Penn State Greater Allegheny will host its fall commencement on Thursday, December 20, at 7:00 p.m. in Wunderley Gymnasium. Chancellor Curtiss E. Porter, Ph.D. will preside as diplomas are conferred to forty individuals receiving baccalaureate and associate degrees.
Keynote speaker will be Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce president, Barbara A. McNees, who has served the organization, an affiliate of the Allegheny Conference of Community Development, since 1997. The Chamber represents more than 500 businesses with more than one million employees across a 10-county area. Under her leadership, the Chamber has sharpened its focus on the innovation behind the Pittsburgh economy and broadened the voice of the Chamber membership in Harrisburg and Washington, DC.
She is the lead strategist for regional lobbying efforts to improve the business climate and increase economic development and has played a lead role in local government reform. The first female president in the 126-year history of the Chamber, she has launched a Federal Advocacy Initiative to secure more federal dollars for the Pittsburgh region and created the Regional Advocacy Council, bringing together 27 business membership organizations from 10 counties to plan and pursue a shared advocacy strategy to improve the regions competitiveness and quality of life.
McNees is a member of the US Chamber Committee of 100, the Board of Directors of ACCE, and is a Director of Sky Bank. She chairs the Port of Pittsburgh Commission and the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority for the City of Pittsburgh and has been honored for her leadership by the US Small Business Administration, Junior Achievement of Western PA, the Girl Scouts Trillium Council and the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of Robert Morris University and is a member of the Internal Women?s Forum and Past Chair of the Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta.
McNees holds a B.A. in Independent Studies from Geneva College and certificates from the Institute for Organizational Management, University of Delaware and the National Development Council in Washington, D.C.
For more information, contact Penn State Greater Allegheny at 412-675-9180.