Alumni Association Award Recipients | SUNY Potsdam Home Alumni Association Award Recipients Minerva Award Year Awarded Name Maiden Class Year 2025 Robert Wagner 75 2024 Michael Deane 74 2024 Rick Reagan 90 2023 Burt Mason 97 2022 Sal Cania 79 82 2021 Christine Haile 74 2020 John R Angier 88 2020 Eileen Whelley Goss 76 2019 Scott E Goodman 79 2018 Jason M Patchen 90 2017 Robert Christianson 72 2017 John O' Shaughnessy 88 2016 Robert E
Brian DeWitt ’79 | SUNY Potsdam SUNY Potsdam Alumnus Brian DeWitt ’79 just made his first trip back to Potsdam since graduating 38 years ago Since graduating with a bachelor’s degree in biology, he has traveled all over the world as part of a highly technical and successful career working in Silicon Valley
Alumni Association | SUNY Potsdam Alumni Board of Directors Originating over a hundred years ago, the Charter of Alumni Association was signed on October 27, 1910, by the Regents of the University of the State of New York The founding board members were: Julia E Crane, Henry C Curtis, Freeman H Allen, George W Sisson, Albert Rutherford, Elizabeth Reynolds, Roy B Stowell and Frank L Cubley The alumni association has
Genevieve Ruhland ’18 | SUNY Potsdam Before Genevieve Ruhland ’18 wrapped up her double major in music education and math this year, she directed a 70-minute experimental percussion performance in the Academic Quad—a project that allowed her to explore less mainstream percussion music as part of her Presidential Scholars research
Alex Raynor 11 | SUNY Potsdam Bundled up from head to toe and sporting a blue SUNY Potsdam wilderness education jacket, alumnus Alex Raynor ’11 swings two ice axes through the air while ascending a wall of ice at Azure Mountain, just 48 miles from Potsdam The spikes from his ice axes and his crampons sink into the ice with ease as he moves up the vertical wall like Spiderman
Randolph Mitchell 77 | SUNY Potsdam You’d never know that, for an otherwise unassuming family dentist, Dr Randolph Mitchell ’77 has seen his fair share of crime Since 2009, Mitchell has been working as the forensic odontologist for the Monroe County, N Y , Medical Examiner’s Office, where—much as in a scene from “CSI: Miami”—he is called in to determine a deceased person’s identity through dental and X-ray
Daniel Mertzlufft ’15 | SUNY Potsdam SUNY Potsdam alumnus Daniel Mertzlufft ’15 has been composing music since he was a child His music has been performed all over the world, most recently during a special performance at SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music where his composition was featured at the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar —a unique honor as the first commissioned composer for the annual seminar
12 Questions for Melissa Wegner ’03 | SUNY Potsdam Melissa Wegner ’03 is the associate director of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Hometown: Originally from Orchard Park, N Y , now living in New York City Occupation: Associate Director of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions
Andy Pacer 15 | SUNY Potsdam During his time at SUNY Potsdam Pacer spent countless hours singing with the Pointercounts, ultimately paving the way for this new position where he oversees the largest collegiate competition in the world His senior year at Crane he was the president of the group, leading them in a dominant quarterfinal performance, beating the second-place team by 90 points
Ronald Fishbeck ’80 | SUNY Potsdam Systems Made Simple was the company, SMS for short We spent the first 12 years in the manufacturing and retail end of things, as far as IT services went We built a lot of systems for Carrier and Eastman Kodak That was back when mainframes were the big thing, and then these things called desktop computers were coming out, and the big buzz was going to client server So that’s what we did