APEX Awards feature applause and emotion

By BILL FALLON

Andrew Spano, County Executive

The Westchester County Association, for which impacted problems like overtaxation and the health-care morass are in the bull’s-eye as flawed and beatable foes, dished its inaugural APEX awards Thursday night at the Hilton Rye Town.

 

The association’s 2007 Fall Leadership Reception featured stirring patriotism and the moving tribute of a winner's daughter that froze 500-plus otherwise convivial attendees in their tracks and had not a few of them choking back a tear of their own.

 

Martin Rego of King Organization, Noel Zeller of Zelco Industries, Inc., and attorney L. William Fishman.

 

The format featured nonstop food and drink in a schmoozing atmosphere without the speed bump of a sit-down meal.

 

“It’s great,” said association Chairman Alfred B. DelBello, surveying the thrumming main ball room. “This new style without tables allows for circulation. It looks like it’s a successful format.” (Delbello is also husband of Dee DelBello, Westchester County Business Journal publisher and an event sponsor.)

 

Joy Lawrence and Melvina Carter Yonkers IDA

 

Of the APEX winners, DelBello said, “These are the people who really achieve because they have found new and imaginative ways to do business.”

 

Honoree Tara Meenan Lansen, president and CEO of Pleasantville-based Compufit Computer Corp., was all smiles. “It’s fabulous,” she said prior to accepting her Professional Entrepreneur Award. “It’s just great.”

 

Steve DeMatteo Robert Kestenbaum, York International

 

The other award winners were Robert Glazer, CEO of ENT & Allergy Associates, who landed one of two Advocacy Awards; Adele Zeller, president of Zelco Industries Inc., the globe-spanning maker of the Itty Bitty Book Light, winner of the International Business Award; and Adam Stark, president of Stark Business Solutions of White Plains and winner of the Young Professional Award. Former Westchester County Business Journal editor Alex Philippidis received the Special Recognition Award; and Stanley Freimuth, past association chairman, earned the Chairman’s Award.

 

In his comments, Glazer praised the Westchester County Association: “With their help, we’ve begun to level the playing field for hospitals and doctors. The WCA has moved health care to the front burner.”

 

Alex Philippidis

 

Philippidis struck another chord dear to the association. After thanking his wife, Karen, and son, he asked members to remember their children and grandchildren via “a home they can afford and a county that won’t tax them into the poorhouse.”

 

The evening’s highlight was for an honoree not there. Advocacy Award recipient Thomas E. Hales, chairman and CEO of Union State Bank, was recovering from a recent double-lung transplant.

 

Bill Mooney, president of Westchester County Association, left, and Lianne Hales-Shaw, accepting an award for her father, Tom Hales

 

Introducing Hales’ daughter, Lianne Hales-Shaw, who would accept the award for her father, association President William M. Mooney Jr. praised her father following a slide show of Hales at work. “He has done so much for the real estate community,” Mooney said, admitting to wrestling with emotion. “He has touched us all – just an incredible guy. There’s no way in a speech, or in what we just saw, that you can do justice to him.”

 

Hales-Shaw’s sincerity and love for her father froze the crowd., which burst into loud applause as she concluded her remarks. “Dad always put people first,” she said and then offered a medical update, calling her father’s progress “a phenomenal blessing.” She asked for prayers. One suspects heaven was besieged.

 

Attendees at the Westchester County Association Event

 

The national anthem was sung by Craig Schulman, who has played Phantom in “The Phantom Of The Opera,” Jean Valjean in “Les Misérables” and the title roles in “Jekyll & Hyde,” both on Broadway and worldwide, including more than 2,000 performances as Jean Valjean. Patriotism, always worth a hand, received a notably robust applause after his ringing rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

 

Kenneth P. Addeo, Thacher Proffitt and Wood LLP and Cathie Schaffer, JP Morgan

 

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