Obituaries
All of the following are obituaries written for late staff members of Boston University and published in Bostonia magazine.
SED professor emeritus brought people together
John Cheffers, a School of Education professor emeritus of curriculum and teaching, was an authority on crowd behavior, focusing his studies on the behavior of sports fans. He advised the International Olympic Committee and the New England Patriots on crowd control techniques, and his research on violence in sports was featured in a 1983 Sports Illustrated article.
​
But Cheffers wasn’t always an academic. He began his career as an athlete and then a coach before joining the BU faculty.
​
Cheffers died on October 28, 2012. He was 76.
​
He grew up in Melbourne, Australia, with dreams of competing in the decathlon at the Olympics, according to the Boston Globe. Just weeks before he was to compete in the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, he tore his anterior cruciate ligament, ending his athletic career. It was then he turned to coaching and teaching.
​
He coached the Carlton Football Club in Australia, the team he had played for years earlier, and continued coaching various sports teams in South Africa in the early 1960s. He became the track and field coach for the Olympic team of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1968, but Mexico refused to recognize the athletes’ passports and denied them entry into the country. He wrote about the experience in his memoir, A Wilderness of Spite: Rhodesia Denied (Vantage Press, 1972).
​
He began teaching at the School of Education in the 1970s, and his office was legendary among students. In the small space crammed with treasures from all over the world, including a boomerang, Cheffers always welcomed students. In class, he would sit at a large round table, stroking his beard and discussing the essentials of great teaching with his graduate students while classical music played in the background.
​
“His methods changed the behavior of everyone who had the good fortune of being his student,” says Leonard Zaichkowsky, a retired professor of counseling psychology at SED and the School of Medicine and a friend of Cheffers’ for more than 30 years.
​
Cheffers led the Human Movement Program at BU for more than two decades. In the late 1970s, he started the Tuesday/Thursday Physical Education Program. Twice a week, students from Boston public schools with limited access to physical education facilities are bused to Boston University, where physical education certification students run classes. The program is one of the longest-running community service initiatives at BU, with more than 300 children participating every week.
​
“His thinking was well ahead of his years, as he used interdisciplinary activities to teach and reinforce movement,” says Eileen Sullivan (SED’81), a former doctoral student of Cheffers’ and now an assistant dean at Rhode Island College’s Feinstein School of Education and Human Development. “He is and will remain a legend.”
In 1984, Cheffers began a two-year term as director of the Australian Institute of Sport. That same year, he became president of the Association Internationale des Ecoles Superieures d’Education Physique, a post he kept until 1998.
After retiring in 2004, he moved back to Australia.
Journalist William Worthy, Jr., defied the US government in pursuit of his stories
Journalist William Worthy, Jr., did whatever it took to get the story. In the 1950s, he scorned US restrictions and traveled to the People’s Republic of China, where he spent 41 days reporting on various aspects of life and interviewed Premier Zhou Enlai.
​
The former College of Communication professor and 1957 Harvard University Nieman Fellow died on May 4, 2014. He was 92.
​
Born in Boston on July 7, 1921, Worthy lived in the South End, where he graduated from Boston Latin School and was awarded a Burroughs Newsboys’ Foundation scholarship. He earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Bates College in 1942 and began his career as a public relations assistant for A. Philip Randolph, a civil rights activist.
​
Worthy considered himself to be “anti-colonialist, anti-militarist, anti-imperialist” and claimed conscientious objector status during World War II. He worked for the Baltimore Afro-American, a weekly newspaper, from 1953 to 1980, and wrote global stories with perspectives not widely understood or accepted in the United States. He also contributed as a freelancer to CBS News and to many newspapers.
​
When Worthy returned from his illegal trip to China, the State Department refused to renew his passport. Four years later, and without a valid passport, he slipped into Cuba to report on Fidel Castro’s revolution. He interviewed Castro and helped to produce an ABC-TV documentary, Yanki, No! Upon his return to the United States, he was arrested and convicted of illegally entering the country; his conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court.
