Summer 2008 — Vol. 61, No. 3

Alumni Profiles

‘Those days after the war’
Mason “Mickey” H. Dorsey ’49

Textile engineering graduate Mickey Dorsey of Seabrook Island — retired founder and president of Lubromation Inc. in Charlotte, N.C. — recently made an appearance on German and Austrian TV in a new documentary on post-World War II Germany.

He and several other former soldiers from the Allied countries that had occupied Germany were interviewed for the documentary on the last months and year after the war — “Damals nach dem Krieg” (“those days after the war”).

During the war, Mickey was commander of an armored car called “The Four Rebels,” which had the distinction of penetrating enemy lines and progressing the farthest east of all Allied units during combat to near Waidhofen, Austria. It was also the first to arrive in the liberation of the concentration camp Gunskirchen Lager.

Dorsey has received medals from the Jewish Community Council of California and the Nation of Israel. Two years ago he was made an honorary member of the Austrian World War II Veterans Association for his honored service.

Walter’s ring goes home
Bobby L. Huguley ’52

Thanks to education graduate Bobby Huguley of Columbia, the 1950 “found” Clemson ring mentioned in the winter issue of Clemson World has been returned to its owner.

Huguley, a retired Jefferson-Pilot Corp. executive, decided to track down the owner of the ring found in a Clemson gas station restroom in 1993 or 1994. He learned that it was in the possession of the Pine Ridge police chief. He obtained the ring for a weekend by leaving his own ring as collateral!

He knew from the 1950 TAPS and alumni directories that there were nine “Walters” for that year. With only the name “Walter” discernable inside the ring, he had a jeweler use a powerful magnifier to see the hometown of Savannah, Ga.

He then joined forces with the University’s records department to narrow the list. The ring first belonged to the late Walter N. Gnann ’50. His son *Walter Jr. ’91 of Beaufort had the ring cut to size when he inherited it thus removing the last name. Huguley met Walter Jr. in Orangeburg and gave him his long lost ring — truly an act of Clemson kindness and perseverance.

Also, special thanks to Stephen Schutt ’01 of the University’s police department for bringing the ring to Clemson World‘s attention.

Colo. Business Hall of Famer
Harry H. Frampton III ’67

Business graduate Harry Frampton ’67 has been inducted into the Colorado Business Hall of Fame.

Frampton, as Vail Associates Inc. president and later as East West Partners co-founder, helped grow Vail and Beaver Creek resorts into two of the world’s finest mountain resort destinations.

He has also served as board chairman for the Vail Valley Foundation and the Urban Land Institute, director of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team and in many other leadership roles.

For the University, he’s president of the Clemson University Foundation Board, an Alumni Fellow and a generous scholarship supporter.

Frampton, a principal of Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate, was named Vail Citizen of the Year in 1987 and Beaver Creek Citizen of the Year in 2004.

Wendy’s Hall of Famer
Joseph J. Turner ’71, M ’77

Clemson entrepreneur and former alumni and IPTAY director Joe Turner has been inducted into the Wendy’s Hall of Fame. Turner is chairman and chief executive officer of First Sun Management Corp., a 49-unit Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers franchise headquartered in Clemson. His business partner is political science graduate Kelly Durham ’80.

Turner, who joined the Wendy’s system in 1981, has twice been selected as one of the Wendy’s systems top franchise operators and has twice been recognized as Wendy’s Marketer of the Year. He’s a trustee of the Wendy’s National Advertising Plan, which he serves as president.

At Clemson, Turner has served in and supported just about every aspect of the University, from the Alumni Association to IPTAY, from the Clemson University Foundation Board to the Clemson Libraries.

Turner is married to personnel services graduate Cathy Campbell M ’76. He holds degrees in industrial management and management.

Career of ‘firsts’
Georgia Keenan Lack ’75

Georgia Lack of Lugoff became a trailblazer back in 1971 when she became the first female accepted into Clemson’s electrical and computer engineering program. She, along with two students who had changed majors, became the University’s first women to earn degrees in electrical and computer engineering in 1975.

Lack joined the Charleston Naval Shipyard planning department in 1977 as the first female engineer working in electrical design. When she went to the Naval Electronic Systems Engineering Center in 1980, she was the only female engineer there. She later became its first female division head and department head.

She recently retired from Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Charleston, where she most recently served as Corporate Operation’s chief of operations and acting Corporate Strategy division head. Along the way she has pulled cable under the flight deck of an aircraft carrier in the July heat and descended ladders to submarines in winter wind gusts of 40 miles per hour.

Through it all, she managed with a solid orange family. Husband, Michael, was a chemistry major at Clemson and is now a minister. Son Christopher ’01 is a chemical engineer, and son Tim is studying economics. Contributed by Susan Piedfort ’78

Crafting The Boatloads
C. Dan Albergotti ’86, M ’88

English graduate Dan Albergotti of Conway is a poet, professor and core Clemson man.

