Eckerd College: A Legacy of Notable Alumni
Eckerd College, a private liberal arts institution in St. Petersburg, Florida, has fostered a diverse community of alumni who have made significant contributions across various fields. United by shared experiences and values instilled during their time at the College, Eckerd graduates continue to shape the world in meaningful ways. Founded as Florida Presbyterian College in 1958, Eckerd College is located on the waterfront and beach on Boca Ciega Bay. Eckerd is a "beach school" and has its own student volunteer maritime search and rescue team.
A Tapestry of Generations: The Bredenberg Family
The Bredenberg family exemplifies the enduring impact of an Eckerd education across generations. With members graduating in 1970, 1975, 1980, 2014, and 2016, the extended Bredenberg family embraces travel, adventure, an active lifestyle, and a lifelong love for learning-qualities they attribute to their time at the College.
Innovators and Entrepreneurs
Eckerd College has produced a number of innovative and entrepreneurial alumni who have carved their own paths in the business world.
Charles Bryant: Charting a Course in Financial Advising
Charles Bryant, a member of the class of 2005, embodies this spirit of independence. He started his own financial advising firm, Lone Star Wealth Management.
Pratichi Shah: Cultivating Business Acumen
Pratichi Shah from the class of 1991, believes the seeds of her success as a businesswoman were planted during her time at Eckerd College.
Read also: Academics at Eckerd
Matt Kilgroe: Managing Investments with a Liberal Arts Approach
For Eckerd Trustee Matt Kilgroe, class of 1987, running an investment firm that manages $1.3 billion in client assets resembled Eckerd’s broad liberal arts approach applied to the real world.
Champions of Social Justice
Eckerd College's commitment to social justice is reflected in the work of its alumni, who are dedicated to creating a more equitable and just world.
Rob and Carolyn Kitchings Johnson: A Shared Passion for Equality
Rob Johnson and Carolyn Kitchings Johnson, both from the class of 1971, met at Eckerd (then Florida Presbyterian College) and bonded over a mutual interest in social justice.
Eileen McCarron: A Voice for Gun Violence Prevention
Eileen McCarron is an alumna who has dedicated her life to preventing gun violence. She joined a small group of volunteers, Texans Against Gun Violence. After she and her husband, Bill, moved to Colorado-just four months after the massacre at Columbine High School-she co-founded Ceasefire, now the longest-running grassroots gun violence prevention organization in the state. During Ceasefire’s early years, Eileen worked with the organization on top of working full-time as a math teacher at the high school and community college level.
Leaders in Education
Eckerd College alumni have made significant contributions to the field of education, shaping the minds of future generations.
Read also: Eckerd Admission Requirements
Tessa Hill: Inspiring a Love for Marine Science
Dr. Tessa Hill, a member of the class of 1999, teaches freshman-level large lecture classes in marine science. She tries to imbue each person with an understanding of why the subject material matters to them.
Stephanie Kadel Taras: Preserving College History
Stephanie Kadel Taras, class of 1989, became Eckerd’s future unofficial college historian. She knew her grandfather William H. Kadel had been Florida Presbyterian/Eckerd College’s founding president and that her parents, Dick and Karen Kadel, had both been in the Founding Freshman class.
Artists and Creative Visionaries
Eckerd College has a thriving visual arts program that has produced a number of talented artists and creative visionaries. Since our first senior class in 1964 we have graduated over 600 majors in Visual Arts, many of whom have gone on to earn graduate degrees in a variety of fields.
Grace-Anne Alfiero: Arts in Action
Grace-Anne Alfiero ‘04 (MFA, Goddard) is President and CEO at Arts in Action in Philadelphia, a consulting firm for non-profit organizations. She was founder of Creative Clay in St. Petersburg, and served as its Executive Director until 2011.
Joy Brown: Ceramic Sculptures
Joy Brown ’72 has exhibited her ceramic sculptures in one-person shows in Europe and Asia, and her work has been prominently featured in Ceramics Monthly. Joy is also co-founder and president of the Still Mountain Center, a nonprofit arts organization in Connecticut whose mission is to support, promote and celebrate artistic exchange between the United States and Asia.
Read also: Discover Eckerd College
Dawn Regan Ellenberg: Creative Director
Dawn Regan Ellenberg ’86 has been the Creative Director at Eckerd College since 2004.
Paul Eppling: Welded Metal Sculptures
The late Paul Eppling ’71 was very well-known in the Tampa Bay area for his welded metal sculptures. May 8, 2014 was celebrated as Paul Eppling Day in St. Petersburg, a tribute to the remarkable works he made for the community.
Zoe Friedman: Photography, Video, Installations
Zoe Friedman ’07 earned her MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She works in photography, video, installations and finely cut paper, and is Associate Professor of Time-Based Media at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland.
Ben Hamburger: Community Arts
Ben Hamburger ’10 earned his MFA in Community Arts from the Maryland College Institute of Art. His thesis work at MICA explored the consequences of urban development in Baltimore; it was reviewed in the Baltimore press, and also featured in an interview on NPR. In 2019 Ben’s paintings depicting the removal of Confederate monuments in North Carolina received press coverage as well.
James Heaton: Branding Firm
James Heaton ’88 is President and Creative Director of Tronvig Group, a branding firm based in Brooklyn. His cd package design for his own collaborative recording Clouds was one of five finalists for a Grammy Award in 2006.
