Barry A. Hartstein '73
Hartstein, Scelfo to be honored as ILR's Groat and Alpern award winners
Barry A. Hartstein '73 and John J. Scelfo '79, MBA '80, will be honored tonight (March 31) at the ILR School's annual Groat and Alpern Awards celebration in New York City.
Hartstein and Scelfo will be toasted by more than 400 ILR students, faculty, staff and others gathering at The Pierre hotel at Fifth Avenue and East 61st Street.
Hartstein, an employment law attorney, is receiving the Groat Award for professional accomplishment in industrial and labor relations and for service to the ILR School. A Cornell University Council member, he is former president of ILR's alumni association. He serves on the ILR Advisory Council, the ILR Alumni Association Executive Committee and ILR's Scheinman Institute for Conflict Resolution Board of Directors.
John J. Scelfo '79, MBA '80
Scelfo, senior vice president of finance and corporate development for Hess Corp., is based in New York City. A graduate of the Johnson School and a member of the Cornell University Council, he will receive the Alpern Award, named for business and financial consultant Jerome Alpern '49, MBA '50.
The Alpern honor is given periodically to an ILR graduate or school friend whose career accomplishments have been primarily outside of the industrial and labor relations field.
Scelfo says he "nerded out" as a student and spent most of his time studying and working as he paid for his education. To make money, he scooped ice cream at Noyes Center and worked at the information desk at Catherwood Library. He also was a teaching assistant for Financial Accounting and Statistics, tutored the hockey team and ushered at football games.
As an alumnus, he served on the ILR Alumni Association and established the Erika Scelfo International Credit Internship Fund at ILR in his daughter's name to provide funds for students who want to study overseas.
John Scelfo (in the back) as a Cornell student in the mid 1970s with his suitemates in High Rise 5.
"I didn't have that kind of money, and I could have really used the help," said Scelfo.
At Cornell, Hartstein was inspired by such professors as Milton Konvitz and George Brooks. "The education here teaches you to be respectful of a lot of points of view," he said.
His Big Red years were times of social upheaval in America and of "incredible growth" for him.
"We all thought that we could change the world," said Hartstein, who marched with his peers in Washington, D.C., to promote change.
Barry Hartstein while traveling abroad as a Cornell student in the early 1970s.
As part of a family with six children, Hartstein tried to help out by working through school in food service as a hot food line server and short order cook at Willard Straight Hall and later on North Campus.
He graduated from Northwestern University Law School and is now a partner at Littler Mendelson, P.C. With more than 800 attorneys and 50 offices, "all we focus on is labor and employment issues dealing with the workplace," he said.
More information about the Groat and Alpern Awards celebration is available at www.ilr.cornell.edu/alumni/events/celebration/2011/index.html.