to be the leading institution in the community fighting for justice and liberation through love and direct action.”

Locally, Rev. Moss’ civic involvement has included board positions at the Cleveland Foundation and the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood. He also has held national board positions at his alma mater, Morehouse College, and at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

Among his many honors include the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth Humanitarian Award at the 2007 Ohio State of the State Conference; being selected by President Barack Obama for the 25-member White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in 2009; and induction into the Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame in 2012.

Rev. Moss and his wife Edwina were married 50 years ago by Rev. King. Of the couple’s three children, a son – the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, who leads Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago – has followed in his father’s chosen vocation. The Mosses also have five grandchildren (one of whom is deceased) and two great-grandchildren.
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Sandra Pianalto was in fifth grade when she knew she wanted to be a public servant.

“I was learning about our American government at an early age and I found it fascinating,” says Ms. Pianalto, who immigrated to the U.S. from Italy with her parents when she was five years old. “I knew that I was passionate about public service and wanted to make a career out of it.”

After graduating from the University of Akron with a bachelor’s degree in economics, she applied for, and was accepted to, a position as a research assistant at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

In 1993, Ms. Pianalto was named vice president and chief operating officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. She would remain there for the remainder of her 38-year career with the Federal Reserve.

As president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Ms. Pianalto developed a reputation as a leader who believed in partnering with business and civic organizations to benefit the local economy. She was at the helm of the Bank during the economic crisis of 2008, a time when she redoubled her efforts to find ways that the Federal Reserve could assist in economic recovery and growth.

In addition to her professional achievements, Ms. Pianalto is a life director of the United Way and is the first female board chair of University Hospitals.

Ms. Pianalto recalls advice she received from one of her mentors, to step outside of her comfort zone and take on more responsibilities. She gives the same advice to the next generation of young leaders: “Be willing to raise your hand for tough assignments. That’s when you reap the real rewards.”

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Dick Pogue first joined the law firm Jones, Day, Cockley & Reavis in 1957. New to Cleveland, he and his wife Pat planned to stay for a few years before moving on to a larger city. They quickly fell in love with the city and its people.

Thus began a nearly 60-year career filled with professional achievement. Mr. Pogue was largely responsible for the law firm’s expansion into international markets, which he made his mission after becoming managing partner in 1984. He currently is a full-time senior adviser at the firm, now called Jones Day.

Mr. Pogue began his extensive involvement in Northeast Ohio in 1961, shortly after becoming a partner in the firm. He played a role in many of the most meaningful civic accomplishments in Cleveland’s history. He was a principal organizer of the Regional Business Council in 1997, which was a precursor to the economic development organization Team NEO. He was chairman of the board for the Cleveland Foundation during a pivotal time in the 1980s when the Foundation took action to successfully save Playhouse Square.

Mr. Pogue’s long list of community engagement also includes roles at or board membership with the University of Akron, University Hospitals, Team NEO, Gordon Square Arts District, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education (NOCHE), and Business Volunteers Unlimited, the latter of which he is a founder and chairman emeritus.

Mr. Pogue earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a law degree from the University of Michigan.

The Pogues, who have been married for 62 years, have three children and eight grandchildren.

“It’s a very fulfilling feeling to get involved in these civic organizations,” Mr. Pogue says. “I think leaders in this community have an obligation to be involved in the civic world. That’s one of the great things about Cleveland — it’s a sizeable city, but it’s one that’s small enough that taking on a leadership role can really make a difference.”

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Albert Ratner wasn’t sure college was the right choice for him when he completed his enlistment in the U.S. Army in 1948. Instead, he wanted to head straight into the family business, Forest City Materials, which was founded by his father Leonard Ratner, uncles Charlie and Max and aunt Fannye — four of nine children from a Polish immigrant family — as a lumber and building materials company in the 1920’s. The younger Ratner had spent his childhood helping out around the lumberyard, and felt sure that there wasn’t anything more he could learn in college.

So to encourage his son to pursue a degree, Mr. Ratner’s father identified the forestry program at Michigan State University, where his son could study lumber merchandising. He would later jokingly accuse his father of starting the school, since he had never heard of such a program. His father’s urging was successful; Mr. Ratner earned his degree in forestry, entered the family business upon graduation in 1951, and started his 66-year career at Forest City and is presently co-chairman emeritus.

