2009 Alumni Achievement Award Winners

Paul Anderson is renowned for his contributions to the pharmaceutical industry he has served for nearly 40 years. Currently an independent consultant for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries after having served as a research vice president for Merck, Dupont-Merck, and Dupont, Paul earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry from UVM and a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from the University of New Hampshire and was awarded honorary doctorates from both institutions. After completing an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University, he joined Merck Research Laboratories in 1964. For his contributions to drug discovery in the areas of hypertension, glaucoma, blood cholesterol levels, and anti-viral-retro AIDS drugs, he received the Priestley Medal, the E. B. Herschberg Award, and the Industrial Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society. He also received the Perkin Medal from the Society of Chemical Industry and the Award for Chemistry in Service to Society from the U. S. National Academy of Sciences. Paul is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Society of Sigma Xi. He has served on the Council of the NIH Institute of General Medical Sciences and as president of the American Chemical Society. He has chaired the Medicinal Chemistry Division of ACS, the Gordon Conference on Medicinal Chemistry, and the NIH Study Section on Natural Products and Bioorganic Chemistry. He is currently chair of the Gordon Research Conferences and serves as director or scientific advisor for several public and not-for-profit organizations.

Herbert Brown '57
Atlanta, Georgia

As an undergraduate at the University of Vermont, Herb Brown was a two-time varsity letter winner as well as a sports columnist for the Vermont Cynic. Currently an assistant coach with the Charlotte Bobcats basketball team in Charlotte, North Carolina, Herb has spent most of the last half-century as a basketball coach at all levels of the game. As head coach of the Detroit Pistons from 1976 to 1978, he led Detroit to back-to-back playoff appearances. He has served as an assistant coach with Houston, Phoenix, Chicago, Portland, Indiana, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Atlanta during his career. As an assistant coach, he helped lead the Pistons to the 2004 NBA Championship and the 76ers to the 2001 Eastern Conference Championship. He also served as a scout for Milwaukee, Indiana, Philadelphia and Chicago, earning championship rings with the Bulls in 1992 and 1993. Herb began his coaching career in 1960 with 14 seasons as an assistant and head coach on the collegiate level at C.W. Post College and S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook. He went on to win championships in the European Professional Basketball League and the Western Basketball Association before spending four seasons in the CBA, where he led his teams to the playoffs each season and earned Coach of the Year honors in 1984. He also spent 15 summers in the Puerto Rico Basketball League, where he was named Coach of the Year with Isabela in 1981 and won a championship with Canovanas in 1984, leading his teams to the playoffs each year. Internationally, he has coached Team USA three times at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, leading his teams to a Gold Medal in 2001 and Bronze Medals in 1997 and 2005. In addition, in 1972 he helped train the national team of Pakistan for the Asian Games on behalf of the U.S. State Department. Herb has written three books about basketball and is an active participant in the NBA's Basketball Without Borders, Peace Players International,and the Friendship Games. He was inducted into the U.S. Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2007 and is a member of the board of directors of Maccabi USA Sports for Israel.

R. Jarrett Lilien '84
New York, New York

R. Jarrett Lilien held several executive positions in the financial services industry before founding TIR Holdings, a global institutional stock broker for which he served ten years as chief executive officer. Following the company's acquisition by E*Trade, he became president and chief operating officer of E*Trade Financial Corporation. In that role he had responsibility for the tactical execution of the company's global business strategies. While at E*Trade, he drove revenue growth and enhanced profitability, strengthening value for its customers. As the company's acting chief executive officer, he successfully developed and implemented a comprehensive turnaround plan necessitated by the global financial crisis. More recently, Jarrett has been president of the board of directors for the Jazz Foundation of America, which is dedicated to saving the lives of elder jazz and blues musicians, the pioneers of America's original art form, including many of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Eric Lipton '87
Washington, D.C.

Eric Lipton began his career in journalism as a member of the Vermont Cynic staff. By the time he graduated, he had risen to the position of editor-in chief, and he had brought the Cynic to new heights of reporting. He also served as a student trustee during his undergraduate years. Since graduating from UVM, Eric has worked for some of the nation's largest and most respected news organizations, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Hartford Courant, as he built a successful career in journalism. In 1992, he shared a Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Journalism for his investigative reporting on how flaws in the Hubble Telescope had escaped detection. City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center, his insightful chronicle of the birth and tragic death of New York's twin towers, was published in 2003 and received critical acclaim as "the definitive biography of the iconic skyscrapers and the ambitions that shaped them." Eric was the recipient of an honorary degree from UVM in 2008.

Keith Meurlin '72
Oak Hill, Virginia

Keith Meurlin has built two notable careers in military service and airport management since graduating from UVM. He earned his commission through the Army ROTC program in 1972, then transferred to the Air Force and served on active duty for 5 years flying the KC-135 tanker. He has served in the Air National Guard and Reserves flying the C-130 and C-7 aircraft. He left Active Duty and started a career in Airport Management at Washington Dulles International Airport, where he quickly rose to the position of Vice President and Airport Manager in 1989. During that time the airport grew from 2 million passengers to over 29 million. He retired from the airport in 2005 and has been on active duty in the Air Force since then. While in the Air Force he has served as an aircraft maintenance officer and held senior positions at Air Mobility, Air Combat and Air Force Material Commands as well as in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. Keith is currently working for the Secretary of Defense as Director of the office responsible for Wounded Warriors from all services. Keith is from a long line of UVM alumni, including his wife Beth, also a 1972 graduate.

Janet Reynolds '78
Stowe, Vermont

Janet Reynolds is a writer, photographer, and author who truly goes to the ends of the earth to get her story. The owner of Jan Reynolds Productions in Stowe, Vermont, she has earned widespread acclaim for her accomplishments as an outdoor adventurer with several important "firsts" to her credit. She was a member of the first team of western skiers to visit China in 1980 and the first woman to reach the top of Mount Muztagata in Chinese Pamirs, a site that had never been reached on skis and only scaled twice before. After scaling the mountain using no oxygen, she achieved a high-altitude record for women skiing down it. In 1982, she was on a team completing a 200-mile trek around Mount Everest on skis, the first time that had been done. On the Southern Cross Expedition, she made the first cross country ski and climbing traverse of the Southern Alps in New Zealand. Jan has been a member of the U.S. World Cup Biathlon Team and is a Mountain Man Triathlon Champion. On a research assignment for National Geographic, she made a camel crossing of the Sahara. Her byline has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, Esquire, Vogue, and People Magazine. She is the award-winning author of Everest Grand Circle, documenting this monumental accomplishment, and also of Mothers and Children, portraying the lives of indigenous people in the many cultures she has experienced around the world. Jan is a member of the University of Vermont Athletic Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Vermont Ski Hall of Fame in 2008. She was also on the cover of our own Vermont Quarterly magazine in fall of 2008.