UNH Today

The University of New Hampshire held its signature annual celebration of service and philanthropy with the Evening of Distinction ceremony Oct. 17, doling out five awards to UNH graduates making a difference in the state and beyond.

Craig ’73 and Linda ’71 Rydin received the Hubbard Award for Service to Philanthropy, while Carol Shea-Porter ’75, ’79G was awarded the Charles Holmes Pettee Medal. Dr. Robert Barish ’75 was recognized with the Award of Excellence for Outstanding Achievement, Bradley Aiken ’65 ’78G received the Alumni Meritorious Service Award and Joel Berman ’76 took home the UNH Distinguished Entrepreneur Award.

Hubbard Award for Service to Philanthropy – Craig ’73 and Linda ’71 Rydin

The Hubbard Award was established in 2001 to honor Oliver, Austin and Leslie Hubbard and recognizes "outstanding individuals whose philanthropic leadership has significantly strengthened the state of New Hampshire, its communities and the university." Previous Hubbard Award winners include Peter T. Paul '67, Marcy Peterson Carsey '66 and Dana Hamel '88P.

Craig and Linda Rydin both arrived at UNH as first-year students, making the adjustment to life on a college campus from the small industrial city of Berlin in northern New Hampshire. They thrived through that transition, and their UNH experiences opened doors that would likely not have been accessible otherwise, leading to both personal reward and professional success.

But their story is not unique — because they didn’t want it to be. For nearly two decades, their generosity has made it possible for deserving students to follow directly in their footsteps.

Craig and Linda have made giving back to UNH and their hometown a fundamental element of their lives. They established the Craig W. ’73 and Linda Labnon Rydin ’71 Scholarship Fund and the Rydin Family Scholarship fund, both of which provide support to students with financial need from Berlin and nearby Coos County towns, as well as the Ralph “Navy” Labnon Hospitality Management Scholarship Fund — named for Linda’s father — to provide support to students majoring in hospitality management.

To date, nearly 100 students have benefitted from their philanthropy. More than half of those students received financial support from a Rydin scholarship for their entire four years at UNH.

It was paramount to Craig and Linda that their philanthropic efforts connect UNH and the Berlin community to give students in a challenged economic environment the same opportunities they had. Many of the Berlin students who receive scholarship support wouldn’t be able to attend college without it.

Craig and Linda’s UNH ties run deep. Craig served on the UNH Foundation Board from 2009 to 2019 and is a director emeritus. While on the board, he served on a variety of committees and has been a judge for the Paul J. Holloway Prize Competition three times. He was also among the first foundation board members to make a significant underwriting gift to The (603) Challenge when it launched a decade ago. The challenge has since grown into UNH’s signature annual fundraiser and just celebrated its 10th year by raising a record-setting $3.2 million.

In addition, Craig and Linda have supported a host of nonprofits beyond UNH, including Bay Path College, St. Francis Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess, Easter Seals and Project Hope.

Charles Holmes Pettee Medal – Carol Shea-Porter ’75, ’79G

The Pettee Medal, established in 1940, recognizes "individuals who exhibit the rare devotion to service" that Pettee was known for and is awarded to "a resident or former resident of the state in recognition of outstanding accomplishment or distinguished service in any form to the state, the nation, or the world."

Some might say Carol Shea-Porter’s first political campaign is especially memorable because it carried her into Congress as the first woman ever elected to federal office by the state of New Hampshire. But Carol recalls it fondly for another reason.

“I’m very proud of the fact that we had all volunteers on our first campaign — everybody from the top down was a volunteer. Which makes it somewhat of a miracle, right?” she quips.

That viewpoint highlights one of the significant reasons Carol was such a successful public servant and tireless advocate for the people of the Granite State throughout her career, which included three stints in Congress serving New Hampshire’s first district. Despite any personal accolades, her focus always remained steadfastly on the people — of her state and on her staff.

She remains proud of the fact that she never accepted corporate political action committee (PAC) or D.C. lobbyist money. Some of her greatest successes came in fighting to support the needs of veterans, seniors and working-class citizens of New Hampshire. Among the causes she championed are the advancement of equal rights, access to affordable health care for all, public education and the fight for cleaner air and water in the Granite State.

“One of the things I used to say was that I was in Congress for the bottom 99% of us, and I still feel passionate about that,” Carol says.

Carol is particularly proud of her work on several committees in Congress, including the Education Labor Committee, the Armed Services Committee and the Natural Resources Committee. She would also serve as an advocate and supporter of the Affordable Care Act, and she founded the Asthma and Allergy Caucus and co-chaired the Mental Health and Addiction Caucus.

Carol found her way to politics after working in the social services sector, putting to use the social work degree she earned from UNH in 1975 (she added a master’s in public administration in 1979). But she realized quickly that the only way to create real change was to earn an official seat at the table. “If you want to actually make legislation, you need to get in the living room, and to me, Congress was the living room,” says Carol.

Mission accomplished. Carol’s distinguished career built her an unassailable legacy as a true advocate for all New Hampshire residents.

Award of Excellence for Outstanding Achievement – Dr. Robert Barish ’75

The Award of Excellence for Outstanding Achievement was established in 2005 to honor a UNH graduate for significant accomplishments in business or professional life or for public service to their community, state or nation.

Dr. Robert Barish was still in the early stages of his medical career when he was offered the

chance to become chief of emergency medical services at the University of Maryland Medical Center in 1985. He used a simple philosophy to make his decision. “I figured if they had the courage to offer it to me, I should have the guts to take it,” Robert says.