​
His legal battle was immortalized in Phil Ochs’ protest song “The Ballad of William Worthy” in his 1964 debut album, All the News That’s Fit to Sing. It wasn’t until 1968 that Worthy was granted another passport.
​
Worthy faced off with the US government again in the early 1980s, reporting from Iran after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution. When he returned with copies of documents stolen from the US Embassy in Tehran during the hostage crisis, US authorities seized them. With the help of outside agencies, Worthy and his colleagues sued the FBI and the CIA and won $16,000 in Fourth Amendment damages from the seizure of the documents, stating that “Americans have a right to know what’s going on in the world in their name.”
​
Worthy interviewed dozens of world leaders, among them Nikita Khrushchev, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59). He reported from areas where few reporters were permitted, including the Soviet Union, North Vietnam, and Cambodia.
​
In 1976, Worthy published The Rape of Our Neighborhoods: And How Communities Are Resisting Take-overs by Colleges, Hospitals, Churches, Businesses, and Public Agencies (Morrow).
​
Worthy taught journalism at Boston University in the late 1970s, but left the University after conflicts with the administration. He also taught at several academic and advocacy institutions, including the University of Massachusetts, Howard University, and the National Whistleblowers Center.
​
In addition to his Nieman Fellowship, Worthy was awarded a Ford Foundation grant, and several freedom of the press awards. In 2008, he was presented with the Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Then-Nieman Foundation Curator Bob Giles praised Worthy for his dedication to freedom of the press both in the United States and abroad. “Throughout his life in journalism,” Giles said, “Bill Worthy demonstrated a remarkable spirit of courage and independence in his determination to inform readers about places our government wanted to keep hidden from public view.”
COM advertising prof defined by his love of teaching
Thomas Fauls, a College of Communication associate professor of advertising and marketing and director of COM’s advertising program, was known among his colleagues as a bright and creative thinker and an inspirational teacher to his students.
​
Among fellow faculty in the advertising department, he also was known as the go-to “tech guy” for all things interactive, according to a tribute to Fauls published by three coworkers in the COMmunicator, the college’s mass communication, advertising, and public relations department newsletter. “He created the first interactive marketing communications course at COM and introduced new technologies to all his classes, at a time when the college’s technical resources were minimal,” wrote Judith Austin, an associate professor of communication, Christopher Cakebread (COM’82, SED’00), an assistant professor of advertising, and Carolyn Clark, an associate professor of advertising.
​
Fauls died on June 26, 2013, after a long battle with esophageal cancer. He was 65.
​
He earned a bachelor’s in communication arts from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s in advertising from the University of Illinois. He also received a certificate in web commerce from DePaul University.
​
He began his career as an advertising manager for Chemetron Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, and then as an agency account executive. Over the years, he was a copywriter, a creative director, and an executive creative director, and he worked for such firms as NW Ayer, Leo Burnett, Foote, Cone & Belding, Cramer-Krasselt, and Atkinson Marketing. Fauls worked in print, outdoor, broadcast, collateral, and new media for big-name clients such as McDonald’s, United Airlines, Kraft, Sears, Frito-Lay, Oscar Mayer, Coors, World Book, and Dr. Scholl’s.
​
In 1989, Fauls joined forces with friend and colleague Patrick Sweeney to form the interactive marketing company SweeneyFauls, Inc. Fauls worked for the company for almost 25 years.
​
Throughout this time, Fauls conducted many multimillion-dollar national and international campaigns. He was also brought in as an associate creative director to launch and brand the company that would become Discover Card.
​
In addition to his work in advertising, he also conducted research about the field of advertising. He was interested in trends in art direction and graphic design, the disappearance of copy in advertising, the relative size of key agencies, and the domination of top ad agency holding companies. He was a coauthor of Advertising & the Business of Brands: Media Revolution Edition, an introduction to the worlds of advertising and marketing.
