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April Update
Hello Fraters and Auxiliary Members,
Call this a brief update just to keep everybody abreast of what's going on with the fraternity right now. I will have a more complete report for the newsletter and following in time for the AZOAN and Convention in Puerto Rico.
My main two topics involve the current situation at the Tau Chapter in Boston and the receipt of funds from the Paul Pumpian estate. As of this time the Tau Chapter has been suspended from activities at MCP until August of next year for allegations of hazing. Although we had an opportunity to appeal these allegations, upon advice of our legal adviser we have decided not too. The Tau Chapter is still recognized by Supreme and as thus will still continue to function off campus until we apply for reinstatement next year. Although we have accepted the schools assessment and decision the facts of the case are shaky at best and with AZO being one of 4 fraternity/sororities targeted this year by the administration we feel that this is an aggressive attempt to rid the school of all fraternal organizations and as a result we will continue to support the fraters as they await word of reinstatement.
My second topic is the Paul Pumpian estate. Back in 2008 when Frater Paul Pumpian passed away the fraternity was left with a bequeath of $50,000 to be used for a scholarship fund. To this point we are still awaiting receipt of these funds. Thank you to the work of Joy Pollock, Harry Lieberman and Bruce Strell for continuing to pursue these funds. At the current time we are deliberating with the estate with regards to our status as a tax exempt charitable organization. We are working on ways to comply with the requirements of the charitable fund set up by Fidelity Investments. Our hope and intention is to have these funds in our possession by the convention in July. I will keep you abreast of any further details.
As for other goings-on, the updated website at www.alphazetaomega.net is fully functioning. Please register on the site at: www.alphazetomega.net/supreme/supremeregister.php so that you can be informed of any news in the fraternity as it happens. Also on the site is all the information regarding the National Convention this summer in Puerto Rico. Everything from hotel registration, menu choices, to transportation to and from the airport can be found under the conventions tab. The convention is scheduled from July 14th to the 18th at the Gran Melia resort in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, about a 30 minute drive east from San Juan. As more details regarding itinerary come up we will post them here. As a note please book travel accommodations as flight prices have started to increase over the last several weeks.
As we start to wrap up this edition of the fraternal year I ask all chapter officers to get in all their reports to the respective supreme officer. Also please inform us of your new slate of officers for the next fraternal year as well as send us a listing of your graduating fraters. All of these things can be done on the website and all of your forms can be uploaded and distributed to the proper frater. For those of you logging on for the first time and attempting to send us this information you can use our guest log-in of AZO with the password 1919. As we start to get more people registered on the site we will start to send you your own user name and password. Also I ask that all officers and committee chairs start to get their reports in for the AZOAN, you can email your reports to our editor Daniella at daniella323@hotmail.com.
Before I finish up I want to touch on 2 things. One is our National Charity, the Lustgarten Foundation. I ask all the chapters to make a last push to sponsor an event for this cause. For those of you that aren't aware Frater Jeff Levy for whom I dedicated this charity this year passed away in December after a long bout with pancreatic cancer and I think it would be in our best interests to raise money for something that has hit so close to home for some of us. If your chapter has participated in an event or raised money for the fund or any other fund please notify Stephen Imperato at pi1023@hotmail.com so that it can be placed in this years AZOAN. Secondly most of you will receive a separate e-mail regarding fund-raising for the convention. One way would be to purchase raffle tickets for our annual 50/50 to be drawn at the convention in Puerto Rico. Please email Steve Brooks at sbrooks579@aol.com if you would like to purchase tickets. Each ticket is $10. The second way is taking advantage of the relationship you have with your vendors, employers, brokers and the such and asking them to sponsor an ad in the upcoming edition of the AZOAN. Please contact myself or Lou Flacks at dflacks813@aol.com for any further info regarding that.
Once again thanks for your time. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me at the contact info at the bottom of this email. To those chapters I have been able to visit thus far thanks for your hospitality. I am looking forward to trips to Milwaukee for one of their events in the next month as well as possible trips to Sigma and Eta in that time span also. Otherwise I hope to see most of you in Puerto Rico at our next Supreme Meeting.
PFBL,
Brian Pinto
Supreme Directorum
Naples Convention Report
Fraters,
Happy 90th Birthday AZO. The beginning to our 90th year has proven to be a welcome challenge as we establish new goals for a fraternity that has seen its ups and downs over the last 90 years. As we pass the halfway point of our fraternal year, the Supreme officers and I have been keeping busy trying to bring the goals outlined in my inaugural address to fruition. We have been working diligently on the website update, refreshing the mailing list and combing over several mailing lists that were floating around, and pursuing a few opportunities that have arisen to open or reestablish AZO Chapters.