The guts to seize that and numerous other opportunities — and make the most of them — would define a career in which Robert has established himself as a decorated medical professional and tireless fighter for humanitarian causes. His success, he has said, can be traced back to his experiences as a zoology major at UNH.

During his career, he would spend 24 years at the University of Maryland, where he was dubbed the “founding father of emergency medicine” for building a nationally recognized program. He has since held leadership roles at two other universities: At Louisiana State University, as chancellor of the LSU Health Sciences Center from 2009 to 2015, and at the University of Illinois Chicago, where he’s been the vice chancellor for health affairs — overseeing all academic and clinical components of UI Health — since 2015.

Robert has exhibited a lifelong commitment to public service and providing aid to those most in need. In 2005, he helped lead a medical regiment that delivered emergency care to more than 6,000 Hurricane Katrina victims. In 1979, Robert interrupted his residency to provide medical treatment to refugees at camps along the Thai-Cambodian border and in Somalia.

During his residency in New York City, he was on the frontlines of providing emergency medical care to AIDS patients in the early days of the epidemic. He later served in Bosnia/Herzegovina during conflict in the region and on a Native American Reservation in Minnesota. While at the University of Maryland, Robert joined the Air National Guard, where he was a lieutenant colonel and served as a flight surgeon. His career highlights aimed even higher — literally — in the early 1990s, when he interviewed to become a NASA candidate.

It’s a resume that more than speaks for itself, which seems fine with Barish, as he remains humble about his work. “I really think in those situations, I got more out of it than I gave back,” he says.

Alumni Meritorious Service Award – Bradley Aiken ’65 ’78G

The Alumni Meritorious Service Award is conferred upon a UNH graduate who renders meritorious service to the university or its alumni organizations through faithful and continued effort in maintaining class or other alumni organizations, through active participation in alumni or university affairs and/or by assisting and expanding the usefulness, influence and prestige of the university.

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone whose Wildcat pride is as easy to spot as Brad Aiken’s. Among his many contributions to the university since graduating in 1965, he was part of the small group of donors instrumental in the installation of the wildcat statue outside of the Whittemore Center almost 20 years ago. The statue has become a campus symbol; it serves as a photo backdrop for students and alumni and created a new tradition of students patting its nose for good luck. In terms of UNH spirit, it doesn’t get much more iconic than that.

He even brought some of that pride with him when he and his wife, Judy, moved to Florida several years ago. Prominently displayed in his home office is a tabletop replica of the wildcat statue, gifted to him after he spearheaded fundraising efforts that brought in more than $1.2 million for his Class of 1965’s 50th reunion.

Brad is the ultimate lifelong Wildcat. He earned both his undergraduate and master’s degrees at UNH and never lost his connection to the university. When he retired in 2004 after more than three decades at BAE Systems, he and Judy moved to Durham to be closer to campus and regularly attended student performances and sporting events. In 2010, a UNH Magazine article noted that Aiken had missed only two Homecomings — both due to military service — in roughly 40 years.

He served on the Alumni Association board of directors from 2006 to 2015. Among his many philanthropic contributions to UNH, he and Judy established the Bradley ‘65, ‘78G & Judith Aiken Endowed Scholarship Fund for students with financial need. The pair have also created a bequest to support future members of the UNH football team. They were among just over a dozen donors who fully funded the construction of the Watkins Center for Student-Athlete Excellence, and helped rally donors for the construction of Wildcat Stadium.

Brad was the first in his family to attend college, and he started a Wildcat tradition. Both daughters graduated from UNH, as did his nephew. And when his granddaughter arrived as a first-year student in the fall of 2020, she was assigned to room 201 in Alexander Hall — the very same room Brad lived in as a freshman.

It’s a full-circle moment for a man who has held UNH dear for nearly 60 years. “You can’t help but be impressed with what a beautiful place it is,” Brad says. “There’s something special going on behind all of those bricks.”

UNH Distinguished Entrepreneur Award – Joel Berman ’76

When he started his own healthcare software company after more than 10 years in the industry, Joel Berman had modest expectations. He was the lone employee at launch and wasn’t necessarily envisioning a parade of additional coworkers.

“People would ask me how I saw the company growing, and I would say I could see maybe 25 to 30 of us,” Joel says of Iatric Systems, founded in 1990 — a relatively small workforce for a software company.

Thanks in large part to Joel’s vision and leadership, the company quickly blew past that number, growing to as many as 330 employees. And it’s easy to understand why — in 2010, Iatric Systems was named one of the top 100 healthcare companies to work at in the country.

The company — which provides administrative and clinical software to hospitals in the U.S., Canada and the UK — was built on Joel’s entrepreneurial vision: finding solutions to critical problems the industry had yet to solve within the confines of a flexible and supportive work environment. He was ahead of his time in encouraging remote work, which led to happier and more engaged employees and “opened up a whole new world” by allowing him to recruit people from anywhere in the country.

Under Joel’s leadership, Iatric became a leader in its field, creating some of the industry’s top-rated software products. He sold the company in 2018 but has continued to share his passion for entrepreneurship with the next generation, joining the UNH’s Peter T. Paul Entrepreneurship Center advisory board, where he has also served as a student entrepreneur mentor.

During his own undergraduate experience here, he was a dual major in geology and physics, before graduating and going on to earn his master’s in Earth and planetary science from MIT.

When it comes to his career, despite his own humble early expectations, Berman’s achievements as an entrepreneur are significant— sparked in part by a philosophy rooted in the sharing of success.

“I never thought of people as employees,” Joel says. “I always felt that we were in business together and that if I did well, they did well.”