Alumni Association Awards

Donald Mosby Rembert Sr. graduated in 1961 with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and was commissioned into the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant. He served for more than a decade in the military, including the Navy Reserves, Army Reserves, and active-duty Army. He went on to work in the restaurant industry as owner and general manager of multiple restaurants before becoming a business advisor and a Certified Financial Planner. The college not only introduced Rembert to “the love of his life,” Judy Ellis Rembert ’60, but also raised his curiosity in economics and helped him find his passion as a financial and business advisor. He is currently founder and senior manager of Rembert Pendleton Jackson, specializing in global investment asset allocation, retirement and estate planning, and small business consulting. His other areas of experience include income tax planning, cash management, risk analysis, and estate and trust administration.

The College Service Award winner in 2016, Rembert has been a passionate advocate for the college over the years. He was a Board of Trustees member from 2007 until 2023 and has remained an active and engaged member of the Alumni Council and Alumni Association. As the co-founder and past chair of the WMC Heritage Society, Rembert has enthusiastically honored the history of Western Maryland College while embracing the future of McDaniel College.

His impact is evident all over campus, from Rembert House to Rembert Way and Rembert Field at Gill Stadium, all named in honor of the volunteer and philanthropic dedication of the Remberts over the decades. He also established the annual Rembert Lecture in 2005, which brings business leaders as guest lecturers in Economics and Business Administration to the Hill.

Don and Judy Rembert live in Reston, Virginia, and have three children who all attended or graduated from the college: Heather L. R. Fahmy ’88 (and her husband, Kenneth H. Fahmy ’86), Donald Mosby Rembert Jr. ’91, and Charles Ellis Rembert ’91.

Ashley Day Gibbs graduated in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. Even when she is the youngest, the only woman, or the only person of color in the room, her curiosity and confidence to take up space has been instrumental to her personal and professional success. And she says this skill was cultivated on the Hill.

Gibbs began her career as a middle school teacher but soon moved into politics as the director of scheduling for the Office of Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, where her vision for connecting inner city female youth with professional women, Women Leading Baltimore, was brought to life.

Inspired by that opportunity, Gibbs founded Women Leading Baltimore in 2015. The nonprofit is aimed at empowering girls to lead the world beyond where they live and go to school through mentorship, sisterhood, and youth-centered programming for college and career exploration for girls ages 12-18 in Baltimore City. A CollegeBound Foundation alum herself, Gibbs has also served as a board member for the foundation since 2016.

Gibbs spent four years as a college and career counselor at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Baltimore and launched the “Pay It Forward” internship program at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute to encourage more girls and students of color to consider careers in STEM. Gibbs more recently served as the director of mentor engagement for iMentor Baltimore, recruiting corporate partners and more than 200 adult volunteers to mentor high school students as they begin to plan for life after high school.

Gibbs continues to give back as a member of the McDaniel College Corporations and Foundations Committee and the McDaniel Women’s Leadership Network. Gibbs was named to the Baltimore Banner’s Emerging Leaders in 2023, Baltimore Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 in 2021, and The Daily Record’s Leading Women in 2021.

A serial entrepreneur with more than 34 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, Christopher Schaber, Ph.D. ’89 has spent 25 years as a C-level executive.

After completing his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Economics, and Chemistry at McDaniel College (formerly Western Maryland College), Schaber went on to Temple University’s School of Pharmacy to earn his master’s degree in Pharmaceutics, and then Union Institute & University for a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Schaber says his time on the Hill was a tremendous period of transformational growth in his life that has led him to where he is today, as a person “driven to closely align the personal definition of career success with that of helping others.” For 35 years, Schaber has been building businesses to serve those with rare diseases with one passion in mind: “identifying and advancing new drug therapies to market that help patients live longer and better lives,” including in his position as chairman, president, and CEO of Soligenix Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey, since 2006.

Named to The Medicine Maker Power List in 2023 and PharmaVoice’s 100 Most Inspiring People in 2019, Schaber has left his mark on the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He was also the recipient of Mentor’s Mentor Recognition Award in 2021 and a 2018 finalist for EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year. He is the co-inventor on several issued and pending patents and author on multiple publications and abstracts. He serves on the boards and councils of various organizations such as the Alliance for Biosecurity, BioNJ, and the National Organization for Rare Disorders.

Schaber lives in North Hanover, New Jersey, and Ocean Pines, Maryland, with his wife, Cathleen Frantzen Schaber ’90. They have four children, Alyssa, Gillian, Zachary, and Madelynn.

Deborah “Debbie” Dale Seidel has been a constant presence on the Hill since she graduated with a degree in Business Administration and Economics in 1984. Her education led her to a 34-year career in financial services, most notably for T. Rowe Price Group, where she was a vice president until her retirement in 2018.

“While the business and econ courses I took provided me with knowledge to pursue my career, the liberal arts portions of my education stick with me today,” Seidel says. “Psychology and sociology helped me understand the science of people and literature helped me absorb information and experience I couldn’t experience myself. All of this benefited me personally and professionally.”

A believer in paying it forward, Seidel has dedicated much of her free time over the years to serving the college that taught her so well. She has been a loyal alumni volunteer, mentoring students, reviewing resumes, serving on her class Reunion committees, and leading fundraising efforts. She is an active member of the Alumni Association and served as president of the association from 2017 until 2019. In 2023, she was elected to the college’s Board of Trustees.

Off the Hill, Seidel has been the director of the Carroll County Hospital Board since 2019 and along with her husband, Ethan, was the recipient of the 2023 Carroll County Good Scouts Award. Seidel is also a 25-plus-year community member of the McDaniel College Concert Band and she plays the flute and piccolo in the Lyric Band of Hanover.

She lives in Westminster, Maryland, with her husband, Professor Emeritus of Economics and Business Administration Ethan Seidel.

Ann C. Karn Kehinde graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Social Work and Political Science

in 1984. She also completed a certificate in Interpreter Training at the college. For the past 30 years, she has been an administrative law judge in the Office of Administrative Hearings for the State of Maryland. She says that her career and personal interests were inspired by her time on the Hill. In the spring semester of her junior year, she participated in the exchange program at Gallaudet University, where she met both her future husband and members of the Deaf community who helped her understand the challenges they faced accessing information in the justice system.

From 2015 to 2019, Kehinde served as a board member for Unified Efforts Inc., providing strategic and programmatic support for at-risk youth. When the organization obtained nonprofit status, she was the board vice president from 2017 to 2019.

Since 2016, she has been working with the Immigration Working Group at Stony Run Friends Meeting in Baltimore, where she tutors immigrants of all ages in reading, citizenship, ServSafe, and commercial driver’s license test preparation; chaperones trips and camps for refugee children; and helps families adjust to living in the U.S.

Since 2020, Kehinde has been active in the Interfaith Coalition for Black Lives. She developed and maintains the organization’s website and a newsletter for the more than 40 organizations in the coalition. On-the-ground activities have included delivering Thanksgiving meals to Baltimore City schoolchildren, providing meals during school breaks, collecting food and cleaning supplies for a pantry in Turner Station, collecting coats for the Baltimore Hunger Project, and collecting diapers for ShareBaby.

Kehinde lives in Baltimore with her husband, Hakeem B. Kehinde. They have two children, Suraj and Saratu.