J. Barry Griswell '72

Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the Principal Financial Group, a Fortune 500 company serving 13 million customers around the world, J. Barry Griswell earned his master's degree in business administration from Stetson in 1972. He received his Chartered Life Underwriter designation in 1976, his Chartered Financial Consultant designation in 1985, and in 1992 was named a LIMRA Leadership Institute Fellow, a designation conferred jointly by LIMRA International and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans honored him in 2003 for overcoming humble beginnings and adversity to achieve both personal and professional success.

Griswell joined the Principal Financial Group in 1988 as an officer and agency vice president, after serving as president and CEO of MetLife Marketing Corp., a subsidiary of Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. He became senior vice president of the Principal Financial Group in 1991 and executive vice president in 1996. Named president in 1998, he became CEO in 2000 and chairman of the board in 2002.

He currently serves as a board member of the American Council of Life Insurers and the American Council for Capital Formation. President of the Federation of Iowa Insurers, he is also a member of the board of trustees of the S.S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education; the board of trustees of Central College, Pella, Iowa; and serves on the board of his undergraduate alma mater, Berry College, in his native state of Georgia.

Acknowledged as a leader in the wider business world, he is a director of the Business Committee for the Arts, a national organization working to bring business and the arts together; and is also a board member of The Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of leading U.S. corporations committed to improving public policy.

Lawrence R. Johnston '72

A business major at Stetson, Lawrence R. Johnston received a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1972. A native of Corning, N.Y., he was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity and involved in the business and accounting clubs. He also participated in the school's work-study program as a married student who was just starting his family. Relevant course work and real world preparation from professors such as Joe Master in Accounting helped prepare him for the business world he was hired immediately after graduation by General Electric Co.

Dedicated and determined, he entered General Electric's Management Training Program in 1972 and spent the next 28 years building his career there. In November 1999, he was elected a senior vice president of the company and named president and chief executive officer of GE Appliances a $6 billion global business.

Experienced and successful, he joined Albertson's Inc. in 2001 as chairman and chief executive officer of one of the largest food and drug retailers in the world. A Fortune 50 company with 2,300 stores in 31 states, Albertson's has revenues of more than $35 billion and the company employs more than 200,000 associates.

Values driven, he has carried the Stetson values of community service, mentoring, diversity and gender equity into his business life at both GE and Albertson's. Today, Albertson's has adopted a set of 10 core values that embody these elements.

Willa Dean Lowrey '48

A Florida native, Willa Dean Lowery majored in chemistry at Stetson, with a minor in biology, receiving her bachelor's degree in 1948. She went on to earn a master's degree in bacteriology in 1952 from the University of Florida, a doctor of medicine degree in 1959 from the University of Miami School of Medicine, and a master's degree in public health in 1962 from the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health in Pennsylvania.

She practiced medicine as an obstetrician and gynecologist in the Pittsburgh area from 1969 to 1988. Prior to that, she spent two years teaching obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pittsburgh, five years as a public health officer for the Florida State Board of Health, and three years as a research bacteriologist for the United States Government Operations Mission to Brazil.

After retiring from active medical practice, she returned to the classroom, earning a master's degree in divinity from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1994. In 1995 she was ordained a minister of word and sacrament in the Presbyterian Church USA and currently serves as a supply pastor in three small churches of the Southern Indiana County Parish in Pennsylvania, assisting their pastor on a part-time basis.

Honored for Meritorious Service by the U.S. government for her work in Brazil, she is listed in Who's Who in America. Drawing on her experience in both medicine and ministry, she currently serves as the clergy representative on the Human Research Protection Committee of Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh.