People on the Move is a part of Delaware Business Times’ For the Record section, a rundown of recent hirings, promotions, appointments and other notable movements by professionals in the state. If you’re interested in submitting an entry, please contact news@delawarebusinesstimes.com.
HEALTH CARE
Ryan Marshall is the new public relations content coordinator with Beebe Healthcare. A University of Delaware graduate in 2013, Marshall was a journalist with Delmarva Now and the Delmarva Media Group, a Gannett company. He was the content strategist for the Delaware Wave and Delaware Coast Press in Sussex County near the beaches.
The Delaware Thoroughbred Racing Commission has selected a new Associate State Steward and a new Safety Steward. The commission regulates and oversees the sport of thoroughbred and Arabian racing in the state:
• Tony Langford, a level 1 Steward and racing official with a national racing background in Florida and Texas was named Associate State Steward.
• Eric Coatrieux, a former trainer and current Racing Official in Maryland, was named Safety Steward.
Nicolas E. Jenner has joined Landis Rath & Cobb LLP, a Delaware-based corporate bankruptcy, restructuring and litigation boutique law firm, as an associate. Prior to joining LRC, Nick served as a Josiah Oliver Wolcott Fellow to the Honorable Collins J. Seitz Jr. of the Delaware Supreme Court, a judicial intern for the Honorable Leonard P. Stark of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware and was a law clerk at a Wilmington law firm that focused on Delaware business law.
Jim Wechsler of WSFS Bank has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Corporate Development. Wechsler has been a key member of WSFS’ Corporate Development team since 2015. Wechsler played a critical role in leading the due diligence and evaluation of WSFS’ combination with Philadelphia-based Beneficial Bank, a deal that closed on March 1, 2019, creating the largest and longest-standing community bank headquartered in the Greater Delaware Valley.
Bobby Nibblett and Tammy Reagan were the top producers for Callaway, Farnell and Moore Real Estate in February.
Daniel P. Mackarevich of Arthur Hall Insurance in West Chester and Hockessin, has been awarded the Chubb Cyber COPE Insurance Certification (CCIC) designation from Chubb and Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy.
Dr. Sheryl Kline has been named The Aramark Professor in Hospitality Management at the University of Delaware Lerner School of Business. The Aramark Professor position was established in 2001 to recognize a faculty member who demonstrates a high level of accomplishment in research and teaching, and a commitment to strengthening the department and its programs. It was held from its inception by Fred DeMicco until his retirement last year. Dr. Kline completed her Ph.D. at Temple in 1997 and joined Lerner in 2013 after serving on the faculty at Widener University, Purdue University, and the University of South Carolina.
Kerry McElwee has earned her Life Mastery Consultant certification from the Life Mastery Institute in Los Angeles. She adds this certification to her Master’s Degree in Forensic Psychology and her recent inclusion as a faculty member in the first Delaware Victim Advocate Academy. McElwee opened her Delaware-based business, Dream Coaching, LLC, in October 2018 as a Dream Builder Coach.
Delaware Botanic Gardens (DBG) has added Mark Carter and Lillian Harrison to its Advisory Council.
• Carter is Dogfish Brewery’s Director of Beer and Benevolence and has been instrumental in the funding of DBG’s outdoor living classroom, which includes a constructed wetland and reconstructed Inland Dunes, which are the center for DBG’s educational mission. He is a native Delawarean, graduated from the Virginia Military Institute, and is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps.
• Harrison is the president and executive director of the Elevated Community Development Corp. in Georgetown. She is a recognized community leader with skills in business, economics and community development. Lillian is also the Housing Director for Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council and is a Member of the Sussex Economic Action Development Committee (SEDAC).
Joe Jones has been appointed superintendent of the New Castle County Vo-Tech School Board. He will succeed Vicki Gehrt, who will retire at the end of June after eight years as chief of the county-wide school system. Currently the district’s director of assessment and accountability, Jones has been an administrator for NCC Vo-Tech since 2005, serving as both an assistant principal and principal.
Delaware Republican Party Chairman Mike Harrington Sr. will not seek a second term in the position, citing “personal matters.” Harrington, elected as chairman in 2017, revealed the information in an email to Republicans.