Blaze Birge Jones: Circus
Blaze Birge Jones ’98 was a founding member of the Flynn Creek Circus in Mendocino County, California, committed to “pushing tradition to the edge.” Blaze is Creative Director of the circus, and specializes as a trapeze artist. The “Daring Jones Duo” won the Silver Medal at the International Circus Festival in Izhevsk, Russia, in March, 2014.
Ingram Ober: Sculpture and Foundry
Ingram Ober ’98 (MFA, Claremont Graduate U) teaches sculpture and foundry at Palomar College in California. He and his partner Marisol Rendon have installed two sculptures at the Underwater Museum of Art in the Florida Panhandle that now serve as artificial reefs.
Mark Pauline: Performance Art
Mark Pauline ’77 is founder of the California-based industrial performance art group Survival Research Laboratories, which boasts of staging “the most dangerous shows on Earth.”
Ward Shelley: Sculptor and Performance Artist
Ward Shelley ’72 is a sculptor and performance artist whose work has been exhibited in ten countries, has often been featured in Art in America and Artforum, and is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and other major museums. In 2014 he did a collaborative performance with artist Alex Schweder titled In Orbit, in which they lived in a very large hamster wheel for ten days.
Michael Specht: Camera Image Quality Engineer
Michael Specht ’11 worked for 11 years with Apple in Silicon Valley as a Camera Image Quality Engineer, helping develop iPhone computational imaging technology. He is currently a Product Manager and Golden Eye for Google’s Pixel Camera, working to develop the most authentic and equitable cameras using the latest AI technology. He also continues to make his own photography.
Accomplished Writers and Journalists
Eckerd College has nurtured the talents of numerous writers and journalists who have gone on to achieve success in their respective fields.
Dennis Lehane: Novelist and Screenwriter
Dennis Lehane is an American author. He has published more than a dozen novels; the first several were a series of mysteries featuring recurring characters, including A Drink Before the War. Four of his novels have been adapted into films of the same names: Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (2010), and Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Live by Night (2016), both directed by Ben Affleck.
Dorothy Allison: Writer and Activist
Dorothy Earlene Allison was an American writer whose writing focused on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism, and lesbianism. She was a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards.
Laura Helmuth: Science Journalist
Laura Lee Helmuth is an American science journalist, who was the editor in chief of Scientific American. She was formerly the Health and Science editor at The Washington Post. From 2016 to 2018, she served as the president of the National Association of Science Writers.
Hank Green: Science Communicator
William Henry Green II is an American YouTuber, science communicator, novelist, stand-up comedian, and entrepreneur. He produces the YouTube channel Vlogbrothers with his older brother, author John Green, and hosts the educational YouTube channels Crash Course and SciShow.
Public Servants and Politicians
Eckerd College alumni have a strong tradition of public service, with many graduates going on to serve in government and politics.
Bob Gualtieri: Sheriff of Pinellas County
Robert A. "Bob" Gualtieri is an American law enforcement officer, lawyer, and politician who is serving as the 15th sheriff of Pinellas County, Florida.
Kathleen Peters: Florida House of Representatives
Kathleen M. Peters is an American politician of the Republican Party and a former member of the Florida House of Representatives, representing the 69th District, which includes southern Pinellas County, stretching from Redington Shores to St. Pete Beach, from 2012 to 2018.
Sandra Mortham: Florida Secretary of State
Sandra Mortham, also known as Sandra Barringer, is an American political who served as the 22nd Florida Secretary of State from 1995 to 1999.
Janet C. Long: Pinellas County Commission
Janet C. Long is an US Democratic politician and educator who serves as a member of the Pinellas County Commission for the at-large District 1.
Jeffrey J. Berger: Connecticut House of Representatives
Jeffrey J. Berger is an American Democratic politician in the state of Connecticut, representing the 73rd district in the Connecticut House of Representatives.
Athletes and Sports Professionals
Eckerd College has a strong athletic program that has produced a number of successful athletes and sports professionals.
Brian Sabean: Baseball Executive
Brian R. Sabean, nicknamed "Sabes", is an American baseball executive for the New York Yankees. He serves as executive advisor to the general manager and senior vice president Brian Cashman.
Steve Balboni: Baseball Player
Stephen Charles Balboni is an American former Major League Baseball player, who played for the New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, Kansas City Royals, and Texas Rangers. He was a player with home run power and a tendency to strike out.
Joe Lefebvre: Baseball Player and Coach
Joseph Henry Lefebvre is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played all or parts of six seasons in Major League Baseball with the New York Yankees (1980), San Diego Padres (1981-83) and Philadelphia Phillies (1983-84 and 1986), primarily as an outfielder. He currently serves as senior advisor for scouting for the San Francisco Giants.
Craig Albernaz: Baseball Coach
Craig Francis Albernaz is an American professional baseball coach for the Cleveland Guardians of Major League Baseball (MLB). He currently serves as their associate manager. He played college baseball for Eckerd College.
Jay Washington: Basketball Player
Anthony Jay Washington is a Filipino-American professional basketball player who last played for Yokohama Excellence of the Japanese B.League.
Scientists and Researchers
Eckerd College has a strong reputation for its science programs, and its alumni have made significant contributions to scientific research.
James W. Pennebaker: Social Psychologist
James Whiting Pennebaker is an American social psychologist. He is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers.
Aaron D. O'Connell: Quantum Physicist
Aaron Douglas O'Connell is an American experimental quantum physicist.
Elizabeth Reitz: Archaeologist
Elizabeth Jean "Betsy" Reitz is a zooarchaeologist and Professor Emerita in the Georgia Museum of Natural History and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Georgia.
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