“Over time I have seen that that it wouldn’t have mattered what profession or occupation I had chosen, my life wouldn’t have been much different,” Mr. Ratner reflects today. “Because it wasn’t the job I was doing, it was the way I was doing the job. Whatever occupation, we are still partners in communal and family life. We live by our principals and do things that follow our beliefs.”

Mr. Ratner’s parents were his early role models who set him on a path to business success. Early on, Leonard Ratner gave his son a great deal of responsibility and included him in meetings and business decisions. “He said, I want you to make your mistakes while I’m still alive and can help,” Mr. Ratner recalls. “That set my lifestyle of working with other people. The most important thing I can do is help others empower themselves as opposed to being directed as to what they should do.”

He spent his career working alongside Sam Miller, his co-chairman emeritus, as Forest City grew from a lumber supply company to a construction company to a home improvement retailer to a real estate development company. Forest City spearheaded the redevelopment of the Halle Building, which it purchased in 1982, and Tower City, which opened in 1990. It became publicly-traded in 1960, a $8.2 billion corporation that develops, owns and manages residential and commercial properties across the country. Its national portfolio now includes 32 retail centers, 36 office buildings and 115 apartment buildings.

In his civic life, Mr. Ratner was a primary architect of Global Cleveland, an initiative launched in 2011 that seeks to attract, welcome and integrate immigrants and refugees into the Cleveland workforce and community. He is a driver of the Center for Population Dynamics. He is also a member of the Group Plan Commission, the entity that envisioned the recent revitalization of downtown public spaces and facilities such as Public Square and the Global Center for Health Innovation. Mr. Ratner has been active in the Cleveland Plan to transform the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, the revitalization of the Gordon Square Arts District, Karamu House and Ohio’s Third Frontier Advisory Board. He has also driven Forest City’s investments into the Slavic Village Restoration Project. Mr. Ratner is involved with the entire Ratner family in many philanthropies and through the Albert B. and Audrey G. Ratner Family Foundation, which has supported causes in the areas of art, education, health care, poverty, the Jewish community and the general community.

Mr. Ratner’s Jewish faith has heavily influenced his approach to leadership. Over the years, he has supported such organizations as the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. One philosophy that guides Mr. Ratner is the concept of tikkun olam, which translates into “repairing the world” in Hebrew. “It is a difficult challenge and it is not possible to do but it does not give us the right to desist from trying,” he says. “We cannot save the world, but we have to try.” Another Jewish tradition says: “If you save one life, it’s as if you save the world. None of us by ourselves can save a life but we can by working with the community.”

Reflecting on Cleveland’s heritage, Mr. Ratner says he’s never found another city in country that can match the dedication of its civic, business and philanthropic leaders as he sees in Cleveland. “To me it’s a community,” he says. “My mother taught my sister and me that there’s no limit to what you can get done when you don’t care who gets the credit. It’s the collectivism that makes a difference.”

Relationships are how they built Forest City’s successful business, he says, and it’s also the key to making a civic and philanthropic community impact. “When someone comes to me with a problem, the way that I resolve it is to turn to my Rolodex and call someone to help,” he says. “The truth is, I am my Rolodex.”

But any discussion of life success with Mr. Ratner starts with family. “You lead a family life, a community life and a business life,” he says his mother taught his sister and him. “Family is the single most important thing because when things are bad in your family, it’s very hard to function. If things are good with your family and other people’s families, you can have a great community. If you have a great family in a great community, you have a great business.” Mr. Ratner was married 26 years to his late wife Faye, and 37 to his current wife, Audrey. With their combined families, they have five children, 14 grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

When his children were young, his daughter Deborah once called him at work in tears that her doll had broken Deborah’s fingernail. He set aside what he was doing to take the call, and established a rule that he still follows today — whenever a member of his family calls, he always takes it. It’s a rule Deborah Ratner Salzberg and Brian Ratner still adhere to with their own families.

As he gets ready to celebrate his 90th birthday later this year, Ratner still shows up for work at his office in Terminal Tower every day, although, “I have never looked at what I was doing as work. I’m enjoying it too much,” he says. “I have a lot of good days in which good things happen, but there are no days when the things I hope to accomplish I accomplish. I have the choice of being unhappy with myself or understanding that’s what life is.”

