TRUSTEE MARLENE DITULLIO MOSCO ‘68 Regional president, Northwest Pennsylvania, PNC Bank, Erie, Pa. • Trustee since Oct. 19, 1995
Along came Marlene who rocked the boat. We were a small department. In my class only three of us were business majors with sights set on teaching. Two years later there were fve business majors and one was Marlene DiTullio. But Marlene was cut from a diferent cloth. She wanted to be a business
TRUSTEE ROBERT S. MILLER ‘11 Chairman, NEFoods, Inc., North East, Pa. Trustee since Oct. 22, 1991
Bob Miller knows how to make a great pizza. He’s been nationally recognized for his innovation and creativity in the pizza industry. In fact, he invented French Bread Pizza. There was no Shark Tank back then where aspiring entrepreneurs could make business pitches to a panel of potential investors. Bob’s a sharp businessman and I doubt he would have given up proft margin on his serious comfort food, regardless. More likely, he’d wait it out, go it alone or with a partner, and let the chips fall where they may. And that’s exactly what he did. He sold the rights to French Bread Pizza to Stoufer’s. Today he is a self-made man and the major benefactor of our North East Campus and the McAuley College where associate degree and certifcate programs are headquartered. He knows how to wager a bet. He used his own money to hold the 84-acre complex in North East until the board of trustees could approve its purchase in 1991. It took bold vision to roll the dice. We call him the “Father of Mercyhurst North East” and Miller Hall, the landmark administrative building, is named in his honor. Bob received an honorary doctorate from Mercyhurst in 2011 in recognition of his strategic vision on behalf of the institution. Still, I can’t write about Bob without mentioning his pizza days. After all, Mercyhurst is part of a college town and serves slices of pizza on its cafeteria lines every day. Yogi Berra once said: “You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”That’s my kind of thinking.
woman, not a business teacher, and took classes at Gannon to fll the gaps in administration and management. It was a man’s world out there in the ‘60s. Marlene saw it otherwise. If she could get a foot in the door, she’d control her own destiny. She got
that break right out of college and became a training director at a hometown bank where she later moved up to director of marketing and public relations. For 30 years she steadily climbed the corporate ladder, survived the merger of two fnancial institutions, and in 1998 was named the frst female regional president of PNC Bank. She had been elected a trustee of her alma mater three years prior and made board history as the frst graduate of Mercyhurst elected chair of the board. From her years as a student to her days in the corner ofce, Marlene has known how to play to her strengths: an enviable personality, a self- confdence like no other, and a ferce determination to pave the way for the next generation of women. I’ve been thinking about a mug from another time in my life that reads “Queen of the Hill.” I’m going to gift it to Madame Chair. She’s in the catbird seat now.
TRUSTEE FRANK B. VICTOR ‘87 Chair, FRALO Industries, Inc., Erie, Pa. • Trustee since April 27, 2000
He wears snappy clothes, drives a truck to work, a silver convertible to board meetings, and owns three prime real estate homes. Frank Victor lives the good life. He knows he was abundantly blessed at a very early age and it makes him unpretentious. I remember when, still in college, he bought the University Club in downtown Erie, gave it a facelift, and named it “Michaeleno’s.” It opened the night he was to graduate in 1985, but instead, there was Frank, in the kitchen, serving his classmates with Victor hospitality. Maybe it’s his combined business and hotelier background, but Frank knows how to make a person feel important. He always calls you by your frst name, tells you that you’ve done a good job, and is ready with a phone call to share himself with his alma mater. “I’ve been part of Mercyhurst since I was 17 and my heart has never left. My daughter, Madison, is a sophomore at the Hurst and I couldn’t be prouder.” For 13 years he was the youngest trustee on the board. Since his election in 2000, nine other lay alumni have been added, in large part because of Frank’s push for more alumni trustee involvement. He has a winning smile, crystal blue eyes, and a personality that is always on. He’s charismatic, polished and fun to be around. Make no mistake about it: he’s a business magnate and a young urban professional still trying the world on for size. I just wish he’d reopen a university club and bring back the Vodka Gimlet. It was my drink as a young Mercyhurst professional.
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