Since our last meeting in July, I feel a lot has transpired. Communication between the officers and the committees has been constant and fluid. Considering the amount of work I expected out of them this year, this is definitely a good sign for things to come. I hope to increase communication amongst the fraternity as a whole with the renovation of our website. I have been working with Signare Stephen Imperato and Tan Carlin, former undergrad directorum from the Sigma chapter, on creating the new design and functionality of the website. Once we get to new business and if we can get a projector screen in here I would like to have Tan come up and show us some of the functions that have been working on. We are also looking into upgrades that will help to streamline processes like convention registration, new member registration, chapter submissions, and to keep our mailing list up to date by allowing the fraters to update their information themselves through a members-only module online. I am currently working with a company on this new add on and am hoping to have this implemented by the end of this month.
One of our other projects for this year was to improve frater retention and locate “lost” fraters. The primary goal was to establish a proper mailing list, and with the help of several fraters, we have put together several mailing lists and cross referenced them with ABCD cards from the last few decades. At this point we are working with members from individual chapters, as well as the chairmen of the AZO Direct committee, to remove any names and addresses that are no longer active and to update some addresses that haven’t been looked over in almost 15 years. To those of you in AZO Direct you may ask why you haven’t received a dues request yet and there was a calculated reason. The old AZO Direct roster only had 180 names, through updates we have now put over 800 more names into the AZO direct. In order to contact these people for the first time in many years we wanted to add our anniversary newsletter as well as welcome them to the new website instead of just sending a plain old dues letter. The plan is to incorporate this new list into the website to allow for a better means of keeping track of fraters as they graduate and move on to their careers. I would like to thank those fraters that have helped us thus far in updating the mailing list.
Next is communication with and between chapters. I am encouraged by the activity I have seen between chapters. This has helped open a couple of opportunities very early into this new fraternal year. With the help of Sigma and the grandson of Frater Alan Abrams, I am continuing to pursue the possibilities of a chapter at NEUCOP near Akron. We are also looking into the possibility of a chapter at the University of Michigan in Ann Harbor, where our Co-Director of Development, Jared Stroud, has begun as a clinical liaison with the school. We have also been able to work with Epsilon and Philadelphia Alumni on an opportunity to reactivate the Beta chapter. Undergrads from Epsilon, as well as Vince Paul, Rich Greene and myself attended the student activities fair at USP in Philadelphia and met with one of the fraters remaining from before that chapter folded. He has expressed interest in reactivation and we are working with him to put together a group of students to restart the chapter. We are still exploring our opportunities at Touro College in New York and have contacted a couple of transfer students (who are originally fraters in other chapters) that are now attending Jefferson University in Philadelphia about the possibility of bringing AZO there.
I am appreciative to those chapters that have allowed me to visit over the first few months of my term. I had the opportunity to attend a couple of functions for NY Alumni namely their Officer Induction ceremony. Thank you to the Nu chapter for hosting Bellarum Diane Medeiros and myself and allowing us the opportunity to interact with several of your pledges. While up in Connecticut we also had the opportunity to catch the Rutgers v. UConn football game and then took the short hour drive up to Boston to enjoy Halloween Night festivities with the ladies of the Tau Chapter. Last but not least thank you to the Epsilon Chapter for inviting me to their meetings and events over the last semester as well as having members of Supreme at the Epsilon house along with members of the Sigma and Tau chapters for the end of Epsilon’s pledge period. As for the other chapters, I have made tentative arrangements with some but am looking forward to making it out to each chapter this year and would appreciate knowing when your events are held so I can make arrangements to come out for a visit.
Along the lines of philanthropy, I would be remiss in I did not acknowledge the passing of 2 great fraters within the last month. For those of you that may not be aware we lost PSD Manny Fiel on December 19th. Manny had been active with Philly Alumni and Supreme for a long time and he surely will be missed. I believe that Arlene has selected a charity if any chapter wants to make a donation on is behalf. Also we lost Frater Jeff Levy on December 11th after an over 4 year battle with pancreatic cancer. At the convention in Philadelphia I chose the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research as our National Charity in his honor. I encourage all chapters to make this a focal point of your fund raising and charity events for the remainder of the year. If you would like more information on the organization and events in your area please go to their website at www.lustgarten.org.