Byung-Chun Yoo, Ph.D., has been appointed associate director of Christiana Care Health System’s Gene Editing Institute of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute. Dr. Yoo brings more than 18 years of experience leading projects in genome editing, advanced molecular biology and biochemistry to this position. Dr. Yoo joins an 18-person team of research scientists, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows at the Gene Editing Institute under the direction of Eric B. Kmiec, Ph.D. He comes to Christiana Care from Napigen Inc., a Delaware based genome editing biotech startup, where he served as director of enabling technology, developing CRISPR/CAS9-driven genome engineering technologies and conducting business analytics and strategic planning.
SCORE Delaware has named its new Chapter Chair and Vice Chair, effective Oct. 1:
• Usha Gopalratnam will be the new SCORE chair. She joined SCORE in 2014 and has served as the marketing vice chair. She is a global marketing leader with business, engineering, and compliance experience in diverse markets and regions. In addition to SCORE, she has been consulting for international healthcare startups helping to shorten the time to commercialization and improving the quality of life for patients and providers. She has spent a majority of her career at DuPont.
• Eric Roberson will be the new vice chair. He joined SCORE in 2009 and served as the IT vice chair. He spent 25 years with DuPont, primarily as a programmer and systems analyst, three years with Accenture, and 10 years in IT process development and audit with MBNA/Bank of America. Eric is a Vietnam veteran with 30 years of active-duty service, retiring as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Information Management with the 311th Signal Command. Eric lives in Hockessin where he runs his wife’s Speech Therapy private practice.
IN MEMORIAM
Centenarian Gladys Clark of New Castle passed away March 10. She was the first woman to serve on the New Castle City Council and was one of the founding members of the Community Progressive Club in New Castle. She was an icon in the community and devoted more than 60 years to community service.
Alice C. Adelman of Wilmington passed away March 9, at the age of 94. As an art student, Alice attended the University of Delaware and later had one of the first studios at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art. A serious student of watercolor, Alice liked that her paintings had been compared by a critic to the style of a sophisticated 6-year-old, along with the art of Paul Klee and Joan Miro. Her playful semi-abstract works were shown in juried shows at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington; the Wallingford (Pennsylvania) Art Center; Gallery 20 in Newark; and West Broadway Gallery in SOHO, New York. With her interest in the rise of the human potential movement in the 1970s, Alice studied further at a local center for mental health services sponsored by Tressler Lutheran Services, once located in Newport. Fascinated by the insights to be found in dream symbolism, she began to facilitate groups at Tressler and eventually led groups in Wilmington and Cape Cod. “I don’t tell people what their dreams mean,” she said. “I help them understand what they’ve told themselves.” For Alice it was rewarding to enter into people’s lives through their dreams, which she found enormously creative. “I’ve never heard a boring dream.”
Cornelius James Erickson of Newark passed away March 16, at the age of 93. He was principal engineer at DuPont Design Division for 37 years and was renowned as an electrical heating expert. He belonged to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), where he was a Life Fellow, was a presenter of many technical papers and was a contributor to the code of national standards. He was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award in 1995 from the IEEE Industrial Applications Society and in 1998 received the IEEE Medal for Engineering Excellence. He was a member of the National Electrical Code Making Panel No. 12 from 1975 to 1995, and was on the committee that drafted legislation to establish the Delaware Association of Professional Engineers. After retirement, he authored the “Handbook of Electrical Heating for Industry,” published by the IEEE Press in 1994.
Charles W. Poore of Lakeland, Florida, passed away March 19 at the age of 87. Charlie’s career with DuPont spanned over 30 years and numerous sites. He co-owned Virginia Bridals and Tuxedo Junction, enjoyed emceeing Bridal Shows, and assisting couples to have their dream weddings.
Wilbur D. “Will” Kirkwood of Townsend passed away March 18, at the age of 86. After working for Delaware Power and Light for 12 years, selling insurance for Mass Mutual and Sun Life, and working in real estate with Nick Gentile, Will began training and driving harness horses in the early 1970s at a number of local tracks. He also worked for 10 years at St. Andrew’s School, teaching students how to build sets for school productions. He also loved working on the family horse farm, Wilchar Farm. An active volunteer with many organizations over the years, Will was the president of the Middletown Jaycees and served as the Delaware State President in 1968, where he led the Delaware Jaycees to No. 5 in the nation. In 1972, Will founded the Middletown Chamber of Commerce and served as charter president for many years; the chamber honors him every year by awarding a deserving member the Will Kirkwood President’s Award.