“There’s a Jewish tradition that you stand on the shoulders of giants. It’s what comes before you that allows you to take the next step. Part of life is learning the lessons of the people who came before you and adding what you can.”

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Barbara S. Robinson’s parents, both native Clevelanders, were highly engaged citizens, as well as music and art aficionados. Her father, an accountant by profession, was a violinist and violist. “I went along and sat for my father’s rehearsals with the Cleveland Philharmonic,” Ms. Robinson says. “And he used to have many of his friends gather at our house to play chamber music. Music was just part of my life.”

Ms. Robinson began studying at the Cleveland Institute of Music at age 3 ½, eventually learning to play the violin, flute, and piano.

Both her parents were very active volunteers in the community. “My parents taught me at an early age that my ideas could be accepted.” She credits them for her reputation as a conversation leader, consensus builder and activist.

Ms. Robinson decided against pursuing a career as a professional musician. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College with degrees in philosophy and psychology. As an undergraduate, she performed as a piano soloist with the orchestras of the Boston Pops and New England Conservatory of Music. She earned her MBA from Radcliffe College, part of a of a small group of women invited to participate in the Harvard Program in Business Administration.

After college, she met and married Larry Robinson and started a family in Chicago. (The two were married for 50 years until Larry’s death in 2003.) Ms. Robinson was a business consultant to new ventures and a piano recitalist. When the young family returned to Cleveland, she left her full-time consulting work behind and began her full-time-plus volunteer career.

She became aware that in Cleveland “there wasn’t much music education available to young children in the public schools.” She knew of groups in Philadelphia and New York forming something called Young Audiences. So, she set out to bring that concept to Cleveland. Not only was she the founder and chair, she would go on to serve as vice president and assistant treasurer of the National Board of Young Audiences, Inc.

Ms. Robinson also helped bring in funding for and organizing the Cleveland Ballet. She served as chair of the Ohio Arts Council. As chair of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, she testified before Congress to prevent the National Endowment for the Arts from being abolished. She also co-chaired the Cuyahoga County Arts & Culture Action Committee to promote passage of Issue 18, aka the “cigarette tax,” in 2016 renewed as Issue 8. Her volunteer service also includes leadership positions with the Musical Arts Association (the Cleveland Orchestra’s governing board), the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Arts Midwest, Leadership Cleveland, University Hospitals, the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, and more.

In 1999 Ms. Robinson was elected to sit on the Harvard Board of Overseers, which would be involved in bringing in a new president of the university.

Ms. Robinson has three children and six grandchildren.

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Jerry Sue Thornton, PhD, grew up in a small farm community in Kentucky, the daughter of a union coal miner and domestic worker. Following high school, she went to Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

“I always loved learning,” she recalled. “Teaching is what I always wanted to do. My heart is in the classroom.”

After teaching for a decade at the sixth-grade, high school and college levels, Dr. Thornton accepted several administrative roles, including dean of arts and sciences at Triton College in Illinois and president of Lakewood Community College (now Century College) in Minnesota.

“I realized I could shape policies and procedures within school districts and institutions and influence the education of many more students in a leadership role,” says Dr. Thornton, who earned her doctorate in educational administration at The University of Texas at Austin.

In 1992, Dr. Thornton moved to Northeast Ohio to accept the position as president of Cuyahoga Community College.

“I didn’t know anything about Cleveland when I was offered the position here,” she admits. “But Cleveland made me realize quickly how much I like urban environments. I like the energy of cities, the grittiness of cities, the people who reside in cities . . . I like resolving issues that matter in cities.”

Under Dr. Thornton’s leadership, Tri-C became an economic force in the region, employing more than 3,000 faculty and staff and adding more than $115 million in additional labor and non-labor income. In addition:

• Enrollment grew 40 percent – from 23,000 students on three campuses to more than 32,000 students on four campuses.
• More than 20,000 people enrolled in workforce training programs at Tri-C’s Corporate College, Unified Technology Center (now Manufacturing Technology Center), and Advanced Technology Training Center.
• Construction and renovation projects totaled $300 million. Voters supported five countywide ballot issues.
• A student scholarship endowment grew from $1.3 million to more than $38 million. Further, the college maintained the second-lowest tuition in the state, and the curriculum grew to more than 1,000 credit courses in more than 140 career and technical programs.

