Day: April 25, 2022

Medill inducts six alumni into 2022 Hall of Achievement class

Post author By Lauren Loeffler
Post date April 25, 2022
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Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications welcomes six inductees into its Hall of Achievement for 2022. The distinction honors alumni whose careers have had positive effects on their fields.

“The Medill Hall of Achievement class this year reflects the breadth of Medill’s influence through many industries including media but also well beyond it,” said Medill Dean Charles Whitaker. “These exemplary alumni demonstrate that a Medill education can take you anywhere and give you the opportunity to do anything.”

Juan Cappello (MSJ66)

Juan C. Cappello’s work as a journalist and strategic communications executive has been recognized by professional and civic organizations in the U.S. and overseas. Early in his career, Cappello received the Inter American Press Association Award for Young Journalists. In the field of strategic communications, he was the senior vice president, corporate affairs/marketing for ITT Corporation for almost two decades – the first Latin-born top corporate officer at a U.S.-based Fortune 500 company. Before founding his own strategic communications consulting firm in 2009, Cappello was president and partner of Hill & Knowlton in Latin America. He has been recognized by nongovernmental organizations and international groups, and he has also received official decorations from the governments of Austria, France and Chile, after its return to democracy in the 1990s, for his participation in human rights and cultural initiatives.

Melissa Grady Dias (IMC98)

Melissa Grady Dias was appointed global chief marketing officer of Cadillac in September 2019. As CMO, Grady Dias leads strategic marketing for the Cadillac brand around the world. Recently, Grady Dias was recognized by Forbes as one of “The 50 Most Influential CMOs in the World.” Prior to joining Cadillac, she was senior vice president of performance marketing, digital and e-commerce of Jackson Hewitt, where she was responsible for all demand driving activities including television and jacksonhewitt.com as well as the implementation of a hyper-local digital media program across several thousand locations. Before Jackson Hewitt, Grady Dias led digital acquisition on the global marketing team at MetLife where she led digital strategy for the U.S. market and acquisition programs for several lines of business, resulting in large year-over-year growth, and managed metrics plans and insights across all key global markets. Prior to MetLife, Grady Dias led the global analytics, e-commerce marketing, and CRM teams at Motorola.

Clinton Kelly (MSJ93)

Clinton Kelly co-hosted TLC’s wildly popular makeover show “What Not to Wear” for 10 years, and for seven he moderated ABC’s daytime talk show “The Chew,” for which he won an Emmy. He has also been regularly featured on HGTV and Food Network. A former magazine editor (Marie Claire, Mademoiselle and others) and freelance writer, Kelly has authored several books, including the critically acclaimed “I Hate Everyone, Except You,” a collection of humorous personal essays. In 2020 Kelly took a break from television to focus on his writing, working with personal styling clients and hosting regular Style Esteem workshops, through which he helps people evaluate their wardrobes to fine tune their nonverbal messaging.

Mike McGrew (IMC97)

Mike McGrew assumed the role of executive vice president, chief communications, CSR & diversity officer for Constellation Brands in April 2020. In this role, he leads a team responsible for developing and executing the company’s corporate communications, investor relations, corporate social responsibility, and diversity, equity and inclusion strategies designed to enhance the company’s reputation with key stakeholders and advance the company’s business strategy. Prior to joining Constellation Brands, McGrew held various roles with increasing responsibility at Grainger, then a $9B global provider of industrial supplies and equipment. Prior to joining Grainger, he worked in corporate communications for Alliant Foodservice (one of the nation’s largest, privately held broad-line foodservice distributors) and Morton International (a leading manufacturer of salt and specialty chemical products). McGrew received his bachelor’s degree in organizational studies from the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern.

Stephanie Mehta (MSJ92)

Stephanie Mehta is CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures, the business media company that publishes Fast Company and Inc. She previously spent nearly four years as editor-in-chief of Fast Company, overseeing its print, digital and live journalism. Mehta has held senior writing and editing positions at Vanity Fair, Fortune, Bloomberg Media and The Wall Street Journal. She received a BA in English from Northwestern and her MSJ from Medill. A Chicago-area native, she now lives with her husband and two daughters in Scarsdale, New York.

Michael Paul Williams (MSJ81)

Michael Paul Williams is a Pulitzer Prize-winning metro columnist whose opinion pieces appear on the Op-Ed page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. In 2021, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary “for penetrating and historically insightful columns that guided Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, through the painful and complicated process of dismantling the city’s monuments to white supremacy.” Williams, a Richmond native, is a graduate of Virginia Union University and Medill. He won Virginia Press Association awards for column writing in 1992, 1994, 2007 and 2014. During 1999-2000, he was one of 24 U.S. and international journalists awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.

Medill will honor the 2022 Hall of Achievement classes on May 19 in Chicago.

