The Distinguished Alumni Award is the highest award presented by the IUP Alumni Association. It honors those who have achieved distinction in their chosen fields or who have demonstrated loyal, active service to their alma mater. The award’s 2026 recipients were honored at a gala in April.
Video profiles appear on the IUP Alumni website.
Believed to be the school’s first Black male graduate, the late George Blair ’54 overcame many challenges to become a minister, educator, and administrator. After hitchhiking from Pittsburgh to Indiana at 16, he paid his tuition by working in the library and performing with a band. He was commissioned as an Army officer at graduation, went on to earn a master’s degree and a doctorate, and retired as deputy chancellor of the State University of New York. The son of a sharecropper, he founded the Black World Championship Rodeo, which honored the history of Black riders, and the New York City Riding Academy for inner-city youth.
An ROTC Distinguished Military Graduate, Michael Formica ’82 went on to a 43-year career in the US Army, earning two master’s degrees along the way. A Johnstown native now living in Virginia, he served 27 years as an officer in the US, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East and commanded 3,500 soldiers during combat operations in Iraq, for which he received the Distinguished Service Medal. After retiring from active duty as a colonel in 2009, he returned to government service as a Department of the Army senior executive. Now a Tier 3 senior executive, he is one of only 25 of these Army civilian leaders.
Growing up in Philadelphia, Christine R. Hardy ’99 persevered through teenage motherhood. She cared for a young family while juggling the demands of law school. As a trial attorney, she litigated transportation cases nationwide. In 2014, she joined Norfolk Southern Corporation and, in 2020, was named deputy general counsel and chief data privacy officer. She advises on complex corporate, regulatory, and commercial matters; has excelled in integrating legal strategy with enterprise goals; and led the development and implementation of the company’s first data governance and artificial-intelligence governance frameworks. Based in Atlanta, she serves on the board of Cool Girls, Inc.
Ed Hartman ’86, a 2019 inductee into the IUP Athletics Hall of Fame, was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986 and played professionally for four seasons, earning minor league MVP honors. He has built a distinguished career as a financial and business leader and now serves as executive vice president of Business Operations for the Pirates. As founder of CFO BI LLC, he led the successful turnaround of a $360-million transportation company. He also served as chief financial officer of Aires, executive vice president and CFO of the Buffalo Sabres, and CFO of Basis100, formerly a Toronto Stock Exchange-listed company.
A passion for high-stakes business finance set James Leda ’95 on a path to some of the world’s most influential financial institutions, including Merrill Lynch, PPM America, and Cayman-based insolvency firm KRyS Global, where he serves as managing director. As an IUP undergraduate, he was a student trustee and president of the Student Congress. Later, he earned an MBA at the University of Chicago. He is passionate about giving back to his alma mater. As president of the Foundation for IUP Board of Directors, he oversees the foundation’s efforts to steward its assets for the benefit of IUP.
Since graduating with a degree in psychology, Pittsburgher Sharise Hemby Nance ’02 has earned a master’s degree in social work, provided mental health services to thousands of patients, and added the roles of entrepreneur and author to her résumé. She co-owns HandinHand Counseling Services, which aims to reduce mental health disparities in Black communities, and founded Vitamin C Healing, which provides workshops, group coaching, and online courses to enhance the emotional wellness of social workers. She also created the Social Worker Appreciation of Greatness (SWAG) Awards to recognize social-work heroes in the Greater Pittsburgh area for compassionate service and commitment to the profession.