He says he knew he wanted to come to Clemson before he knew what he wanted to major in. As an undergraduate student, however, he discovered his love of English literature, and the rest is a career.

Albergotti is author of The Boatloads (BOA Editions, 2008), which was selected by Edward Hirsch as the winner of the 2007 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review and other journals. He has been a scholar at the Sewanee and Bread Loaf writers’ conferences and a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

He’s also a graduate of the MFA program at UNC Greensboro and former poetry editor of The Greensboro Review. He currently teaches creative writing and literature at Coastal Carolina University.

Engineering law
Janine Anthony Bowen ’89, M ’91

Industrial engineering graduate Janine Bowen of Atlanta, Ga., discovered Clemson during high school while attending the Clemson Career Workshop. Several degrees and a wealth of experience later, she’s now a partner with McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP law firm in Atlanta.

Bowen focuses on commercialization of technology and intellectual property, issues surrounding e-commerce and the protection and exploitation of Internet-based assets, privacy and information security, data and email retention and technology export compliance. She has also worked for Accenture, CIBA Vision Corp. and IBM.

She says her experience as an engineer serves her well as a lawyer both in an understanding of technology and problem solving.

While maintaining a consecutive annual giving record to Clemson, Bowen has also served the Alumni Association in a variety of roles in New York and now in Atlanta. She recently endowed a scholarship in the industrial engineering department.

Among Maryland’s best
Rosemary M. Thomas ’90

Political science graduate Rosemary Thomas of Salisbury, Md., has been named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women for 2008 by The Daily Record, a business-based newspaper in Baltimore. She’s vice president of Salisbury University Advancement and executive director of the SU Foundation.

Under Thomas’ leadership, the SU capital campaign reached 80 percent of its goal in only two years, raising funds to achieve needed capital improvements and to provide scholarships. She’s conducted and participated in planned-giving seminars throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

Thomas serves on advisory boards for Public Radio Delmarva and the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra. She’s active in the American Cancer Society and its Relay For Life, General Federation of Women’s Clubs and other civic organizations.

As a Clemson student, she was a presidential intern and worked in fund raising with the administration. She also served as a Lyndon Baines Johnson intern in the U.S. House of Representatives for Congressman Alan B. Mollohan of West Virginia. She earned a master’s degree at the University of South Carolina and a doctorate at West Virginia University.

There’s ‘The Rub’
Robert M. Bickey M ’06

Sculptor and master of fine arts graduate Robert Bickey of Newark, Del., recently received an Emerging Professional Artist Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts.

After Bickey earned an MFA from Clemson, he joined the faculty of the University of Delaware as an art instructor. He uses a range of “found” materials, including industrial equipment and parts, incorporating them in his works.

Bickey credits much of his success to professional development gained through Clemson’s art program. He says, “The program is centered in a team-taught multidisciplinary environment that develops students’ awareness of art as a continuing discourse in which they are encouraged to find their own means of visual communication.”

Before becoming a sculptor, he worked in jobs ranging from historic renovation to bartending, giving him experience in woodworking, welding, casting and listening.

Clemson star
Clifford D. Hammonds IV ’08

Clemson’s School of Architecture’s fourth-year students and faculty felt there was one among them — Cliff Hammonds — too special to graduate without a little extra fanfare.

Basketball star and Dean’s List student, Hammonds received a Citation of Excellence signed by the president, dean, department head and others for “quiet leadership, discipline and collegiality, during the four years of undergraduate architectural education.”

Hammonds, a double major in architecture and psychology, has received national recognition as well. He’s the first recipient of the ACC’s Skip Prosser Award presented to the top student athlete in men’s basketball.

Earlier this year, Diverse: Issues In Higher Education magazine named him a finalist for the 2008 Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholars of the Year Awards.

Triad young leader
Darris R. Means M ’07

Counselor education graduate Darris Means, formerly of Spartanburg, has been named one of the Triad’s “40 Leaders Under Forty” by Triad Business Journal of Greensboro, N.C.

Means is assistant director of the Elon Academy, a college-access program for academically talented high school students in Alamance County with a financial need and/or no family history of college, at Elon University.

He serves on the Alamance County Closing the Achievement Gap Committee, the American College Personnel Association’s Commission for Social Justice Educators, the N.C. College Personnel Association, the Elon University Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society and Elon’s Young Alumni Council.

At Clemson, Means worked in student affairs as an adviser to Clemson’s fraternities and sororities and helped plan recruitment and leadership programs. He was one of only eight students in the nation to be selected for membership in the Association of Fraternity Advisors Graduate Staff.