Distinguished Alums to Return to Campus as Honored Commencement Speakers

Julie Fisher Cummings, '73, and R. Jamison Williams, Jr., '59, have been chosen as this year's recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Award. This award is presented to an alumna and alumnus who has brought honor and distinction to herself/himself and to Cranbrook Kingswood through career achievement, public service, or through contributions in other areas.

This year's recipients will also speak at the Upper School graduation ceremonies on June 7, 2013. We congratulate them on all they have accomplished and look forward to welcoming them to campus on June 7.

Below you will find the Distinguished Alumni profiles from the Spring 2013 issue of Tradition. If you would like to read the magazine online, click here.

Julie Fisher Cummings, '73

Julie Fisher Cummings is nothing if not an optimist. It’s a trait that’s guided her through a seemingly endless list of philanthropic projects, and continues to motivate her as she shows no sign of slowing down.

“I believe that people are good, and they want to help,” she says. “They often just don’t know how.”

That’s where she comes in. Through her projects, she doesn’t just help those in need, she facilitates relationships that make her projects sustainable while educating her peers about the difficulties faced by others.

It’s a trait she learned at Kingswood, a place she says “made you feel like you were a part of a greater good.” She may be one of the best examples of the influence the Schools can have on a student, having first walked through the doors of Brookside at the age of four.

She was so influenced by her time as a student that, after getting married and moving to Florida, she packed up her children and moved them back so they could attend Cranbrook as well.

Thousands in the greater Detroit area have benefited from that decision. Not long after she returned, she began the Lovelight Foundation with fellow graduate Susan (Stoner) Kleinpell, ’73, and Cranbrook parent Denise Ilitch. “I got involved on the grassroots level because I wanted to educate our peer group about the issues below Eight Mile,” she says. “I knew that if we educated our peer group, they would help.”

As an advocate for children, Cummings works to create programs that solve problems and envisions policies that will ensure systemic change. Her work with Lovelight comprised not only fundraising for programs but also educating others about the plight of the disadvantaged. Lovelight's projects have included stocking libraries with books, turning abandoned lots into playgrounds, and hosting events for homeless families. Cummings’s policy work has included educating policy makers, funders, and the private sector about the impact of necessary policy change to create greater impact.

“In order to make an impact and create change, you have to work in collaboration with others,” she says. “I wanted foundation, corporate, and community support. That way you knew the community would embrace the project and take care of it.”

Over time, she began to grow frustrated with inefficient public systems. When her father, Max M. Fisher, passed away, he endowed a family foundation where Cummings is currently a vice chair. She began to realize that if she really wanted to have an impact, she was going to have to understand policy change. So she enrolled in Columbia, got a master’s degree from the School of Social Work, and headed to Capitol Hill for an internship.

“I was the oldest intern in the program, but it was an eye-opening experience,” she says. She also served as a President Bush-appointee of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Reenergized, Cummings decided to rebrand Lovelight as a women’s fund and involve the women in her family. “Rather than start a whole new fund, Sue and Denise stepped aside, and I reconstituted Lovelight as a family foundation with my daughter and daughter-in-law,” she says.

It is part of a campaign known as Women Moving Millions. They fund programs where they live, in New York and Florida, but also Detroit. Because even though Cummings lives in Florida again, “I’ll always consider myself a Detroiter.”

She feels the same way about Cranbrook. “I always say, you may leave Cranbrook, but it never leaves you.” She and her husband Peter demonstrated their appreciation with a leadership gift to build the new Cranbrook Kingswood Middle School for Girls – Kingswood.

“Kingswood gave me the belief that I could make a difference and I must make a difference in the world,” she says. “And it gave me the tools to do so.”

R. Jamison Williams, Jr., '59

When Rick Williams joins an organization, he’s not content to sit on the sidelines. As head prefect at Cranbrook, president of his class at Princeton, president of the Cranbrook alumni council, or chairman of the board of the Michigan Opera Theatre, Williams has yet to meet a challenge he couldn’t tackle head-on.

He says being a leader has always been in his DNA, but Cranbrook helped cultivate his drive. “Cranbrook provided the support and self-worth to be a leader, and encouraged you to try and be a leader in every endeavor,” he says.

Named a Detroiter of the Year by HOUR Magazine, Williams used his unique skill set and business acumen to help restructure (and ultimately save) the Michigan Opera Theatre. After the economic downturn in 2008, the group was struggling to stay afloat. The company is housed in the Detroit Opera House, one of only four companies in the United States that owns their own building. Williams restructured their bond debt and helped them save $13 million. But more importantly, he put them on a path to sustainability.

“I agreed to serve as chairman, not because I consider myself an expert in opera,” says Williams, “but I feel it is important to keep Detroit’s cultural institutions intact.”

His passion for the city and Cranbrook was reignited when he returned to Michigan in 1972, after living in New York for several years. Former Cranbrook teacher and track coach Ben Snyder had recently launched the Horizons-Upward Bound (HUB) program, and when Williams returned to the area, “he snagged me after I had been back for about 10 minutes.” Williams served on HUB’s advisory board for years.

When Williams married his wife Karen in 2008, the two exchanged vows under Cranbrook Art Museum’s outdoor peristyle, and in lieu of wedding gifts, asked guests to make donations to HUB. In one day, they raised $30,000 for the organization—a wonderful tribute to the program and to Snyder, whom Williams credits with having a great influence on his life. “He was a great motivator and team builder; for those of us on the track team, Ben focused on discipline in training and goal-setting, turning those of us who were journeymen student athletes into winners,” he says.

Williams still practices law at Williams, Williams, Rattner & Plunkett, the law firm he founded with two fellow Cranbrook graduates 40 years ago. He is the last of the original four partners still with the firm.

He continues to hold his position as chairman of the board of the Michigan Opera Theatre and sits on the board of directors at Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Yet despite his legal and philanthropic work, Williams has also found time to launch five companies.

“I love building businesses,” he says. Several of the companies, such as Nexlink Communications, which remanufactures wireless devices, were started from a single sheet of paper and now employ hundreds of people in Michigan and surrounding states.

With his wife Karen, he also devotes time to Grace Centers of Hope and is involved with the Center for Hearing Disorders at the University of Michigan.

He credits Cranbrook with not only encouraging his strong work ethic, but also instilling an appreciation for beauty in nature and art. “The grounds of Cranbrook are a constant treasure—a place to find serenity and wonder from standing beneath the Mother Tree, to pressing the spitting fountain, to climbing the Ramp of the Chinese Dog. I was lucky to be a student and remain dedicated to all that makes the fantastic place that is Cranbrook.”
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