Saint Vincent Homecoming alumni honorees include Westmoreland pair
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Two residents of Westmoreland County are among 11 Saint Vincent College alumni who will be honored Friday during the Unity college’s Homecoming and Fall Family Weekend.
Jason Winters, who resides in Hempfield and serves as that township’s manager, will receive Saint Vincent’s Recent Alumnus Achievement Award during a 7 p.m. dinner at the college’s Fred Rogers Center.
Greensburg resident Deacon William J. Hisker, who teaches in Saint Vincent’s business department, is among nine others who will be recognized with Alumni of Distinction awards.
Winters received a degree in computing and information science at Saint Vincent, in 2004, and earned a master’s degree in higher education from Geneva College. He worked for eight years in Saint Vincent’s Office of Student Affairs, advancing to director of campus life and twice earning the Student Government Association Administrator of the Year title.
He was hired as Hempfield’s director of parks and recreation in 2012. He became the township’s acting manager in February 2018 and, later that year, took over the role, overseeing the township’s day-to-day operations.
Winters recently finished a two-year term as president of the Saint Vincent Alumni Council. He is president of the PTG at Mary of Nazareth Catholic School.
He has worked as a high school and college softball and volleyball official and serves as the district deputy commissioner for USA/ASA Softball and co-director of softball operations for the Collegiate Softball Umpire Association. He and his wife, Dana, a 2006 Saint Vincent graduate, have two daughters, Clare and Anna.
Hisker received the Saint Vincent Award for Academic Excellence in Sociology when he graduated in 1969. He earned a master’s degree in regional and city planning from the University of Oklahoma and a doctorate in public and international affairs from the University of Pittsburgh.
From 1973 through 1981, he taught in and later chaired Saint Vincent’s department of sociology and anthropology. He has since taught in the business department, while chairing the departments of management, marketing, accounting, finance and economics from 1995 through 2018. He has been honored with Saint Vincent’s Boniface Wimmer Award for Teaching and also is an adjunct professor in Duquesne University’s MBA program.
He was ordained a Catholic permanent deacon in 2005, after earning a master of divinity degree from Saint Vincent, and is enrolled in a doctor of ministry program at the University of Saint Louis. He is assigned to his home parish of Our Lady of Grace in Greensburg, while he serves as director of permanent diaconate for the Roman Catholic Diocese. He and his wife, Vera, have three children and five grandchildren.
Other Alumni of Distinction recipients include:
• Leonard C. Burrello of Tampa, Fla., author and professor of education at the University of South Florida, member of the Saint Vincent Class of 1964;
• Kimberly M. Colonna of Harrisburg, member of the Saint Vincent College board of directors and of the National Association of College and University Attorneys, Class of 1994;
• Arthur T. Downey of North Bethesda, Md., author and attorney who served on the National Security Council staff from 1969 to 1972 and was corporate vice president of Houston energy firm Baker Hughes Inc., Class of 1959;
• William G. Laird of Bridgeville, Greensburg native and consultant who has held positions in finance with Loyola and Carnegie Mellon universities and the University of Pittsburgh, Class of 1969;
• Judge Robert J. Lesnick of Alexandria, Va., chief judge for the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, Class of 1974;
• Dr. Richard C. Miller of Chatham, N.J., Latrobe native who chairs the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J., Class of 1979;
• John R. Perchak III, of Alamo, Calif., a native of Donora who founded Perchak Property Management in the San Franciso area and co-created the Perchak Family African Community Scholarship Fund, Class of 1969;
• Dr. Richard S. Sepesy of Monroeville, Braddock native who operates a dental practice in Monroeville, Class of 1952.
Alexandria C. Simmons of Jefferson Hills, Class of 2010, was selected for a Recent Alumna Achievement Award. Vice president of the college’s Alumni Council, she is the business development manager for Clark Hill PLC, in Pittsburgh.
Visit www.stvincent.edu/homecoming for details of this weekend’s events at Saint Vincent.