2006 Alumni Achievement Award Winners

Leslie Benoliel '79
ACHIEVEMENT: Leslie Benoliel serves as executive director of the Philadelphia Development Partnership, (PDP), a non-profit organization that provides comprehensive business training, counseling, and financial services to low-income and other disadvantaged entrepreneurs throughout the Greater Philadelphia region. Combining over 20 years' banking and community development experience, Benoliel has built PDP into an effective, nationally recognized microenterprise finance and development organization. Key accomplishments as PDP's director since 2001 include: increasing the number of entrepreneurs served annually to over 400; raising $4 million in operating and loan capital; expanding lending and training programs; and successfully implementing several national microenterprise initiatives including the Hewlett Packard Microenterprise Project, Covad Broadband Entrepreneur Program, and Prudential's Young Entrepreneur Program. Reflecting her commitment to her community and to miocroenterprise, she serves on several boards, including the Pennsylvania Microenterprise Coalition, White Dog Café Foundation, and Mt. Airy Community Development Corporation, and she chairs Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition's Small Business Lending Task Force. Benoliel received her B.A. from the University of Vermont in 1979 and an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1991. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband Alex Hamilton and their two young sons.

J. Brooks Buxton '56
ACHIEVEMENT: Bruce Buxton has been one of UVM's most successful alumni in the international corporate realm. He is an expert and influential resource on Middle Eastern affairs, having spent nearly 40 years working in the region, first for Citibank and then for Conoco. Living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, until his retirement in 2003, Buxton had an extraordinary career with Conoco, culminating in his serving for four years as president of Conoco Arabia Inc., and director of Conoco Middle East Ltd. In retirement, he started a successful consulting business, Buxton Mideast Inc., and he continues to be sought after as a business consultant for major clients throughout the Middle East. Buxton received his bachelor's degree from UVM in 1956 and he studied law at the University of Virginia.

Richard Sands '74
ACHIEVEMENT: Richard Sands has built Constellation Brands into the largest wine producer in the world having never taken a business course. He learned about the wine industry by working in every aspect of the company, from production to marketing to management. Today, Constellation Brands is the largest single-source supplier of imported beers, wines, and spirits in the U.S. It is the second largest importer of beer, the world's largest wine producer and marketer, and the third largest distilled spirits company in the U.S., with annual revenues exceeding $5 billion. Sands has been with Constellation since 1979. He became executive vice president in 1982, president and chief operating officer in 1986, and chairman in 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including Rochester Institute of Technology's Herbert W. VandenBrul Entrepreneurial Award, and was named "Man of the Year" by Wine Enthusiast Magazine in 2001.