2022 ADA Recipients

The Academy of Distinguished Alumni was created in 2011 by Bowling Green State University and its Alumni Association. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the University and was established to recognize the extraordinary accomplishments of alumni who have made significant  contributions to their chosen professional field and/or through their community involvement. The University is proud to honor those alumni who have inspired their country, state, community and BGSU.

The 2022 Class of the Academy of Distinguished Alumni:

Clarence Albert Daniels Jr. ’71, ’73

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Clarence Albert Daniels Jr. served as chairman and CEO of CMS Hospitality, an airport food and beverage concessions company. Among the fastest-growing companies in its industry segment, Daniels built the company from three stores at LAX to over 40 locations in eight major airports. The company was also at the forefront of introducing popular local restaurants in airports to create “a sense of place.”

Since the sale of the business in 2016, Daniels has spent his time mentoring small businesses, nonprofit organizations and youth. With his fraternity, he started a mentoring program for 11- to 13-year-old disadvantaged males. He also served as chair and CEO of Concessions Management Services Inc.

Daniels earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from BGSU and is a graduate of the Howard University School of Law. In 2013, Daniels was selected as the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Greater Los Angeles region.

Prior to starting CMS, Daniels was a vice president of the Marriott Corp.; vice president of development for Host International, the largest company in the airport concession business; and president of educational dining at Aramark Corp. He started his professional career as a child advocate and civil rights lawyer with the Children’s Defense Fund.

Daniels has been actively involved in civic activities. He served on the board of directors of AMAC, a national airport trade association; the national board of directors for the 100 Black Men of America and locally as a board member of the Los Angeles Urban League; a board member of The Los Angeles Educational Partnership; president of the board of the Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce; and was appointed by the Mayor of Los Angeles as a  commissioner on the Los Angeles Convention Center Authority.

Daniels is a trustee of both the ArtCenter College of Design and The Ray Charles Foundation. He is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, having pledged at BGSU, and a member of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity.

Daniels and his wife of 50 years, Dr. Monet Daniels, a retired educator, reside in Los Angeles. They have two children and two grandsons.

Brenda J. Hollis ’68 ’14 (Hon.)

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Brenda J. Hollis is an international criminal prosecutor. She served as the international co-prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) from July 2019 to July 2022, having been the reserve international co-prosecutor since April 2015.

Prior to her appointment as the ECCC’s international co-prosecutor, she was the prosecutor of both the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Special Court for Sierra Leone from 2010-2019. After serving as a legal consultant to the special court prosecutor in 2002, 2003 and 2006, she became lead prosecutor in the case against former Liberian President Charles Taylor in 2007 and continued to lead the prosecution of that case until the appeal was concluded in 2013.

From 1994 to 2001, Hollis held various positions in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, including that of co-counsel in the Duško Tadić case, the first litigated case in an international criminal tribunal since the Nuremberg trials; lead prosecutor in both the reopening of the Furundžija case, in which rape was charged as torture; and the preparatory stage of the case against former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević until her departure from the ICTY in 2001.

Hollis has trained judges, prosecutors and investigators in Cambodia, Indonesia and Iraq. She also assisted victims of international crimes in Colombia and in the Democratic Republic of Congo to prepare submissions requesting investigations by the International Criminal Court.

Before entering the international arena, Hollis served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer, and as an officer in the US Air Force, retiring with the rank of colonel, having served as an Air intelligence briefing officer and judge advocate, the latter primarily as a prosecutor at the trial and appellate level.

After earning her bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Bowling Green State University, Hollis earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Denver. She also has honorary degrees from Case Western School of Law and BGSU.

Among her other honors, Hollis was inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2018, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities named her the recipient of its Distinguished Alumnus Award, which is presented to an individual who has achieved acclaim in her or his field and who has made a significant contribution to the public, intellectual or cultural life of the nation.

Beth Macy ’86

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Beth Macy is a Virginia journalist and the author of three New York Times best-selling nonfiction books about outsiders and underdogs.

Her 2018 exploration of the opioid crisis, “Dopesick,” won an L.A. Times Book Prize and was adapted by Hulu for a series starring Michael Keaton, with Macy serving as an executive producer and cowriter on the show. “Dopesick” received 14 Emmy Award nominations this year, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, and previously won a Peabody Award. The series also was nominated for multiple Golden Globe and Critic’s Choice Awards.

Her follow-up book, “Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis,” was published by Little, Brown and Co. this summer. It sheds light on drug company settlements while giving voice to the parents of the dead who have become unwitting activists. More importantly, it outlines key strategies to help turn back the overdose crisis.

Macy’s other works include her 2014 J. Anthony Lukas Prize-winning “Factory Man,” which traced the aftermath of globalization in America, and “Truevine,” a racial history that was a Kirkus Prize finalist and was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

A former newspaper writer for The Roanoke (Va.) Times, Macy has also published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NewYorker.com and The Atlantic. Based out of Roanoke for three decades, Macy earned her bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism from Bowling Green State University, a master’s in English/creative writing from Hollins University and was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard. She has honorary doctorate degrees from Roanoke College and Ferrum College.

A native of Urbana, Ohio, Macy and her husband, Tom Landon, an educator, have two grown kids, Max and Willis.

Dr. Anthony “Tony” Rucci ’72, ’76, ‘78

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Dr. Tony Rucci currently serves as senior advisor to the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, established by Congress in 2016 and charged with the planning, design and execution of the nationwide events which will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the nation in 2026. He is also founding president and CEO emeritus of the America 250 Foundation, having served in that role pro bono from 2018 until 2021.

In his nearly 30-year business career, Rucci served as a senior corporate officer for three Fortune 50 companies: executive vice president and president of strategic corporate staff, Cardinal Health; chairman of the board, Sears Mexico; executive vice president and chief administrative officer, Sears Roebuck and Co.; and senior vice president of corporate strategy and business development, Baxter International; Rucci has also been on the board of directors of several companies including Sears Canada, Sears Mexico and Grupo Carso in Mexico.

In addition, he is professor emeritus and a university distinguished teaching professor from Ohio State University, having retired in late 2018. He previously served as interim CEO of Ohio State University Physicians, as well as dean of the College of Business and tenured professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

He has taught over 100 courses in his academic career, primarily at the graduate level, at Ohio State University, Bowling Green State University, the University of Illinois, Chicago and the University of Texas, Dallas. He has authored/co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and professional conference presentations, including the Harvard Business Review, and has delivered over 100 keynote addresses at major conferences.

His community service efforts have focused on pro bono advising at the CEO/board level for a number of central Ohio organizations including LifeCare Alliance/Meal on Wheels, Children’s Hunger Alliance and Homeport affordable housing. He is currently a member of the BGSU Foundation Board, and has also served on the Chancellor’s Advisory Board at the University of Illinois, Chicago, the Ohio State University Medical Center Advisory Board and the Columbus Museum of Art.

Rucci is also co-creator/co-founder of the BRIGHT New Leaders for Ohio Schools, an innovative program in cooperation with the Ohio Legislature and the Ohio Department of Education to prepare new principals and administrators for inner city and rural school districts.

Rucci holds a bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree in industrial and organizational psychology from BGSU and has permanently endowed eight annual scholarships at the University.

He is the proud father of five children – Kelly, Heather, Joshua, Jordan and Sage – and five grandchildren.

Updated: 08/30/2023 02:41PM