​
Fauls joined the BU faculty in September 2000. “Along with his practical creative background, Tom offered an understanding and enthusiasm for the burgeoning field of interactive advertising,” his three colleagues wrote in their tribute. “Tom’s passion for the new world of the internet, with an emphasis on search engine marketing, inspired countless students to consider the interactive world for a career.”
​
What defined Fauls was his love of teaching and his personal interactions with his students. “They sought his advice about course content and postgraduate opportunities,” his coworkers wrote. “They were rewarded with a rich perspective, a blended view of the advertising field that was both old and new. He inspired students to be bold in their search for that first entry-level job.”
And once they landed careers, those graduates came back to help current students. “These alumni paid their respects by coming back to Tom’s classes to bring their experiences to the current students,” Fauls’ colleagues wrote. “They became invaluable resources, notifying and advising new graduates about job opportunities. Tom’s lessons in expertise, generosity, and commitment set in motion enormous benefits to his students as they move on through their lives.”
84, A COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF PHILOSOPHY, ON MAY 4, 2014.
Rosen, who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and went on to earn a PhD from the university’s Committee on Social Thought in 1955.
​
Rosen received several awards and fellowships to continue his philosophy studies in Europe, including a stint as a Littauer Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens; a study grant from the American Philosophical Society in Tubingen, Germany; an Earhart Foundation Research Scholarship at the University of Heidelberg; and a scholarship to conduct research at the London School of Economics.
​
He taught for almost 40 years in the philosophy department at Pennsylvania State University and was appointed its Evan Pugh Professor of Philosophy in 1985.
​
In 1994, Rosen joined Boston University as the Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy. He was known for his teachings of Hegel, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Plato. He retired in 2008 as professor emeritus and moved with his wife to Philadelphia to be closer to their daughter. The Borden Parker Bowne Professorship is now held by Charles Griswold.
​
During his more than five decades in academia, Rosen held 11 guest professorships at prestigious universities around the world, earned a Doctor Honoris Causa from the New University in Lisbon, and served on the editorial boards of several philosophical publications.
​
He wrote more than 25 books and was asked to speak at lectures and symposia around the globe. Several of his books and articles have been translated into languages such as French, Polish, Catalan, Japanese, and Chinese.
​
His work was and continues to be influential in the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, rhetoric, and literary theory.
​
Rosen’s teachings inspired young philosophers and honed their skills as academic researchers. In a note to the Boston University philosophy community on Rosen’s passing, David Roochnik, a CAS professor and chair of the philosophy department, wrote, “For those of us who knew him well, his death is a remarkable loss. He was an extraordinary person and thinker, and we will cherish his memory. I, for one, would certainly not have become the person I am—and, dare I say it, the philosopher I am—without having studied with him.”
80, A SCHOOL OF MEDICINE PROFESSOR EMERITA OF MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING AND BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE, ON MAY 27, 2013.
O’Hern earned a bachelor’s degree in health and physical education fromSargent College, a master’s in counseling from Michigan State University, and an EdD in counseling from BU’s School of Education.
​
During her long career at BU, O’Hern served as a professor and an administrator. She also was a practicing psychologist for 40 years. At SED, she was director of international education and chair of programs in counselor education and counseling psychology. In 1972, O’Hern joined MED, where she was instrumental in developing the mental health counseling and behavioral medicine program within the school’s Division of Graduate Medical Sciences. She was a part of the Mental Health Task Force at the University, planning new approaches to teaching and training those going into the mental health professions.
​
O’Hern also was an avid traveler and enjoyed playing tennis, cards, and Keno, according to the Boston Globe, which described her as “full of life, independent, honest, generous, determined, intelligent, funny, stylish, and very much loved.”
​
O’Hern “was beloved by faculty, staff, and students,” says Karen Antman, provost of the Medical Campus and dean of MED.
64, A COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, ON FEBRUARY 11, 2013.
Michalski, a world-renowned Polish philosopher, was born in Warsaw in 1948. He received a master’s degree in 1969 and a PhD in 1974, both at the University of Warsaw. He became a visiting professor of philosophy at Boston University in 1986 and a professor in 1990. His students remember him as a lively teacher with a dry sense of humor and a million stories to tell.