A year after retiring from Tri-C in 2012, Dr. Thornton founded Dream Catchers Educational Consulting Services, a company that coaches new college presidents.

Dr. Thornton has provided leadership to and supported activities of more than a dozen organizations and events in Cleveland, including the United Way of Greater Cleveland, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Playhouse Square, The MetroHealth System, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cuyahoga Community College Foundation. She and her husband Walter Thornton enjoy taking part in Cleveland’s many cultural activities.

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“My parents were first generation Americans who struggled hard,” Sen. Voinovich says. “They underscored that as citizens of the United States we had an obligation to give back to our community.”

At Collinwood High School, Sen. Voinovich told classmates he would become mayor of Cleveland. At Ohio University, where he served as student body president before going on to law school at Ohio State University, Sen. Voinovich went one step further, announcing he would one day be governor.

By the time Sen. Voinovich campaigned to become Cleveland’s mayor, he had already served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives (1967-1971), Cuyahoga County Auditor (1971-1976), Cuyahoga County Board of Commissions member (1977-1978) and lieutenant governor (1978-1979).

Sen. Voinovich was elected mayor in 1979, and served from 1980 to 1989. He became the first big-city mayor to incorporate public/private partnerships into municipal governance. He was an early proponent of Cleveland’s waterfront development, supporting the creation of the North Coast Harbor, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Great Lakes Science Center (Voinovich Bicentennial Park is named in his honor).

He also enticed major corporations to open downtown Cleveland offices and helped lay the groundwork for the Gateway Sports District.

“I have always said what I’m really proud about is not so much the physical infrastructure of the city but its civic and human infrastructure,” he says.

As governor of Ohio (1991-1998), and later a member of the U.S. Senate (1999-2011), Sen. Voinovich continued to promote the merits of collaboration between public agencies and the private sector, and he worked to keep a tight rein on government spending. In 1995, he was named public official of the year by the magazine GOVERNING, for his many accomplishments.

After retiring from the senate in 2011, Sen. Voinovich moved back to Collinwood, to the same home where he and his wife Janet raised their four children.

But he has not retreated from causes close to his heart, including raising awareness on the national debt and writing a book on public/private partnerships.

“I tell people that just because I’m retired doesn’t mean I should stop using what God has given me to continue making a contribution in people’s lives,” he says.

Sen. Voinovich passed away on June 12, 2016. He was 79.
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After earning a master’s degree in public administration, education and urban governance from The Ohio State University, Michael White got his first job in the administration of Columbus Mayor Tom Moody. At age 22, he was in charge of creating an urban homesteading program that sold homes for $1 to encourage families to move to and invest in the city. During his tenure, the program sold more than 70 Columbus homes.

After returning to his hometown of Cleveland in 1976, Mr. White started executing his strategy to reach City Hall, beginning with a job as an aide to then-City Council President George Forbes. Mr. White won a seat on City Council the following year, at only 27 years of age, becoming the youngest member of the council’s finance committee in the city’s history.

After a term representing the 21st district in the Ohio Senate, Mr. White launched his mayoral campaign with meager funds and a skeleton staff. On November 7, 1989, he won, beating Forbes, his former boss.

“I remember looking out at the crowd of Cleveland residents, black and white, and I remember reflecting on how many children were there,” says Mr. White of his inauguration day. “I remember how they looked at me as a symbol of what could be. It speaks to the powerful responsibility of being the kind of leader people want to follow.”

During his three terms, Mayor White presided over a comeback era for Cleveland, a time of significant downtown development such as the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the Great Lakes Science Center. He secured federal funds for Empowerment Zones on Cleveland’s East Side. He created the Mayoral Commission on School Governance to address the crisis in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, which led to the appointment of a CEO to oversee its renewal. He spearheaded the project to expand Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. He helped the city to preserve the Cleveland Browns intellectual property when the team left in 1995, restoring the brand with an expansion team in 1999.

When his final term ended in 2001, Mayor White retired from public service. He and his wife of 20 years, JoAnn, live in Newcomerstown, where they operate Seven Pines Alpaca Farm, Yellow Butterfly Winery and a foundation that rescues horses and rehabilitates them for adoption.

Mayor White still spends time in Cleveland every week as program director for the Neighborhood Leadership Development Program, which is part of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation.

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