A prominent optics entrepreneur, a noted medical scientist and medical school dean, and a leading Rochester business executive have joined the University's Board of Trustees.
John Bruning, the retired president and CEO of Corning Tropel Corp., Dr. Philip A. Pizzo, the dean of Stanford University's medical school, and Daniel Wegman, the CEO of the Rochester-based supermarket business Wegmans Food Markets Inc., are the University's newest trustees.
"The talent and dedication of our Board of Trustees sets the standard for how a great university can envision an agenda and inspire others," said University President Joel Seligman. "We are indeed fortunate to welcome John Bruning, Phil Pizzo, and Danny Wegman at such an important and auspicious time in the University's history."
Edmund "Ed" Hajim, chairman of the Board of Trustees, praised the new trustees' professional accomplishments. "The success each of them has achieved in science, medicine, and business makes them ideally suited to help us further strengthen the University's leadership in education, research, and patient care," Hajim said. "They join an energetic and accomplished board that strives to take the University to the next level."
For 25 years, Bruning helped lead Corning Tropel, a manufacturer of precision optical systems and advanced metrology instrumentation for the semiconductor, data storage, automotive, and industrial markets. He served as vice president and general manager, president and CEO, and executive scientist. Founded in 1953 by University scientists, the company was purchased by Bruning and his associates in 1994 and later acquired by Corning. Bruning earned his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois.
Pizzo, the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Professor at Stanford, has served as dean of Stanford's medical school since 2001. He earned his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1970. One of the nation's most highly regarded experts on the treatment of childhood cancers and on the diagnosis, management, and prevention of infectious complications in patients with compromised immune systems, he previously was physician-in-chief and chair of Children's Hospital in Boston, where he was a professor and chair of pediatrics at Harvard University. Pizzo serves in numerous leadership positions and is the recipient of several honors, including election to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Wegman, who was named CEO of his family's supermarket company in 2005, joined the business in 1964 and became president in 1976. The Wegmans grocery chain was founded in Rochester in 1916 and currently has more than 70 supermarkets in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.
Wegman, who earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard, is a founding member of the board of directors of Rochester's Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection and a member of the board of the Rochester Business Alliance.