Recipients of the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award were honored in April at a gala sponsored by the IUP Alumni Association. The following information is from the time of the award presentation. Video profiles appear on the IUP Alumni website.
A managing director and partner in the Boston Consulting Group, Thomas A. Baker ’05 is also global leader of the low-carbon energy and infrastructure sector. An alumnus of the Cook Honors College who came to IUP from Bloomsburg, he left the university for Harvard with numerous prestigious fellowships and awards. At Harvard, he earned a master’s degree and a PhD and went on to do postdoctoral work at the University of California at Berkeley. Today, he works in San Francisco, lives in Arizona, and is a thought leader and speaker in the clean-tech business. He is also on the board for the Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center.
Having spent much of his career specializing in both domestic and international taxation, Pittsburgher David Bluemling ’85 now works as a fiduciary representing foundations, trusts, and estates. He is a recently retired partner of Forvis Mazars/BKD CPAs and Advisors and a former leader of several nonprofits. He currently serves on the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh Board of Directors (for which he is a past chair), the board of the Foundation for IUP, and the Eberly College of Business Advisory Council. Previously recognized by Pittsburgh Business Times as a Fast Tracker, he has also been featured in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Danielle Mashaw Brown ’93, senior vice president and chief information officer for Whirlpool Corporation in Michigan, has risen through the ranks of several leading corporations, including DuPont and Brunswick. She is lauded for creating value through the use of technology while managing investment and operational spending to improve efficiency. Coming to IUP from North Versailles, she went on to earn master’s degrees from Penn State and Drexel. Boards on which she serves include those of Corewell Health, Michigan’s largest health system; the Executive Leadership Council, a nonprofit that fosters the development of Black executives; and Performance Food Group, one of North America’s largest food and food-service distributors.
Michael Burton ’74 is retired from a career that is many a youngster’s dream. For more than 20 years, he served the animals of Busch Gardens Tampa Bay as senior veterinarian. Supervising the collection’s preventive medicine program, he also co-starred in The Wildlife Docs, an Emmy-nominated TV series that ran for five years on ABC’s Saturday morning lineup. A Wellsboro native, he obtained his veterinary degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier in his career, he pursued his profession at zoos in Colorado Springs and Wellington, New Zealand. Today, he lives in Inverness, Florida, where he creates award-winning sculptures of wildlife.
Pittsburgher Donta Green ’10 may be best known as football coach at the city’s Westinghouse High School. In this role he is also a mentor to players and a source of assistance for parents and community members. Twice, he has been named a Pennsylvania Football Writers Coach of the Year, and KDKA selected him as a Hometown Hero. In 2022, Pittsburgh magazine said he “helps Pittsburghers leap over barriers” when it selected him for its 40 Under 40 award and called attention to his role as CEO of the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh. He had, the magazine said, “reenergized [the institute’s] mission.”
Everette Penn D’00 is a professor of criminology at the University of Houston, Clear Lake and executive director of TAPS Academy, which he cofounded in 2011, with the goal of reducing the social distance between youth and law enforcement. Constantly adding innovative programs, the academy has received more than $4 million in funding. With a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers and a master’s from what has now become Texas A&M, he taught at several universities and was a Fulbright professor of American Studies in Egypt. Widely published, he serves on numerous boards and has been repeatedly recognized with community awards and honors.
Kimberly Bender Steinhauer ’85, president and CEO of Estill Voice International, founded the Pittsburgh-based company more than two decades ago. Renowned for its innovative voice software and healthcare products, the woman-owned business also developed the globally acclaimed Estill Voice Training curriculum and certification program in six languages. Steinhauer holds a degree in music education from IUP and graduate degrees in communication sciences from Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh. With extensive teaching experience from elementary to higher education, she established and serves as treasurer of the Estill Education Fund, a nonprofit that supports voice training scholarships and research projects.