Penn State University recognizes several alumni fellows

The Penn State Alumni Association and members of the Penn State University alumni community celebrated the induction of twenty-four new Alumni Fellows, including Dickinson School of Law graduates Jeffrey L. Hyde ’77 Lib and Edu, ’80g, The Hon. D. Brooks Smith ’76g, and The Hon. LeRoy S. Zimmerman ’59g. Also honored was Steven L. Fisher ’70 Lib and R. Seth Williams ’89 Lib, district attorney of the City of Philadelphia.

Penn State University President Graham B. Spanier served as master of ceremonies, presenting the award to each recipient.  

 

Of the more than 600,000 alumni of Penn State University, only 689 are recognized as Alumni Fellows. Awarded since 1973, the Alumni Fellow Award is given to alumni who, as leaders in their professional fields, are nominated by an academic college and accept an invitation from the President of the University to return to campus to share their expertise with students, faculty, and administrators.

 

• Jeffrey Hyde is senior tax counsel for General Electric Company and is one of the foremost experts on state tax policy issues in the United States. A 1982 graduate of the Law School, he attended with his wife, Sharon Dux Hyde '82. The College of Liberal Arts nominated Hyde for the honor.
• Judge D. Brooks Smith sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where he has served since September 2002. Judge Smith also serves as an adjunct professor at the Law School. He attended with his wife, Karen, and the Hon. Robert C. Jubelirer, a 1959 graduate of Penn State in Liberal Arts and a 1962 graduate of the Law School, who is a 2004 Alumni Fellow Award and 2000 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient.
• R. Seth Williams is district attorney of the City of Philadelphia, where he oversees 600 lawyers, detectives, and support staff and is responsible for prosecution of more than 75,000 criminal cases annually. The College of Liberal Arts nominated Williams for the award. 
• Hon. LeRoy Zimmerman was the first elected attorney general of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and served from 1981-1989. He is the former chair of the Board of Governors of The Dickinson School of Law and serves on the Law School’s Board of Counselors. He is senior counsel of Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, LLC, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he handles multi-state litigation and litigation dealing with mergers, public corruption, toxic waste and consumer protection. He attended with his wife, Mary, their daughter, Amy Freed a 1996 graduate of the Law School, and son-in-law Dave Freed who graduated from the Law School in 1995.
• Steven L. Fisher is the chief executive officer and chairman of PEI-Genesis in Philadelphia. Fisher is credited with taking a small, family-owned business and transforming it into the fastest assembler of precision connectors and power supplies for a variety of worldwide industries and applications. He entered the family electronics manufacturing business after earning his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School.

More information is available from the Penn State Alumni Association.