Distinguished Achievement Award
James McWethy '65
Homecoming ConvocationOctober 13, 2007
Mount Vernon, Iowa
presented by
Joe Campanelli ’69, President of the Alumni Association
Leslie H. Garner, Jr., President of the College
James Berry McWethy, Class of 1965, you have strengthened Cornell College with your visionary leadership and significant financial investment, supporting the college across the curriculum.
Upon earning a master’s degree in economics from Indiana University, you shared your insights and passion for that discipline as an instructor at Indiana and Purdue universities. You then applied your knowledge in 23 years of management at the Berry Bearing Company. Founded by your grandfather, Lester Berry, the company was the world’s largest privately held industrial bearing distributor in the world when the family sold it in 1993. Since then you have engaged in numerous successful ventures as an independent businessman and have practiced philanthropy through the McWethy Foundation. Most significantly, you have quietly and with genuine humility turned your attention and energy toward service to Cornell College, with great effect.
Your exemplary service on the Cornell College Board of Trustees from 1995 to 2004 includes chairmanship of the Business Affairs Policy Committee, where you provided oversight on endowment investments, major capital improvements, formulation of the operating budget, and long-range planning. Today you remain involved as a member of the Campaign Steering Committee and as chair of the Berry Center Advisory Board. Your leadership includes significant gifts given with your wife, Susan, for the greatest needs of the college. You provided the art department a spectacular facility that transformed the old gymnasium into McWethy Hall in 2002. You also provided the dramatic glass-front Berry Lobby entrance to our new theater. The breadth of your support of the liberal arts is also evident in major gifts to Law Hall Technology Center and, more recently, the Berry Center for Economics, Business, and Public Policy. Following 18 months as chair of the planning committee, you endowed the Berry Center in perpetuity and named it in honor of your grandfather.
Your generosity springs from a sincere desire to make the world a better place. Through the McWethy Foundation you encourage worthy efforts in the fields of medicine and education. We are grateful that Cornell is your first affection. Today we gladly acknowledge that you have made Cornell a better place by the investment of your talents, resources, and energy.
With much gratitude and pride the Cornell College Alumni Association confers upon you, James McWethy, its highest honor: The Distinguished Achievement Award.
