Chamber to honor award winners at dinner
Community service is a passion shared by the three recipients of this year’s Fayette Chamber of Commerce awards.
Edward J. Franczyk, Pennsylvania market president at United Bank in Uniontown, will receive the chamber’s Citizen of the Year Award; David Slusarick, the creative director and television team leader for Coordinated 360 of Uniontown, will receive the Herman M. Buck Award and Dr. David Meredith, an associate professor of general engineering at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, will receive the Albert Botti Award for Excellence in Education.
They will be presented with the awards at the chamber’s annual awards dinner at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington on Thursday.
The importance of community service was impressed upon Franczyk when he started his banking career at Gallatin Bank in Uniontown.
“I enjoy being involved. In my early career, banks always encouraged us to give back to the community,” Franczyk said. “It was something that was instilled upon us.”
His latest effort to help the community was serving as chairman of this year’s American Heart Association’s Heart Walk, which met its goal of raising $75,000 for medical research.
“I get others involved with me. I accomplish nothing on my own. It’s always with the support of others. I was chairman, but I was only successful with the help of other individuals,” Franczyk said.
In addition to getting other community leaders and organizers involved in the Heart Walk, he enlisted the help of his wife, Judy Kozup Franczyk, who served as co-chairwoman.
“She’s very supportive, and she was involved,” said Franczyk, who won the Buck Award in 1994.
He said he was surprised to learn that his efforts earned him the chamber’s top award.
“I didn’t even know my name had been submitted for the award. It was a complete surprise,” he said.
In addition to the Heart Walk, Franczyk is a member of the advisory boards of Penn State Fayette, Fayette County Career and Technical Institute and Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania, and serves on the boards of Fay-Penn Economic Development Council and the Imagination Library of Greater Uniontown.
Delving into community service, Slusarick said, is a good way for college and high school students to transition from academia into the workforce.
He will receive the Buck Award, which was established in 1974 to recognize someone under 45 years old who has given time and energy to community service voluntarily, without remuneration, and apart from their normal job responsibilities.
“Coming out of college or high school and entering the workforce can be a difficult transition. Immersing yourself in the community, figuring out ways to get involved and put your good talents to use helps you not only find fulfillment but to be part of something that is bigger than yourself, which is important.
“I’ve been fortunate. There are a lot of causes and movements I’m passionate about. I’ve been blessed to find ways to exercise those passions here locally,” Slusarick said.
He said news of winning the award came as a surprise.
“I was very surprised. I know the caliber of some of my predecessors that have received the award and some of the great things they have done in the community, so it’s very humbling to know that I would be considered as worthy of this honor,” Slusarick said.
He serves on the Uniontown Rotary Club board of directors and is an assistant for Rotary District 7330.
He represented the district as a member of the 2013 Group Study Exchange Team in Brazil and has completed the first level of Rotary Leadership Institute training. In addition to the Fayette Chamber, Slusarick is active with the Greater Connellsville Chamber of Commerce.
Slusarick heads a committee of the Salvation Army’s Uniontown Corps Advisory Board, served on the Heart Association’s Heart Walk committee and works in youth ministries at St. Therese De Lisieux Roman Catholic Parish in Uniontown.
Meredith is involved with many national engineering organizations and started programs aimed at encouraging students from grade school to high school to pursue careers in science and math.
He will be presented with the award named in honor of Botti, who was a local school teacher, principal, assistant and interim superintendent, co-founder of Intermediate Unit 1 and the first director of Fayette County Head Start. He was chairman of the chamber’s education council and a recipient of the chamber’s Citizen of the Year Award.
Meredith will be the first person other than Botti to receive the award.
“I knew Al Botti and why he got award and was surprised I got the award. It was a very pleasant surprise,” Meredith said. “A lot of times you talk about climbing on the shoulder of giants. He was the man in higher education in Fayette County for years. He had a job at Laurel Highlands, but he provided educational services throughout the county. I try to emulate that.”
Meredith is involved with a number of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) program activities for students from kindergarten though 12th grade at Penn State Fayette. For more than 20 years, he offered two weeks of summer space camps for grade school girls.
He has coordinated the regional MathCOUNTS competition for junior high school students for 24 years; headed the regional Junior Engineering Technical Society competition for high school students for more than 21 years and has written 23 problem scenarios for the national competition.
Fifteen years ago, Meredith created “Girl Power” as part of National Engineers Week in February to encourage female middle school students to consider technical careers. For this program, he received the 2009 Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network National Engineers Week Award for “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.” He also initiated the local Pi Day (March 14) competition for ninth- and 10th-grade students that now has two problems from previous exams posted on the JETS website each month.
“I work at Penn State, but I see the need for high school students to understand what engineers do. I try to bring engineering alive to students through programs here,” Meredith said.