​
He was rector of the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (the Institute for Human Sciences) in Vienna, an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences that promotes, among other things, “intellectual exchange between East and West.” BU graduate students can spend a semester or a year in Vienna working in the institute’s offices, learning about politics, art, and religions of the world.
​
Michalski was also Erasmus Chair at the University of Warsaw and a professor of philosophy.
​
In 2010, Michalski was elected president of the European Institutes for Advanced Study. It was one of many organizations, societies, commissions, and councils on which he served during the past 30 years. He received numerous awards for his efforts to generate peace and understanding. Among these honors were the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and the European Cultural Prize.
​
In 2004 he was awarded the 39th Theodor Heuss Prize, which cited his role “in the deepening of the political and cultural dialogue between East and West. Before 1989 he contributed to the liberation from Communism, and in the 1990s he supported the development of a democratic civil society in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.”
​
Writing in the New York Review of Books, Timothy Snyder described Michalski as “one of the architects of the Europe that emerged after the end of communism….He devoted his life to the risky proposition that philosophical discussion, in the right setting, could bring together Poles and Germans, Eastern and Western Europeans, and eventually Europeans and Americans.”
56, A SCHOOL OF MEDICINE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, ON NOVEMBER 23, 2012.
Bennett had a reputation for providing exceptional clinical care and for being extremely dedicated to her patients. In the classroom she taught her students: “Quality care first and all else will follow.”
​
She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from McGill University. After graduating from BU, she completed an internship in family medicine at Cook County Hospital in Chicago and went on to a residency in internal medicine at Boston City Hospital, now Boston Medical Center, where she served as chief medical resident. Bennett joined the BU faculty in 1989, when she was appointed a MED clinical assistant professor of medicine.
​
She served as assistant director of medicine, visiting physician, and program director for Boston City Hospital and was a staff physician at Uphams Corner Neighborhood Health Center in Dorchester, Mass. She was a leader in health care administration at Neighborhood Health Plan and Boston Medical CenterHealthNet Plan and was chief medical officer at Senior Whole Health.
​
Bennett was known for her zest for life and her love of the ocean, and for driving her Volkswagen convertible, exploring new places and restaurants with her life partner, Sharon Hanson, traveling to the Caribbean, and enjoying the company of good friends and family.
86, DEAN EMERITUS OF MARSH CHAPEL AND A SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY PROFESSOR EMERITUS, ON DECEMBER 29, 2013.
Thornburg held weekly teas open to anyone who wanted to come and an annual dinner for the University’s buildings and grounds crew. He and his wife, Ann, threw an annual community Thanksgiving dinner for those who didn’t have a place to go—international students, faculty members without families, or students who couldn’t get home for the holiday. And, recalls former Marsh Chapel music director Julian Wachner (CFA’91,’96), a friend of Thornburg’s, his Sunday sermons at Marsh Chapel were broadcast on WBUR, BU’s NPR radio station, allowing his voice to travel around Boston and beyond.
​
Thornburg, says Wachner, “wasn’t just the voice of the chapel, or of the University, he was its soul, too.”
​
“Bob was a caring and loving pastor to the BU community,” says Rev. Robert A. Hill, current dean of Marsh Chapel. “He was known for his happy heart and generosity of spirit.”
​
He earned a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and did graduate work at Garrett Theological Seminary at Northwestern University and at Union Seminary at Columbia University. He received honorary doctorates from DePauw and Illinois Wesleyan University.
​
He became an ordained United Methodist Church minister and served parishes in Chicago, Northbrook, and Peoria, Illinois. He later became the associate general secretary of the United Methodist Church Board of Higher Education and Ministry. In the 1960s and 1970s, Thornburg fought for human and civil rights and was chair of the Human Rights Commission in Peoria. He was well known nationwide for his studies on destructive religious cults.
