In what is now tradition, recipients of the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award are honored at the December commencement ceremony. This year, Aimee Steel ’96, Colette Raebiger ’95, and Philip Stump ’97-98 have joined the ranks of Ship’s OYAs.

As part of the undergraduate commencement ceremony, Aimee Steel ‘96 receives her Outstanding Young Alumnus Award from President Ruud. Unable to attend were Colette Raebiger ‘95 and Philip Stump ‘97-’98.

Aimee Steel ’96

Much of Aimee Steel’s experience has led to her current position as manager of external public relations for Holland & Knight LLP, a global law firm with over 1,100 attorneys. Early in her career she was the deputy press secretary for Senator Arlen Specter and worked with Congressman Frank LoBiondo (r-nj) and former congressman John Fox (r-pa) on health care, housing, education, and agriculture policies. Most recently Aimee was the press secretary to former congressman Pat Toomey (r-pa) where she managed all aspects of media relations including his successful reelection campaign in 2002.

Aimee then became the director of communications at Cassidy & Associates, one of the nation’s leading governmental relations firms and the largest in Washington, D.C. She was a charter member of the firm’s specialized strategic communications practice. Aimee lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area, is a member of several professional organizations and volunteers her time at her alma mater and the Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia.

Colette Lautenschlager Raebiger ’95

A quick look at Colette’s experience shows she worked in all areas of several major companies to prepare for her role as senior project manager, Global Supply Chain at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. There she led the multi-functional, multi-departmental international project to facilitate the global implementation of automated demand feeds into SAP and has been the leader for all SAP business-related processes within Wyeth. Previous to joining Wyeth in 2005, Colette was with CertainTeed, Inc. starting in 1999. Starting in sales and customer service she quickly progressed to accounting, finance, and order fulfillment departments with increasing responsibilities.

Colette is an active volunteer at SU serving on the Supply Chain Management Advisory Board and as an annual fund co-chair. She also is a founding member of the Philadelphia Alumni Steering Committee and represents Shippensburg University at local college fairs. She is working toward her CPIM certification and is a member of APICS, a professional organization.

Philip Stump ’97- ’98

Starting his career as a medical technologist, first for Quest Diagnostics then SmithKline Beecham, Phil is now the quality assurance auditor for Merck Research Laboratories. There he performs process and facility inspections and report audits for various Merck groups including drug metabolism, genotoxicity, and safety assessment. Previous to his current position he was a staff biochemist and was instrumental in the development of assays and eventual FDA approval of novel vaccines. He also worked on numerous post-licensure vaccine studies. His first position with Merck involved working on more than fifteen vaccine projects and coordinating them to Merck protocols. He was instrumental in establishing a sample processing laboratory.

Phil is active in his community serving as a fire fighter and served as vice president of his fire company in 2008. He has been honored with the department’s “Making the Stretch” award and received the Outstanding Student Award from the Bucks County Public Safety Training Center. He is married to Susan Davis ’97, and they have two sons, Kyle and Alex.