Bishop

Byrnes

Herdt

Sisler

Stern

Whiting

Wu

Yunker

The sixth-generation president of Pendleton Woolen Mills, a pioneer of genetic engineering, an Ithaca banker and a former Rockefeller Foundation vice president were among the distinguished alumni honored at a Nov. 4 banquet sponsored by the alumni association of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS).

Outstanding Alumni Award winners are: C. Morton Bishop III '74; James J. Byrnes '63, MBA '64; Robert W. Herdt '61, MS '63; Ernest L. Stern '56; and Craig Yunker '72. This year's Outstanding Faculty/Staff Award recipients are Professors Daniel G. Sisler, Ph.D. '62, and Ray J. Wu. Gordon J. Whiting '87 is this year's Outstanding Young Alumnus.

Bishop is president of Pendleton Woolen Mills, a Cornell trustee and a three-term former member of the Cornell University Council. He is a member of the Undergraduate Business Program (UBP)'s advisory council and served as co-chair for the Class of 1974's 20th reunion. Bishop is a trustee of Willamette University and a former trustee and chair of the Oregon chapter of the Nature Conservancy.

Bishop created Pendleton's retail division and also developed a line of woolen blankets featuring Native American designs to benefit the American Indian College Fund. He provides the blankets to Cornell's Native American students to carry during Commencement and provides "Wearer of the C" blankets to senior captains of Cornell athletic teams.

Bishop is president of Pendleton Woolen Mills, a Cornell trustee and a three-term former member of the Cornell University Council. He is a member of the Undergraduate Business Program (UBP)'s advisory council and served as co-chair for the Class of 1974's 20th reunion. Bishop is a trustee of Willamette University and a former trustee and chair of the Oregon chapter of the Nature Conservancy.

Bishop created Pendleton's retail division and also developed a line of woolen blankets featuring Native American designs to benefit the American Indian College Fund. He provides the blankets to Cornell's Native American students to carry during Commencement and provides "Wearer of the C" blankets to senior captains of Cornell athletic teams.

Herdt retired in 2003 as vice president for program administration for the Rockefeller Foundation. He currently collaborates on the multi-institutional, USAID-funded Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II, which seeks to boost food security, economic growth, nutrition and environmental quality in developing areas of Africa and Asia. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Herdt worked with Mann Library in the 1990s to create TEEAL, a CD library of 140 key agricultural journals offered to universities in developing countries at nominal cost. In 2003 the Rockefeller Foundation funded Mann Library's development of AGORA, an Internet-based journal library, for the same purpose. Herdt is a member of the USDA Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture and chairs the board of trustees of the Asia Rice Foundation USA. In Tompkins County, he serves on the board of FoodNet.

Sisler, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics, is a legend among the more than 12,000 students who knew him as a teacher of agricultural geography and economics from 1971 to his retirement in 1995. His many teaching awards include the CALS Professor of Merit, SUNY Chancellor's Award and the Distinguished Teaching Award of the American Agricultural Economics Association. He is a fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association and a Cornell trustee emeritus. He has an honorary doctorate from Purdue University.

Sisler chairs the Helen Keller International Board of Trustees and has chaired the Helen Keller International Advisory Committee on Prevention of Nutritional Blindness since 1980. Because of his own blindness, he has consulted extensively on matters relating to blindness and world hunger. He is president of Educate the Children, a Nepal-based organization.

Stern retired in 2003 as chairman and CEO of Thales Components Corp., a subsidiary of Europe's largest electronics company. For his leadership, the French government invested him as a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur .

Stern was a core leader of Mann Library's successful $4 million endowment campaign, co-founded Cornell Adult University and led the development of the Cornell Association of Class Officers, of which he served as director. He is a life member of the University Council and has chaired reunion campaigns for the Class of 1956 since 1971. He has been honored by his classmates, with endowment of the Ernest L. Stern '56 Library Curatorship for Asia Collections, and by Cornell, with the Frank H.T. Rhodes Exemplary Service Award.

Whiting is a managing director of Angelo, Gordon & Co. and founded and leads the AG Net Lease Realty Group. In 2002, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which oversees the largest defined contribution plan in the world, with more than $160 billion under management and 3.4 million participants. He is a member of the University Council and the Cornell Real Estate Council and has served on fund-raising committees for reunion and the UBP, for which he established a visiting lecturer fund.

Wu, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, pioneered the technology for sequencing DNA and other fundamental tools for DNA cloning, work that enabled genome sequencing. The holder of five patents for genetic engineering advances, Wu ultimately focused his work on world hunger, creating strains of rice that can tolerate marginal growing conditions.

Wu has guided the establishment of several molecular biology institutes in China and Taiwan and founded a program that has brought 400 Chinese students to the United States for graduate training in biochemistry and molecular biology. He has been awarded a dozen honorary professorships in China and is a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. In 2002 he won the $50,000 Frank Annunzio Award in Science and Technology. Wu also endowed a graduate fellowship at Cornell.

Yunker owns CY Farms in Elba, N.Y., a business with 7,000 acres under cultivation. He has been recognized with the Hugh E. Cumming Cooperator of the Year Award from Agrilink Foods; the Genesee County Agricultural Business of the Year Award; the Empire State Agricultural Human Resource Award; and as the Jaycees' Outstanding Young Farmer. Yunker is a director of Tompkins Trustco and the Bank of Castile. He is a Cornell trustee and an ex-officio member of the CALS Advisory Council, which he chaired from 1997 to 1999.