Dr. John F. Gehret of Wilmington passed away on March 14, at the age of 85. As his obituary states, “he was a man that touched so many people in his 85 years, and not in a bad way.” He personally delivered more than 6,000 Delawareans, and practiced with his father, Andrew Martin Gehret as an obstetrician and gynecologist in downtown Wilmington from 1963 to 1999. Together, they brought over 10,000 lives into the state, and helped countless women with myriad health issues. While John excelled at traditional high school sports, his true calling and lifelong passion was the game of golf. “Acer,” as many of his friends called him, began playing as a 10-year-old. Six years later, he qualified and played in the United States Junior Championship. He continued to play through Williams College, where he was captain of the team, and graduated in 1955. In 1956, his first year at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and two weeks after his marriage, John won the Delaware Amateur Championship. Through the years, John won the Wilmington Country Club Championship six times, a record that stood for over 50 years.
Robert Watkins “Bob” Crowe of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, passed away March 15, at the age of 80. Bob joined Cooch & Taylor in Wilmington in 1965 as the fourth lawyer in the young firm, and he enjoyed a distinguished 50-year career in trusts and estates law for the firm until his retirement in 2015. He belonged to
the Wilmington Rotary Club since 1969 and served as president from 1984-1985.
Leonard Phillip Sabato of Wilmington passed away March 8, at the age of 78. Phil started his dental career at Dodd Dental Lab and later opened Sabato Dental Lab, which he operated for over 45 years.
Ross Armbrecht of Hockessin passed away peacefully on January 15, at the age of 77. Following graduate school, he joined DuPont as a research chemist in elastomers and later served in various technical and management positions in his 25 years there. While working for DuPont, he was one of the founders of the Science Alliance of Delaware and served on its board for several years. After retirement from DuPont, Ross was still enthusiastic about science, and so joined Witco Corp. in Connecticut, holding technical and management positions there until their merger with another company. Following that, he served as president of the Industrial Research Institute, now called Innovation Research Interchange (IRI), in Washington, D.C. In 2005 he returned to Wilmington to begin his final “official” job, as executive director of the Delaware Foundation for Science and Mathematics Education (DFSME). While in this position, he also served on the Governor’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) Council. Ross had many interests, including music. He was director and conductor of a 16-piece dance band called the Rhythm Doctors for many years.
Donald W. Huntley of Wilmington passed away Feb. 20, at the age of 76. After graduation from the University of Illinois Law School in 1966, Don accepted a position as a patent attorney with the DuPont legal department in Wilmington, Delaware. While working for DuPont, Don earned the professional distinction of arguing a pro bono case before the U.S. Supreme Court, in which a 7-2 decision was issued in favor of his client. After retirement from DuPont, Don continued in private practice for nearly 20 years.
Denis Alan Curran of Hockessin passed away recently at the age of 70. Known as The Prince of Rock ‘n’ Roll in local circles, carried the mantle of hip swiveling greatness in a manner that would surpass the King himself. Nobody could command a stage like him. He brought his athletic prowess to the University of Delaware where he was a star midfielder for the Blue Hens’ lacrosse team. He began his professional career as a high school English teacher, then becoming a financial advisor. He enjoyed terrific success at Janney Montgomery Scott, alongside his loyal team, The Curran Wealth Advisory Group.
Dr. James Gordon Berlin of Landenberg passed away unexpectedly on March 9, at the age of 67. Jim completed his internship and residency at Metropolitan Hospital-Springfield and the Medical Center of Delaware, winning “Intern of the Year” before attaining board certification in Family Medicine. Jim then worked as an attending physician for Doctors for Emergency Service at Christiana Care Health Systems emergency department, while acting as an assistant clinical professor in the Physician Assistant Program at Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia. Jim later left DFES to open his own practice in Newark, where he was able to provide care for thousands of patients and garner Delaware Today “Top Docs” honors in 2003 and 2005. Recently, Jim had been working in urgent care the last seven years but was excited to start his new job at Family Medicine at Greenhill in Wilmington.
Lewis D. Lawton of Wilmington passed away March 19, at the age of 64. Mr. Lawton was a teacher at Gunning Bedford Middle School in the Colonial School District for 32 years.
