Diversity Awards honor company leaders, students

Published: 2013-04-23

Huntington Bank, a firm that has immersed itself in the Fisher community as well as become a major partner to Ohio State, received Fisher’s Corporate Diversity Award. The Individual Executive Award was presented to Aida Sabo, vice president of Diversity and Inclusion at Cardinal Health.

The 14 student organizations under the umbrella of Fisher’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion Student Services presented the Diversity Awards this month.

Also at the event, the inaugural Student Perseverance Award was given to Christian Bonner, founder and president of the Fisher Business Students with Disabilities Association. The organization was founded in 2012. Bonner represented Fisher at the Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities conference last fall.

Huntington Bank has provided approximately 35 internships to Fisher students and is active in several student organizations and academic initiatives such as the Young Scholars program, said Archit Dhir, president of the International Business Club, who announced the award.

In a nomination letter to the selection committee, Peg Pennington, executive director for the Center for Operational Excellence, wrote: “Huntington is one of our most engaged members from a diversity perspective. The bank has been a strong supporter of Fisher’s Operations in Action class, which is supported by COE and strives to encourage female students to pursue operations management as a career. Huntington had female executives serve as mentors to students and has opened up its office to the entire group”

Traci Dunn, senior vice president and inclusion director for Huntington, accepted the award on behalf of the bank.

The nomination of Cardinal Health’s Sabo credited her with supporting Ohio State’s LASER (Latino and Latin American Space for Enrichment and Research) program. LASER is a feeder program to Fisher.

“She has served in an exemplary manner to the programming and mentoring projects offered through LASER,” said Frederick Luis Aldama, Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor. “Put simply, without Aida Sabo’s support of LASER and our academic mentoring program for Latino high school through college students, LASER would not be the nationally recognized initiative that it is today.”

The luncheon and reception was sponsored by Dow Chemical Co., represented by Fisher alumnus, Jorge Carerro, former president of the Hispanic Business Student Association (HBSA).