A couple of final notes, congratulations to all fraters that were just recently inducted into AZO. I know some of you are here today and hope that this experience has allowed you to see why this fraternity means so much to a lot of us here. Thank you again to Lou and Gloria Flacks and their team for another wonderful convention. The weather albeit a little colder than one would expect turned out just fine. Thank you to my supreme executive board and appointees for all their hard work so far this current semester. Also thank you to the undergrad chapters, this is an amazing turn out from you, continue to stay strong and I look forward to continuing seeing many of your faces in the years to come
Lastly, in conversations with the estate of the late Frater Paul Pumpian we can expect to receive these funds over the next several weeks. We will be receiving an endowment of $50,000. The establishment of this fund is essential to allow us to be able to provide meaningful scholarship help to our undergraduates.
Finally, I would like to thank those chapters and fraters that have invited me to meetings or have come to me expressing their views on what they would like to see out of AZO. Thank you again for this opportunity to serve the fraternity in the capacity of Directorum. I will continue to work hard for the benefit of AZO and its members.
Fraternally,
Brian Pinto
Supreme Directorum
December News
Fraters,
As I approach the halfway point in my term as Supreme Directorum as well as the fraternity’s 90th birthday, I cannot help but be impressed with the progress we have been made in the last several months, both locally and nationally. Having witnessed the hard work of our local chapters as well as the effort put forth by my slate of officers, I can surely see we are well on our way to enjoying a successful year. I would like to congratulate those fraters who were recently inducted into AZO over the last several weeks. May you enjoy an undergraduate experience as rewarding as mine was after pledging this fraternity in 1998.
In my inaugural address this past July in Philadelphia, I touched on our need to reach out to our "LOST" fraters. This is a very special newsletter for AZO, not just because of the lyrical mastery of Frater Lessing, but also because it is a celebration of our first 90 years and the fraters who were an essential part of getting us to where we are today. I hope that this issue will be able to reach all fraters, known and 'lost', so that they may see the progress AZO has made in these 90 years.
Since my last report in September, we have remained busy. The website renovation is on track to be completed and revealed at the upcoming convention in Naples. The chapter mailing lists that have been tirelessly pieced together from several sources spanning the past few decades have been organized and are now in the hands of AZO Direct or their respective chapters and the addresses are being updating accordingly. Finally, we continue to finalize plans for the upcoming convention in Naples thanks to the efforts of Lou and Gloria Flacks, who have also begun work on the upcoming National Convention to be held in July.
Personally, I am appreciative to those chapters that have allowed me to visit over the first few months of my term. I had the opportunity to attend a few functions for NY Alumni, most namely their Officer Induction ceremony located conveniently in Newark. I would also like to thank the Nu chapter for hosting Bellarum Diane Medeiros and myself and for allowing us the opportunity to interact with several of their pledges. While in Connecticut, we also had the opportunity to catch the Rutgers v. UConn football game and then took the short hour drive north to Boston to enjoy Halloween festivities with the ladies of the Tau Chapter. Last but not least, thank you to the Epsilon Chapter for inviting me to their meetings and events over the last semester as well as hosting members of Supreme along with members of the Sigma and Tau chapters at the Epsilon house for the end of Epsilon’s pledge period. As for the remaining chapters, I have made tentative arrangements with some but am looking forward to taking a trip out to each chapter this year and would appreciate knowing when your chapter’s events are held so I can make arrangements to come out for a visit.
As for philanthropy, I would like to touch on two topics. First is our National Charity, the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research. I encourage all chapters to make this a focal point of your fund raising and charity events for the year. If you would like more information on the organization and events in your area, please go to their website at www.lustgarten.org. Second, the AZO Endowment Fund. In conversations with the estate of the late Frater Paul Pumpian we can expect to receive this endowment over the next several months. The establishment of this fund and addition of these monies are essential to allow the fraternity to provide meaningful scholarship assistance to our undergraduates.
In closing, it is clear over the past 90 ninety years that AZO has been vastly successful at preserving the history of this fraternity and its members. This preservation effort has allowed so many fraters over the years to look back and truly understand the efforts of the 13 founding fathers and those fraters that followed them. Whether through our written history (which, on a side note, I anxiously await the next addendum to the 40 Years of AZO series), pictures, artifacts, or oral traditions passed down through the generations, AZO has stayed true to its core principles of preserving Peace, Friendship and Brotherly Love. Please enjoy this edition of our newsletter and a look at our past, present and future.
