For Immediate Release

Contact:
Anthony Twyman
Office: 215-751-8082, atwyman@ccp.edu

Anders Back
Office: 215-751-8021, aback@ccp.edu

CEO OF INNOVATION PHILADELPHIA TO SPEAK AT COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF PHILADELPHIA'S 41ST COMMENCEMENT

PHILADELPHIA, May 17, 2007 – George Burrell, Esq., president and chief executive officer of Innovation Philadelphia, will be the keynote speaker at Community College of Philadelphia's 41 st graduation ceremony at 2 p.m., Sunday, May 20, at Temple University’s Liacouras Center.

For nearly three decades, Burrell has served the city in a variety of capacities. Currently, as CEO for Innovation Philadelphia, he works to grow the technology and knowledge industry sectors of the Philadelphia economy, to attract and retain young professional knowledge workers and to generate innovative ideas that will define Philadelphia’s future.

Burrell will address about 1,800 graduates who will be receiving degrees in Arts, Applied Science, General Studies and Science, as well as certificates in Addiction Studies, Disability, Family Home Visiting, Human Services, Justice, Management, Social Gerontology, Women’s/Gender Studies and Youth Work. Included among this year’s graduates are 11 employees at the College.

Last year, Burrell visited the College as part of its annual Leadership Institute for administrators. Speaking informally to the administrators, he said that in order for the region to remain competitive in the new global knowledge and technology marketplace, it must have a skilled workforce.

"A skilled workforce is the oil that runs the engine," he said, adding that Community College of Philadelphia plays an important role in providing that skilled workforce.

Among the graduates who will be listening to Burrell on Commencement day is Joseph T. Heard of Mt. Airy, who developed an interest in math while taking Algebra at the College and represents the type of skilled, trained worker the city will need.

Heard will be the first in his family of six siblings to graduate from college. He plans this year to attend the University of Arizona, where he has been accepted, and study mathematical science research. In the future, he plans to earn a Ph.D. in Mathematics.

For the second year in a row, Heard will participate this summer in the Community College Institute, a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which has arranged for him to assist environmental scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory at Long Island, N.Y. He also is the first community college student in the nation to win an award from the National Society of Black Engineers at its conference in March.

"I want to get into research science," said Heard, who is president of the College’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, president of a local unit of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, president of the Mu Alpha Theta/CCP Math Club and 1 st vice president of the College’s Student Government Association.

" Community College of Philadelphia has really made me grow in so many different ways," he said. "I’ve developed so many skills, both inside and outside of the College."

Students like Heard exemplify the type of innovative, knowledge-based leadership that Burrell says Philadelphia will need in the future, and they are ambassadors for the College. While talking last year to the College’s administrators, Burrell emphasized that "in an institution like this, everyone should, on a recurring basis, see themselves as an ambassador of the institution."

Burrell is a former secretary of external affairs for the city and a former Philadelphia city councilman. He also served as deputy mayor of Philadelphia from 1980 to 1984 under Mayor William Green. A graduate of the Wharton School and the Law School at the University of Pennsylvania, he has been a partner in such law firms as Fox Rothschild LLP and Obermayer, Rebmann, Maxwell and Hippel.

He helped found Operation Understanding, a program that helps African-American and Jewish high school juniors deal with conflict resolution and build leadership skills. He also routinely serves as a mentor to African-American students at the University of Pennsylvania and is a member of the board of directors of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Kimmel Center for Regional Performing Arts and the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. Public service, however, was not his first occupation. In 1969, he was the starting defensive back for the Denver Broncos.