​
Thornburg’s career at BU spanned 23 years. Many of the University’s most successful programs, such as the Inner Strength Gospel Choir and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Day celebration, were established under his guidance. He kept in touch with dozens of the children he baptized, students whose weddings he officiated at, and families of those he performed funerals for. He turned Marsh Chapel into not only a place of communal worship, but an incubator for student ideas.
​
“He lived a combination of deep personal faith and active social involvement,” says Hill.
​
Known for his sense of humor, love of cooking, passion for music, and joyful personality, Thornburg devoted his time to assisting others in whatever way he could. Former students recall that he was a source of inspiration and that he always knew exactly what to say. He cheered on the men’s basketball team at every home game, and he sometimes traveled with them.
​
BU inducted him into Phi Beta Kappa and awarded him a Scarlet Key, and the basketball team honored him with a Thornburg 1 jersey for his longstanding support.
​
He was a man of compassion who cared for the BU community even after leaving BU. Hill remembers a telephone call from the former dean after the Boston Marathon bombings, expressing his condolences on the death of Lu Lingzi (GRS’13) and offering to help the University in its efforts to deal with the disaster. “It was so relieving to hear his voice,” says Hill. “He told me he knew this was a difficult time for the spiritual community in Boston, and he wanted to express his sympathy.”
88, A COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION PROFESSOR EMERITA OF PUBLIC RELATIONS, ON JULY 3, 2012.
Hills earned a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University in 1947. Two years later, she was among the first class of students to earn a master’s in public relations from BU. She joined the faculty shortly after, becoming one of the first female professors at the University.
​
“She had many professional contacts in the industry, and she was a great organizer,” says Otto Lerbinger (COM’44), a COM professor emeritus of public relations. “People in the public relations industry thought very highly of her.”
​
When public relations emerged as an industry, it was largely focused on corporate work. But Hills specialized in PR for nonprofit organizations. She created classes to teach students how to fund-raise for local nonprofits as well as for international nongovernmental organizations. She started an internship program for graduate students to do PR work for nonprofit clients for a semester, a program she later expanded to undergraduates.
​
She was known at COM for giving PR students all the tools and resources they would need to succeed in the industry. She would often organize trips for her graduate students to public relations forums in New York, and she would bring the world’s leading PR experts to BU’s campus for special seminars.
​
“She was always a cordial colleague,” says Gerald Powers (COM’56), a COM professor emeritus of public relations. “She related particularly well to the graduate students. She was sort of a den mother to them.”
​
During the 1990s, Hills created a course in international public relations, which Lerbinger says was one of the first in the country. “Since then,” he says, “whole books have been published on international public relations.”
​
She retired in 1995, and that year received a COM Alumni Award. She helped raise more than $1 million to create the Harold Burson Professor and Chair in Public Relations, the first academic faculty chair endowed at the College of Communication. It is currently held by Donald K. Wright.
​
Outside of BU, Hills developed and taught a course on public relations at the US Navy War College in Rhode Island and served on the board of trustees at the University of New England for several years. She was also a fellow of the Public Relations Society of America.
​
“She was one of the originals,” says Lerbinger, who was the inaugural Harold Burson Professor and Chair in Public Relations. “She really placed public relations education on the map.”
79, A SCHOOL OF MEDICINE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, ON AUGUST 18, 2013.
Weintraub, an award-winning teacher of hematology, was known for putting patients at ease and helping future medical students become the best in their field.
​
Weintraub graduated from Harvard Medical School when he was only 23 years old. He interned at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and became a resident at the University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich. He began the study of hematology during a fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
​
He served three years as a captain in the Army Medical Corps, working as assistant chief of hematology at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he worked with pioneering hematologist William Crosby and where he conducted research on iron metabolism.
​
Weintraub began his career in academia at Tufts University School of Medicine in 1965; he joined the MED faculty in 1972. He was the chief of hematology at Boston Medical Center (BMC) for more than 25 years, working full-time well into his 70s.
