Kevin M. Rampe '88,
president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency overseeing the
reconstruction of the site of New York City's World Trade Center, will deliver the main address at Union College's Commencement.
The ceremony is set Sunday, June 13, at 10 a.m. in Library Plaza.
Rampe will receive an honorary degree from the College. The College will also award an
honorary degree to artist Wolf Kahn, whose intensely colored paintings have put
him in the forefront of American representational art.
“I am proud and honored to have the opportunity to address Union
College's Class of 2004, their
families and their friends on this very important day,” Rampe said. “Union
College prepared me for my greatest
professional challenge — coordinating the redevelopment of the World
Trade Center
site — and instilled in me a devotion to public service that has driven my
career. I look forward to returning to my alma mater and sharing my experiences
of moving from the classroom to the boardroom.”
Rampe spoke May 11 at a Union alumni event in the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan.
As lower Manhattan rebuilds in
the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack, Rampe
holds one of the most important posts – president of the Lower Manhattan
Development Corporation (LMDC), which is overseeing reconstruction. He was
named to the post last year by New York Gov. George Pataki and New York
City Mayor Michael Bloomberg after serving as the development corporation's
executive vice president and general counsel. Before joining the LMDC, he was
first deputy superintendent and chief operating officer of the New York State
Insurance Department, managing the leading insurance regulatory agency in the
country. He had joined the insurance department after serving as the governor's
senior legal advisor on insurance, banking, civil justice, worker's compensation,
and labor matters. A native of Warwick, New York, he is a cum
laude graduate of Union with a B.A. in political science and psychology. He earned his
law degree magna cum laude from Albany Law School in 1991 and
became a litigator at the law firm of Sherman & Sterling. As part of
his practice he was involved in domestic and international securities,
antitrust, and contract litigation. He also lived in Kuwait, and in 1994-1995 he was involved in the firm's representation of
the government of Kuwait and its preparation of environmental claims against the
government of Iraq arising after the Gulf War.
About Wolf Kahn
Kahn is one of the United States' most esteemed painters, one whose intensely colored and yet
meditative landscapes evoke a visceral experience of color and light. Born in Stuttgart, Germany, where his father was an orchestra conductor, he fled Nazi
Germany as an eleven-year-old refugee, traveling first to England and then a year later to the United States. After graduating from New York City's High School of Music and Art, he served in the U.S. Navy and then studied with the
well-known teacher and abstract expressionist, Hans Hofmann. Two years later,
Kahn relocated to Chicago, where he earned a B.A. from the University of Chicago. Influenced by Hofmann's practice of using nature as the starting
point for a painting, Kahn's work encompasses both pictorial landscape and
painterly abstraction. His use of color has made him one of the most highly-regarded
colorists working in America today. He has received Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships and
an Award in Art from the American Academy and Institute for Arts and Letters. His work has been exhibited
in galleries and museums throughout the world and is included in the
collections of such major museums as the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Kahn has
taught in many art schools, including Cooper Union in New York, and is the subject of a number of books.
For more information on Commencement, please visit: http://www.union.edu/Commencement/2004/