News Announcement
For further information please contact
Cheryl L. Kight - Vice President, Marketing

Columbus, April 2009

THE OHIO FOUNDATION OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES
ELECTS NEW TRUSTEES
BAKER BAHLMAN, T. STEPHEN GREGORY,
BEAR MONITA, BRADFORD PAYNE, AND KEVIN LEE

At its Annual Meeting on April 21 at the Westin Hotel in Columbus The Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges (OFIC) elected corporate leaders from across the state to serve on its Board of Trustees.  They are:

Baker Bahlman, President, Emory P. Zimmer Insurance Agency Inc., Cincinnati, has been with the agency since 1983, having assumed the position of president in 1997.  He is a lifelong resident of Cincinnati, Ohio.  Bahlman graduated from The Seven Hills School and received his BA from Denison University.  He has served on the board of the University Club of Cincinnati and was a trustee and president of The Cincinnati Insurance Board. 

T. Stephen Gregory is the President of Gregory Industries, Inc. in Canton.  The company specializes in galvanizing, metal process and roll-forming.  Gregory’s seven integrated divisions serve the coil products, highway safety, fence, strut, metal process and transportation markets.  Gregory is involved with many community groups and currently serves as a member of the board of directors at Aultman Hospital in Canton.  

Bear Monita, Managing Partner, Lorenz Williams Incorporated, Dayton, has been with the company, the area’s largest and oldest architectural and engineering firm, for 12 years and is responsible for leading marketing, business development and client relations activities.  Prior to joining Lorenz Williams, he worked for U.S. Congressman Tony Hall and the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce.  Monita graduated with honors from Ohio University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism.  He serves on the board of the Kettering Medical Center Foundation and the Associate Board of the Dayton Art Institute and is a graduate of Leadership Dayton. 

Bradford W. Payne joined Laurel Health Care in Westerville, Ohio in 1994 as Executive Vice President and CFO and was named President and CEO in October 2005.  Prior to joining Laurel he spent 9 years with Ernst & Young, LLP, where he was a Senior Manager and served a variety of clients from health care to financial institutions to high growth businesses.  From 1991 through 1994, Payne held the positions of Controller, Vice President of Professional Services and Chief Financial Officer at Symix Systems Inc, a publicly traded software company.  He is a graduate of Marietta College and is actively involved with many community activities and groups including YoungLife. 

Kevin J. Lee, General Manager, Anheuser-Busch Brewery, Columbus, joined the company in 1985 as an Engineering Intern at the Williamsburg brewery.  He served as warehouse manager in 1996 during the installation of the Columbus brewery’s automated warehouse system and returned to Columbus as senior assistant plant manager in 2000.  Lee was named plant manager in 2002.  He has also held management positions at Anheuser-Busch breweries in Williamsburg, Va. and St. Louis, Mo.  Lee holds a master’s degree in business administration from the College of William and Mary and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. 

OFIC is the primary corporate and foundation solicitation organization for 34 independent Ohio colleges and universities and operates one of the largest, most comprehensive and diverse scholarship management services in the state.  OFIC member colleges collectively enroll nearly 97,000 students and award one-third of all bachelor’s degrees in the state. For 59 years OFIC has worked to highlight the leadership, value and excellence of independent higher education and has provided unrestricted operating funds and scholarship commitments through funds raised in annual solicitations of businesses and foundations, thereby assuring continuation of excellence in private higher education. OFIC is governed by a Board of Trustees comprised of Ohio’s corporate leaders, as well as presidents of the 34 member colleges.

The member colleges are:  Ashland University, Baldwin-Wallace College, Bluffton University, Capital University, Cedarville University, University of Dayton, Defiance College, Denison University, The University of Findlay, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Franklin University, Heidelberg University, Hiram College, John Carroll University, Kenyon College, Lake Erie College, Lourdes College, Malone University, Marietta College, Mount Union College, Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Muskingum College, Notre Dame College, Oberlin College, Ohio Dominican University, Ohio Northern University, Ohio Wesleyan University, Otterbein College, Urbana University, Ursuline College, Walsh University, Wilmington College, Wittenberg University and The College of Wooster.