PFBL,
Brian Pinto
Supreme Directorum
Apothecary Message
September 18, 2009
Fraters,
As we venture into another fraternal year, the Supreme officers and I have been keeping busy trying to bring the goals outlined in my inaugural address to fruition. We have been working diligently on the website update, refreshing the mailing list, and pursuing a few opportunities that have arisen to open or reestablish AZO Chapters.
In just over 2 months on the job I feel a lot has transpired. Communication between the officers and the committees has been constant and fluid. Considering the amount of work I expect out of them this year, this is definitely a good sign for things to come. I hope to increase communication amongst the fraternity as a whole with the renovation of our website. I have been working with Signare Stephen Imperato and Tan Carlin, former undergrad directorum from the Sigma chapter, on creating the new design and functionality of the website. We are also looking into upgrades that will help to streamline processes like convention registration, new member registration, chapter submissions, and to keep our mailing list up to date by allowing the fraters to update their information themselves through a members-only module online. I am hoping to debut this new site at our 90th Anniversary celebration at the upcoming Winter Convention this January in Naples.
One of our other projects for this year was to improve frater retention and locate "lost" fraters. The primary goal was to establish a proper mailing list, and with the help of several fraters, we have put together several mailing lists and cross referenced them with ABCD cards from the last few decades. At this point we are working with members from individual chapters, as well as the chairmen of the AZO Direct committee, to remove any names and addresses that are no longer active. The plan is to incorporate this new list into the website to allow for a better means of keeping track of fraters as they graduate and move on to their careers. I would like to thank those fraters that have helped us thus far in updating the mailing list.
Last but not least is communication with and between chapters. I am encouraged by the activity I have seen between chapters. This has helped open a couple of opportunities very early into this new fraternal year. With the help of Sigma, I am continuing to pursue the possibilities of a chapter at NEUCOP near Akron. I have been in touch with students there and hope to induct a founding class by the end of the semester. We are also looking into the possibility of a chapter at the University of Michigan in Ann Harbor, where our Co-Director of Development, Jared Stroud, has just begun as a clinical liaison with the school. We have also been able to work with Epsilon and Philadelphia Alumni on an opportunity to reactivate the Beta chapter. Undergrads from Epsilon, as well as Vince Paul, Rich Greene and myself attended the student activities fair at USP in Philadelphia and met with one of the fraters remaining from before that chapter folded. He has expressed interest in reactivation and we are working with him to put together a group of students to restart the chapter. I hope to have more information within the next month in regards to this opportunity.
Finally, I would like to thank those chapters and fraters that have invited me to meetings or have come to me expressing their views on what they would like to see out of AZO. I encourage all chapters to begin planning arrangements for the upcoming convention in Naples. Before you know it, January will just be around the corner. Thank you again for this opportunity to serve the fraternity in the capacity of Directorum. I will continue to work hard for the benefit of AZO and its members.
Fraternally,
Brian Pinto
Supreme Directorum
Supreme Directorum's Message for July 22, 2009
Directorum's Report
July 2009 Inaugural Address
Greetings: Fraters, family, friends, and guests.
First of all, I would like to thank the fraternity for bestowing this honor upon me and also thank all of you for being here to help me take on this endeavor. Thank you Vince and Mike for emceeing tonight's proceedings. Congratulations to my professional counterpart for the fraternal year, Agnes Brooks. I wish you and the auxiliary much continued success. I would also like to congratulate my newly elected board, and wish you luck in assuming the responsibilities of your new position. Well, except for you Steve, but I know you'll put in just as much effort for me this year as you did for Harry last year. I will be asking for a lot from all of my officers and appointees this year and I expect that they will give their all in making sure that AZO is viable for another 90 years.
So, here we are, in our nation's first capital, where over 200 years ago, a country was formed based on the principles of freedom and self-expression. And, almost 90 years ago, in this great city, 13 men sat in the halls of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Sciences and had a similar dream. These men formed a society that would later come to be known as the Alpha Zeta Omega Pharmaceutical Fraternity. Over the years, AZO has left an indelible mark in the lives of those of us who are fortunate enough to call ourselves fraters. We are the fraternity of Sless, Agin, Boonshoft, and Pollock; however, at the same time, we must remember that yesterday is in the past. We should honor and be proud of their successes, as well as learn from their mistakes. All we have the ability to control now is what is in front of us and we must rely on the fraters that we choose to lead this fraternity to usher us into the future. In order for AZO to remain viable for the next 90 years, we need to adapt to changing times, not only in our industry, but also in our world, and search for a stronger purpose. The face of pharmacy has changed greatly since the inception of AZO, but one thing remains the same; the need to continue to educate ourselves as advances in medicine increase the amount of knowledge necessary to function in our role as health care professionals. Over the years, AZO has served many purposes to its fraters, whether professional, personal, or social. The fundamental goal of my year as directorum is to focus our purpose on continued education for our fraters. Long term, I believe that expanding our continuing education program will not only lead to increased frater retention, but will also serve as a necessary source of income the fraternity requires to sustain itself for years to come.
