Loyal ORIE Alumni Honored at the Graduation of Their Offspring

  Christine and Kevin McEnery, Bob and Robbie Carman, and Anne and Mark Ready, at the ceremony acknowledging loyal alumni. photos: University Photography

There may be many definitions of alumni loyalty, but at the 2009 ORIE graduation ceremony on May 24 Professor Robert Bland focused on a particular version. He said "we would like to recognize three alumni who have given back in a very special way" and called alumni Kevin McEnery, Robert (Bob) Carman, and Mark Ready to the stage with their graduating children Christine McEnery, Robert (Robbie) Carman and Anne Ready. 

The new graduates were asked to present their fathers with a special loyal alumnus award in the form of a crystal paperweight.

  Bob and Robbie Carman.

 

Professor Bland, ORIE's Associate Director for Undergraduate Studies, pointed out that Bob Carman is the third member of the ORIE class of '69 to have one or more children receive an ORIE degree. Bob joined Exxon Corporation in 1970 after completing his Master of Engineering and MBA at Cornell and now works for ExxonMobil, the successor company, as Planning Manager for Information Technology. His son Robbie will attend Law School at the University of Texas in Austin. Bob said "it was gratifying to see that the Cornell ORIE program still maintains its position as one of the best in America." The graduation ceremony in Sage Chapel "was made more special for me as the Master of Ceremonies was Bob Bland, a classmate from 1969, and I was able to catch up with him and other faculty friends," he said. "Robbie talked about how special the four years at Cornell had been to him and it reminded me of similar feelings I had 40 years ago," Carman reflected.

  Anne and Mark Ready.

Mark Ready was also reminded of the past. "Watching my daughter's face on Sunday sharpened my memory of my feelings and emotions at my own graduation. A mixture of sadness that the most important chapter in my life up to that point was drawing to a close and that I was saying goodbye to many dear friends; fear and excitement about what lies ahead; and complete exhaustion from the non-stop parties of senior week," he said.

Ready, who lived in Ithaca as a child in the 1960's, remained after his 1977 B.S. in ORIE to receive an M.B.A '78 and returned to earn an M.S. '87 and Ph..D. '90 from Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. He now holds the Jeffrey Diermeier Chair of Finance at the Wisconsin School of Business in Madison. He said that "through my daughter's description of her experiences I got the distinct impression that people at Cornell, and particularly in ORIE, are working hard and continuously to maintain and improve the educational experience." Anne Ready is joining Kurt Salmon Associates as a Retailing Consultant.

  Christine and Kevin McEnery.

Christine is the third daughter of Kevin and Carolyne McEnery to graduate from Cornell, following older sisters Lauren (who has returned to Cornell for an MBA) and Lisa. A fourth daughter, Ashley, is a current undergraduate in Arts and Sciences. Kevin commented that he is "impressed with how much Christine enjoyed the ORIE school, knowing as I do the very high level 'bandwidth' of her classmates and the intensity of the courses.Cornell and the ORIE school have meant much to me. I believe that it made me a broader person but one with specific quantitative and qualitative skills that have enabled me to focus on, address and resolve issues, confident that I could meet the challenges in my professional life."

Kevin MEnery ORIE '70 MBA '71, who served as Chief Financial Officer of Scholastic, and Vice President, Finance and Administration at MCI, joined Arthur Andersen following his MBA. He has recently done some consulting for three separate companies based in China on their US activities, including SEC reporting, investor relations, legal, and the like. "Explaining the extent of the SEC reporting and disclosure requirements to groups 8,000 miles away in a culture that is not inclined to timely and factural disclosures was both interesting and challenging," he reports. Christine McEnery is joining Citigroup as an Investment Banking Analyst.

Bland also paid tribute to the memory of another ORIE alumnus, whose son received his degree at the ceremony. Unfortunately Prachar Yongvanich '76 succumbed to cancer in 2000. His son Andrew graduated with the class of 2009. Andrew's brother Peter received his ORIE degree in 2007. Both brothers were in the audience for the ceremony.