The founder of one of the nation’s largest truckload carriers, the vice mayor of Shanghai and a community college president who helped bring nursing education to Northeast Nebraska will be honored during UNMC’s commencement ceremony May 8 at the Omaha Civic Auditorium.
UNMC will hold commencement ceremonies May 6-8 in Kearney, Lincoln, Scottsbluff and Omaha. On May 8, UNMC leaders also will award:
• Clarence L. “C.L.” Werner with the UNMC Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award, which is given to individuals or organizations that have demonstrated outstanding support for UNMC by way of personal service, private contributions or other meritorious advocacy for the campus mission.
• Xiaoming Shen, M.D., Ph.D., with an Honorary Doctor of Science degree in recognition of his outstanding contributions to science and his collaborative efforts with UNMC.
• Bill R. Path, Ed.D., with the J.G. “Jack” Elliott Award for forging educational partnerships that improve the health of Nebraskans. The annual award is given in memory of Elliott, a former Scottsbluff resident who served on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents for 20 years until his death in 1974.
Clarence L. Werner serves as chairman of Werner Enterprises, Inc., one of the largest and most profitable truckload motor carriers in the nation. Fortune Magazine recently named Werner Enterprises as one of the World’s Most Admired Companies, touting its comprehensive services, knowledgeable transportation professionals and proprietary technology. The global headquarters for the company is in Omaha, with offices in Australia, China and throughout North America.
A native of Petersburg, Neb., Werner founded the company in 1956 with one truck at the age of 19. Today, two of Werner’s four children work in the publically owned business. Gary L. Werner is vice chairman and Gregory L. Werner serves as CEO. Werner’s son, Curtis G. Werner, and daughter, Gail Werner-Robertson, both own several other businesses and have served on the company’s board of directors.
Werner is a strong advocate for children with autism and their families. In 2007, he was awarded the GWR Sunshine Foundation’s Help is Hope Award for the extraordinary support that he has given to the fight against autism. Werner has generously pledged $2.5 million of matching funds to the state of Nebraska’s LB482 for early intervention services for children with autism.
In 2009, the Werner family made a $5 million gift that established the C.L. Werner Family Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Laboratories on the third level of the Durham Research Center II.
Xiaoming Shen, M.D., Ph.D., was elected to his current role as the vice mayor of Shanghai in 2008. During his tenure as president of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, he was a key figure in helping to establish an institutional collaborative agreement between his school and UNMC. Signed in 2004, this agreement provided opportunities for regular medical student, nursing student and faculty exchanges, as well as a partnership agreement for research. UNMC and Shanghai Jiao also have a unique joint M.D./Ph.D. program. This program allows students to perform their eight years of M.D. studies in China and their Ph.D. studies at UNMC. It was one of the first programs of its kind between the two countries.
Dr. Shen’s accomplishments as a health care professional are stellar. As a developmental pediatrician, he launched the first childhood lead poisoning program in China and established an epidemiology-based model for lead poisoning prevention. Dr. Shen successfully introduced newborn hearing screening to China and runs the largest and most efficient newborn hearing-screening program in the world. He also functions as the director of WHO Collaborative Center for Neonatal Health Care and is the first pediatrician in China named an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Bill R. Path, Ed.D., is in his ninth year as president of Northeast Community College in Norfolk. NECC covers a 20-county service area and offers more than 80 majors and transfer concentrations preparing students for immediate employment or transfer to a four-¬year college or university.
Nearly four years ago, Dr. Path and others — including State Sen. Mike Flood — approached the University of Nebraska and UNMC in hopes of bringing university-level nursing education to Northeast Nebraska, so as to improve the quality of medical care, attract more specialty physicians, and grow nurse faculty to serve the region’s nursing schools.
In doing so, Dr. Path looked beyond short-term competition for students and faculty, and, instead, envisioned the long-term benefit for the community. Over the course of the subsequent years, as this initiative to bring UNMC to Northeast Nebraska moved through many levels of planning and approvals, Dr. Path remained active every step of the way, committing countless hours of work, exerting leadership as needed, and presenting his vision for a better educated nursing workforce for the region. This effort resulted in $11.9 million of private funds for the J. Paul and Eleanor McIntosh College of Nursing, now under construction on the community college campus. The building is slated to open this fall.
As the state’s only academic health science center, UNMC is on the leading edge of health care. Breakthroughs are possible because hard-working researchers, educators and clinicians are resolved to work together to fuel discovery. In 2009, UNMC’s extramural research support topped $100 million for the first time, resulting in the creation of 3,600 jobs in Nebraska. UNMC’s academic excellence is shown through its award-winning programs, and its educational programs are responsible for training more health professionals practicing in Nebraska than any other institution. Through its commitment to education, research, patient care and outreach, UNMC and its hospital partner, The Nebraska Medical Center, have established themselves as one of the country’s leading health care centers. UNMC’s physician practice group, UNMC Physicians, includes 550 physicians in 50 specialties and subspecialties who practice primarily in The Nebraska Medical Center. For more information, go to UNMC’s Web site at www.unmc.edu.
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