In order to make this dream of mine a reality, I will implement a 3 phase retention plan. This plan will become the cornerstone, for the both the fraternity and its members to benefit in many aspects. Phase 1 of my plan concentrates on electronic communications, and, specifically the website. Before I proceed, I would like to commend Frater Mort Smith for carrying the website through its infancy to where it stands today. You have been instrumental in bringing AZO into the electronic age and I will look to you for advice and guidance as we begin this new endeavor to redesign and augment www.azo.org. Furthermore, I would like to re-appoint Mort to the Director of Electronic Communications position. In this role, he will continue to inform our fraters of upcoming events, fraternal news, and keep all fraters abreast of the happenings at the Supreme and local levels thru his e-mail blasts. Over the last few months, I have been working with several fraters to develop ideas for the fraternity's new website design. The goal is to make the AZO website a more efficient communication tool between Supreme and all of our fraters. I still encourage our younger fraters to take advantage of social networking sites like Facebook and My Space. These interfaces allow us to strengthen connections made at convention and to continue communication throughout the year. Our goal for the new website is to allow easy submission of dues, forms and other necessary information to Supreme: making your job easier and allowing a seamless transition from one year to the next. The revamped website will also become the tool with which we use to reach out to our lost fraters. How many times have you been to a CE luncheon or a job interview when the mere mention of AZO changes the tone of the conversation and immediately strikes upon their fondest moments as a frater? These people are out there, and it is our job as active fraters to reach out to them.
This leads into Phase 2 of my retention plan. Over the years, we have lost too many fraters due to lack of a proper transition between officers and committee directors. Within the last year alone, we have come across several old mailing lists that contain the names of at least 4000 fraters. Frater Stephen Imperato has already begun the task of organizing and combining these lists. To assist Frater Imperato, I am going to rely on two committees: the Special Actions Committee, which this year will be chaired by Frater Shari Fine. The other committee that will be called upon to assist Steve is AZO Direct. This committee will be co-chaired by Fraters Jason Milner, Doug Ortiz, and Omer Munir. Frater Munir is a former Supreme Undergrad Representative and a perfect example of the type of frater that Phase 2 can bring back into the fold. Combing through these lists will be a most time consuming task and I ask the fraternity at large to cooperate with these committees as they attempt to track down the fraters. It is my hope that they can be reached and will eventually make the most of being a frater for life, and not just for the 5-6 years they spent as an undergrad. Along these same lines, I am also looking to increase the scope of the direct billing program introduced several years ago by Frater Vince Paul. The chapters with which we have implemented this change have transitioned quite well and I look forward to add a few more this year. I will be speaking to all chapter excheques in the coming weeks and discussing possible avenues to transition each of our alumni chapters into direct billing over the next several years.
Finally, phase 3 of my plan is an expansion of the continuing education program. I plan to work with my Director of Continuing Education, Frater Mehul Patel, and my Director of External Relationships, Frater Lou Flacks, to develop a national CE program for AZO. This will encompass not only a "Live" component, but also an online option that I anticipate will one day be available through our website.
