Four Nominated to Serve on Pitt's Board of Trustees

PITTSBURGH- The Nominating Committee of the University of Pittsburgh Board of Trustees today named four new candidates for membership on the board. The full board of trustees will act on the nominations at its June 24 annual meeting.

Nominated to serve on the board as trustees are bestselling author Bebe Moore Campbell of Los Angeles, Calif.; Bobbie Gaunt of Saugatuck, Mich., retired president and CEO of Ford of Canada and independent director of ADVO, Inc.; Mark E. Pasquerilla of Johnstown, Pa., chair and CEO of Crown American; and Charles M. Steiner of Rockville, Md., retired chair and CEO of Branch Group Inc., and currently of Steiner Family Office.

Biographical information on the nominees follows.

Novelist Bebe Moore Campbell is the author of three New York Times bestsellers— Brothers and Sisters (1995), Singing in the Comeback Choir (1998), and What You Owe Me (2001), which also was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001. Her new novel, 72 Hour Hold, the story of a mother struggling to cope with her daughter's bipolar disorder, is scheduled for release by Knopf June 28. Campbell's interest in mental health was the catalyst for her first children's book, Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry (2003), which tells the story of a little girl reared by a mentally ill mother; it won the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Outstanding Literature Award for 2003. Campbell's book Your Blues Ain't Like Mine (1992) was a New York Times notable book of the year and the winner of the NAACP Image Award for Literature. Her first play, Even with the Madness, which debuted in New York City in June 2003, revisited the theme of mental illness and the family.

Campbell's journalistic articles have appeared in numerous prestigious national publications, and her essays, articles, and book excerpts appear in many anthologies. She is a regular commentator on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."

Campbell earned the Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education at Pitt in 1971. The University of Pittsburgh African American Alumni Council honored her with its Distinguished Alumni Award in October 2003.

Bobbie Gaunt made history as the first woman to enter Ford Motor Company's Sales & Marketing Management Program in 1972; 29 years later, she retired as a corporate vice president and president and CEO of Ford of Canada, after having been only the second woman named to head a major Canadian automotive company. Serving since 2004 as an independent director of ADVO, Inc., the nation's largest targeted home-delivered print advertising company, Gaunt had been ADVO's interim CEO from June to October 2004.

Gaunt was a founding member of the Canadian chapter of the Women's Automotive Association International (WAAI), received the WAAI's Professional Achievement Award in 1998, and was awarded the Automotive Hall of Fame's Distinguished Service Citation in 1999. In 2000, Automotive News named her one of the 100 Leading Women in the Auto Industry. She now chairs the board of directors of the nonprofit Saugatuck Center for the Arts.

Gaunt earned the Bachelor of Science degree at Pitt's School of Education in 1972 and is a member of Pitt's Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business/College of Business Administration Board of Visitors. At the University's Discovery Weekend in October 2000, Gaunt was inducted into the inaugural class of Pitt Legacy Laureates, and at

the University's February 2001 Honors Convocation, she was named a Distinguished Alumni Fellow.

Mark E. Pasquerilla is chair and CEO of Crown American of Johnstown, Pa. He joined Crown American in 1981; prior to his current positions, he held senior-level Crown American management posts with responsibility for, among other things, property management, including regional mall operations, accounting, and corporate communications.

Pasquerilla is a member of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown Advisory Board and the Board of Visitors of Pitt's University Center for International Studies. He also has served as a member of the Governor of Pennsylvania's Economic Development Partnership Council, the Education Committee for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Committee, among other organizations.

Pasquerilla earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in government at the University of Notre Dame and the Master of Science degree in international relations from the London School of Economics. He also studied international affairs at the University of Cologne in Germany as a Fulbright-Hays scholar under the auspices of the European Research

Institute.

Charles M. Steiner, currently of Steiner Family Office, is the retired CEO and chair of Branch Group, Inc., which today, as part of Rexel S.A., is the largest electrical distributor in the world. Mr. Steiner founded IMARK, an electrical cooperative; EDIC, a captive insurance company for the distribution industry; and Vantage Group, an alliance of six North American distributors as a national sales organization to service Fortune 1000 customers.

Steiner's contributions to the electrical industry have been recognized through his service as director and chair of various committees of the National Association of Electrical Distributions (NAED), for which he was presented the NAED Distinguished Service Award.

Steiner earned the Bachelor of Business Administration degree in accounting from the University of Pittsburgh in 1963. He is a member of the Pitt Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business (KGSB)/College of Business Administration (CBA) Board of Visitors. In April 2001, he was the CBA graduation speaker, and he was named a KGSB Distinguished Alumnus in 2003.

The Nominating Committee also approved the following people for re-election to the Pitt Board of Trustees: Charles E. Bunch, president and CEO, PPG Industries; John M. Cleland, President Judge, 48th Judicial District (McKean County), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; George A. Davidson Jr., retired chair of Dominion Resources, Inc.; William S. Dietrich II, managing director, Dietrich Charitable Trust; Melissa A. Hart, member, U.S. House of Representatives; G. Watts Humphrey Jr., president, GWH Holdings, Inc.; Alfred L. Moyè, retired senior university affairs consultant, Hewlett-Packard Company; and Thomas H. O'Brien, retired chair of the PNC Financial Services Group.

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