Deborah Douglas (BSJ89)

Photo credit: Ven Sherrod

Deborah D. Douglas (BSJ89) is co-editor in chief of The Emancipator, which launched on April 25, 2022. The multimedia newsroom is dedicated to reframing the national conversation on race and presenting potential solutions toward an antiracist future. Douglas and co-editor in chief Amber Payne will build on the tradition of nineteenth-century antislavery newspapers to hasten racial justice in the twenty-first century.

Learn more at www.theemancipator.org.

Photo credit: Ven Sherrod.

1960s Featured Legacies Legacies

David Searl (BSJ62)

David Searl, the author of expat Bible ‘You & The Law in Spain’ which provides a step-by-step guide to all aspects of legal matters in Spain, has died at the age of 82.

Born in Ashtabula, Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie, he studied at the Medill School of Journalism at the prestigious Northwestern University, which is where he met his wife Janet Mendel.

They both worked in Chicago’s newspapers before deciding in 1966 to take a year off to live in Spain. It was a chance encounter in a Chicago bar that led them to decide on Mijas, then a quiet hillside village above the Costa del Sol.

“We were thinking about Spain, and then one night in a bar, we heard some people speaking Spanish on the table next to us. It was an American man chatting to some visiting flamenco performers and he raved about this place Mijas where he had spent some time in Spain,” Janet recalls.

“Based on that conversation, the very next day we decided that Mijas was our destination,” she told the Olive Press by telephone.

The pair took a freighter across the Atlantic to Casablanca, then a rickety bus to Tangiers before crossing over the Straits of Gibraltar from Morocco to Spain’s Algeciras. “We arrived in Mijas by taxi where we lived pretty well on our savings. We had intended on only staying for a year, but well, things didn’t turn out like that.”

After a year-long stint teaching at an American school in Switzerland, the pair returned to Mijas and made it their permanent home, buying a plot of land and building their home, where Janet still lives.

It was here that they raised their two boys, Daniel and Benjamin, and forged writing careers, with Janet focusing on Spanish food and David on legal issues affecting the expat community as well as freelancing as a foreign correspondent.

He was sent down the coast to Palomares to report on an incident that saw American nuclear bombs dropped accidentally from a B-52 in 1966 as well as by a Canadian newspaper to follow up on a rumour that then Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau was holidaying with a mistress in Spain.

David and Janet separated in the mid-1980s but both stayed in Mijas where David met artist Mary Eisman, who became his partner for the rest of his life.

He also went on to write 24 editions of what became the expat must-read on all legal matters, a book that appears on the bookcases of expats across Spain.

“He was an impish character with a whimsical sense of humour,” recalls former colleague and Costa del Sol journalist David Baird. “As I understand it, he began contributing to Lookout, which at that time was required reading for expats here in the 70s.”

“The editor, Ken Brown, asked him to answer some of the queries received relating to Spanish law that affected expats. Thanks to his investigations and consultations with lawyers, gestores and tax advisors on the Costa, his knowledge grew until he was something of an expert. He began writing a regular column in Lookout answering readers’ queries about everything from residence requirements to driving licenses.”

“In 1985 with his accumulated knowledge, he compiled the book ‘You & the Law in Spain,’ published by Santana Books. This became what the Times declared was ‘the Bible for foreigners in Spain,'” said Baird.

Another former colleague and foreign correspondent Edward Owen remembered: “David happily advised foreign journalists in Spain who were often covering gruesome stories involving their own countrymen who were caught up in property scams, home seizures and expensive legal tangles.”

“David was a charming and amiable colleague who did not seek to hugely profit from his valuable work. He enjoyed helping others and beating the oft-changing system. At Lookout’s famous lunches in Fuengirola, he would often regale the throng with tales of woe – and how he had helped yet another Brit get out of jail or regain ownership of his villa.”

Searl had the ability to write about complex Spanish legal matters in plain English that was easy to understand, and his work was also translated into French, German and Russian.

Up until his death, Searl was working on the 25th edition, which was to be published later this year.

He was also an active member of his community and regular guest on local radio as well as advising the Foreign Residents’ Department at Mijas Town Hall and other local community groups.

He died on March 18 at the age of 82 and leaves behind Mary, his two sons and three grandchildren.

Source: Olive Press

1970s Featured Legacies Legacies

Sheryl Jedlinski (BSJ75)

Sheryl Lynn Jedlinski, age 68, passed peacefully on March 12, 2022, following a seven-year battle with cancer. Sheryl bravely fought Parkinson’s Disease for 24 years, writing a book and popular blog about her journey. She traveled the country, coaching and helping others fighting chronic and progressive illnesses. Born December 12, 1953 in the Bronx, Sheryl was the daughter of the late Leonard Applebaum & Lorraine Gilbert. She is survived by her devoted husband Tony; her sons Jason (Jay) and Steven (Megan); her beloved granddaughters, Parker and Kendall; her brother David (Diane) and their children: Jeremy, Sarah and Jenny.

Source: Legacy.com