It is my firm belief that the ultimate beneficiaries of this retention plan will be our undergraduates. You are what drive me to continue to give back to AZO. Whether it's as simple as buying you lunch or offering you a job as a tech at my store, I will strive to ensure that I leave AZO a better and stronger fraternity for you than when I first joined 11 years ago. I am encouraged by the high level of activity exhibited by our undergraduate chapters and I ask them to continue their hard work and effort. This hard work is evident when considering that we had 3 nominees for the Jay Pollock Supreme Undergraduate Award and 5 recipients of the Si Sless Award this past year. Although this is impressive in its own right, I believe you can do more. Next year, I would like to see each of our undergraduate chapters make a nomination for the undergrad award, as well as name a recipient for the Si Sless. Thanks to the work of our past Deputies and Directors of Development, our undergrad chapters have grown stronger in not only quantity, but more importantly, quality. I believe it is time to expand our reach even further. I charge my directors of Development, Fraters Michael Seidenman and Jared Stroud with spreading the bonds of fraternalism to those schools looking to accept us. We have received inquiries from a few schools looking to start AZO chapters, namely North East Ohio College of Pharmacy in Akron, Ohio and Touro College in Harlem, NY. I have also notified my Deputy, Frater Vince Paul, to make contact with several schools of pharmacy in between our current chapters and gauge their interest in starting an AZO chapter. Together, these three fraters will be responsible for sustaining the growth of our existing undergraduate chapters while laying the foundation for future chapters at pharmacy schools across the country. Also, I would also like to take this opportunity to remind the fraternity of the generous gift of $50,000 from the estate of Frater Paul Pumpian and thank the Endowment committee members: Fraters Vince Paul, Paul Holly, Lou Flacks, Harry Lieberman, Lenny Ortega, Stephen Imperato and our Legal Advisor Mrs. Joy Pollock for their diligence to develop a plan of action for the funds once they are delivered. The scholarship money that this gift will provide is a perfect complement to the Ephraim G. Sless Scholarship Fund which this year will again be headed up by Frater Andrea Palotta. Also to aid our undergrads in opportunities available to them during school and after graduation I am asking Christian Gabel to take on the role of director of Mentosrhip and to keep on top of communication between undergrad chapters as well as alumni I have asked Lauren Young to be my Sidney Rome Newspaper Director.
I anticipate this to be a very busy year for AZO as we celebrate our 90th birthday. I will rely heavily on the role of my next 2 appointments, my Historian, Frater John Anciano, one of the fraters most responsible with my move up into Supreme, and my AZOAN Editor, Frater Daniella Davis. I wish you both the best of luck as you record the events of the upcoming year to add to our storied history.
There is a phrase we use in Portugal that loosely translates to one of our most common phrases, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" As a result, I am counting on the following appointments to continue their efforts to the fraternity to help make this another successful fraternal year. As Director of Financial Affairs, Frater Ernie Jacobson. For Director of Fraternal Affairs, Frater Bruce Strell and even from as far as Miches, Dominican Republic, my Director of Fraternal Affairs Emeritus Frater Robert Kirschner. Oh, and before I forget and further delve into my thank you's, I would like to congratulate Frater Steve Brooks for doing such a wonderful job running the raffle this year.
Steve, you have done so well, I am going to let you do it again next year!
I would also like to congratulate my Chaplain and Director of Good and Welfare Frater Paul Holly on being honored with the Meritorious Award earlier this week. It is a well deserved honor and by no means an end to your commitment to the fraternity.
Thank you to Harry Lieberman and his lovely wife Trudy and their respective boards, for the hard work they put into leading the fraternity and auxiliary this past fraternal year.
Furthermore, I would like to express my immense gratitude and extend congratulations again to Lou and Gloria Flacks, not only for putting together this wonderful convention, but also for being mentors to me over the last several years. Both have helped mold me into a much shrewder business man in the process!
There are many in this fraternity in whom I find inspiration, but one person here tonight has fought for much more than just the fraternity. Jeff, your fight over the last few years is the testament to the passion that you have, not only to overcome this condition, but overall in your life. That is why this year, in your honor, I am selecting the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research as our National Charity.
At this point I would to thank some very important people in my life. First and foremost, to my parents, Jose and Isabel, for being here tonight and for instilling the values of a good Portuguese upbringing in me and encouraging me to achieve and be able to enjoy all the success I have today.
To all of you in the Epsilon Chapter, whether still living in New Jersey or in the outer reaches of the country, you have become my second family. You have empowered me to become a better frater, and in the end, a better person. In no particular order, thanks to Bump, Anciano, Poppy, Salsa, Poppado, Tomson, Omer, Shari, Bill and Diane, (who are somewhere on their way to Alaska right now), the Krops, Fines, Kravets, Ross', Sobelsons and all the other Epsilon Fraters that have in some way made a mark on who I am today. And last but not least to Frater Leann Clymer, not only for your kind words but for being my guide, my support and my best friend. As both of us start new endeavors this year (Leann is starting law school in 4 weeks), may we both rely on each other to overcome any obstacles that come our way and make this a truly amazing year. With all my love, thank you.
If you had asked me 11 years ago where I envisioned myself within AZO today, I wouldn't have had much of an answer for you. What a difference a semester of pledging, 4 years as an undergrad frater, and 7 years as an alum working at the local and Supreme levels makes. Thank you fraters once again for bestowing this honor upon me. It means so much to me to be standing here and assuming this responsibility in the presence of my colleagues, mentors, family and friends. May God Bless America and God Bless AZO. Thank You.
Brian Pinto
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