​
He was honored by the medical center with the 2011 Jerome Klein Award for Physician Excellence. “Lewis has a gentle approach to educating and mentoring his students, and he makes sure patients always receive the ultimate care,” said Ravin Davidoff, a MED professor of clinical cardiology and BMC chief medical officer, at the awards ceremony on January 31, 2012. “Thank you for what you have given us and our patients.”
Weintraub also was nationally known for his research, according to David Seldin, a MED professor of medicine and microbiology and chief of the section of hematology-oncology at BMC, who told the Boston Globe that Weintraub was “a giant of hematology from a different era in medicine.”
70, A SCHOOL OF MEDICINE CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF RADIOLOGY AND
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRICS, ON MAY 18, 2013.
An expert in pediatric radiology, Cranley spent his entire medical career at Boston City Hospital, now Boston Medical Center (BMC).
​
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Villanova University and a medical degree from MED. After completing his training in pediatrics at Boston City Hospital, he served for three years as a major in the Air Force, stationed at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, S.C.
​
After opening a private practice in pediatrics, he soon became enamored with radiology and went back to BU for training. He would spend the next 35 years in pediatric radiology.
​
In 1997, Cranley was appointed vice chair of MED’s department of radiology. He was for many years a member of the school’s admissions committee.
​
Cranley was passionate about treating children and mentoring students and residents, according to an obituary in the Boston Globe. “‘Dr. Bill,’ as he was affectionately known, was beloved for his leadership, his knowledge, his teaching, his dry and unflagging sense of humor, but mostly for his dedication to the care of children and the education of hundreds of medical students and residents,” according to the Globe.
He was honored by BMC with the Jerome Klein Award for Physician Excellence as well as the Jack O. Haller Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Society for Pediatric Radiology, which recognizes those who have demonstrated an “outstanding ability to educate trainees (medical student, resident, and fellow) and…shown sustained substantial excellence in mentorship skills.”
​
Outside the classroom and the hospital, Cranley’s favorite place was his family’s home on Bow Lake in New Hampshire.
55, A SCHOOL OF MEDICINE PROFESSOR OF NEUROLOGY AND SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH PROFESSOR OF BIOSTATISTICS, ON JUNE 1, 2012.
Atwood earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematical sciences from the University of Texas at Dallas. In 1986, he received a doctorate in computer science from the University of North Texas and spent the next four years in postdoctoral training in statistical genetics at the Louisiana State University Medical Center.
​
After his postdoctoral work, Atwood joined the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio and later the Division of Epidemiology and the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
In 2001, Atwood joined the Framingham Heart Study in Boston as a senior geneticist. The multigenerational epidemiological study, begun in 1948 by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has been run by BU since 1971 under NIH contract.
​
He later cochaired the Framingham Genetics Steering Committee and was director of both the Framingham Genetics Data Management Group and the Framingham Genetics Laboratory. He also was codirector of SNP Health Association Resource (SHARe), a project to search the human genome for genetic variants affecting hundreds of traits that have been measured in the Framingham participants since 1948.
​
Atwood’s primary research interest was the genetics of complex diseases, particularly obesity.
A College of Communication professor emeritus of mass communications and public relations, on November 14, 2011, at 90.
Montgomery joined the BU faculty in 1974. He also was a faculty member at Notre Dame College (now closed) and Hesser College, both in Manchester, N.H. Previously, he worked for Anne Weston + Associates and Nashua Corp., both in New Hampshire, as well as Borg-Warner Corporation in Chicago. He was also the owner of the Montgomery Group, a full-service advertising agency.
​
He earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Baldwin Wallace University and a master’s in marketing communications from Case Western Reserve University. In 1974, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Institute of Applied Research in London, England. He retired from BU in 1994.
​
Montgomery was certified in mechanical engineering and was “a self-proclaimed ‘nut’ of motorcycles and airplanes,” according to the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader.
​
He spent many years advocating for the elderly. In 2001, he was appointed to the New Hampshire State Committee on Aging by Jeanne Shaheen, who was governor at the time. He received the Senior Advocacy Award in 2005 and was honored as a Senior Hero by the Manchester Region Area Committee on Aging in 2011.