Two former Lehigh trustees conferred Emeritus Status

Two former members of Lehigh’s Board of Trustees were approved for Emeritus Status at the university’s mid-October meeting.

Ralph Albert Thomas ’76, ‘77G, ‘16P and Peter E. Bennett ’63, ‘93P retired from the Board at the conclusion of their terms in June, when the Board welcomed seven new members: members, Paul Bosco ‘80, Peter Diamond, Jordan Hitch ‘88, Stephen Klasko ‘74, Frank ‘Ted’ Walsh III ‘88, Michael J. Connor ’80, ‘14P and Gina Leffler Whitfield ‘05.

At the trustee meeting in June, Board Chair Brad Eric Scheler ’74, P’05, P’08, PG’09, expressed his “utmost thanks and appreciation” to both Thomas, Bennett and other trustees for their years of service to the board, and their dedication to the university.

Thomas and Bennet will join 15 others as Trustees Emeriti who continue to serve Lehigh.

Thomas, CEO and executive director of the New Jersey Society of Certified Public
Accountants, served as a trustee since 2001. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and was appointed in October 2012 to a two-year term on the AICPA’s inaugural National Commission on Diversity and Inclusion.  He serves on the Supreme Court of New Jersey District VIII Ethics Committee for Middlesex County and serves on the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) State Society Relations Committee. Thomas serves on the President’s Advisory Council of the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA), as well as NABA’s Corporate Advisory Board and Finance and Capital Campaign Committees. He is a member of the Accounting Advisory Boards of Seton Hall University, Montclair State University and Thomas Edison State College and Chair of the Audit Committee for Shiloh Baptist Church.

He received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Lehigh in 1976 and an M.B.A. from Lehigh in 1977.

Bennett, chair of Liberty Partners, a private equity investment firm he founded in 1992, served as a trustee from 1999 through 2005, and from 2008 through 2014 He sits on the boards of directors of several of Liberty’s portfolio companies and on the advisory board of the New York chapter of New Leaders for Schools.

He received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Lehigh in 1963 and an M.B.A. from Columbia University in 1967. He also served as an officer in the U.S. Army.