We are pleased to congratulate our Managing Partner, Steven A. Lerman, a 1969 graduate of The Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania, upon his receipt of the prestigious Joseph Wharton Award. The award, presented by the Wharton School Club of Washington, D.C., recognizes outstanding alumni of The Wharton School for career achievement and community service.
Mr. Lerman was honored for his work over the past ten years raising funds to provide scholarships and other financial aid for minority and financially disadvantaged students attending both the University of Pennsylvania and The George Washington University Law School. In 1997 he chaired a committee which established at Penn the Alzie Jackson Tau Epsilon Phi Memorial Scholarship, which has a current endowment of almost $650,000. This scholarship honors the amazing legacy of Alzie Jackson, a man who left his home in Pennsylvania at the age of 16 with only $5 in his pocket, worked for many years as a Houseman at the Penn chapter of Tau Epsilon Phi, and went on to become a world renowned hatmaker, whose creations have been displayed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as a much-admired professor at the Moore College of Art. Subsequently, Mr. Lerman co-founded and raised over $200,000 for the Marty Sender Memorial Scholarship, honoring the memory of one of his late fraternity brothers at Penn.
Most recently, Mr. Lerman co-chaired a Scholarship Initiative which, over a period of two years, raised $7.5 million for financial aid, providing each year, in perpetuity, full scholarships to 25 financially disadvantaged Penn students. He has also personally established the Steven A. Lerman Merit Scholarship at George Washington University Law School and the Steven A. Lerman Family Endowed Scholarship at Penn.
In accepting the award, Mr. Lerman noted, “if we are going to have any chance of tackling the myriad and perplexing problems of our world, it is essential that opportunity and hope – and consequently the ability to make a difference – extend beyond the well connected and financially privileged.” Please click here to read the full text of Mr. Lerman’s remarks, or click here to read the announcement from the Wharton Club of Washington, D.C.
