The Zeta Psi NYC Circle of Honor

Inaugural Class of 2012

John B. Y. Sommers, Phi, 1849, on the first of June in 1847, three intrepid men gathered in a New York home with grand purpose in mind: the constitution of a new greek-letter secret society. Their names were John Bradt Yates Sommers, William Henry Dayton, and John Moon Skillman; the fraternity they founded that day is Zeta Psi.

They met at Br Sommers’ stately home at 82 Madison Avenue. Then students in the class of 1849 at New York University (itself a young campus, having only been founded in 1831), the three men formed the core of the first chapter, to be known as Phi, the mother chapter. The spread of social fraternities was only just beginning to pick up speed in the mid-nineteenth century, and Zeta Psi, auguring its illustrious future of forging new territory, was at the forefront.

Br Sommers, the son of the Rev Dr Charles B Sommers and Sarah Skelding, had been the originator of the idea for a new fraternity, and would remain a leader and model to the organization he had helped create, becoming president at the national conventions in 1850 and 1851. No stranger to secret societies, he had been inducted into the Masonic Order a the Arcturus Lounge in New York City, and would become a Past Master before his untimely passing in 1863. He was much praised by both Masons and Zetes, and his funeral and interment at the elegant Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn was extravagantly attended.

Richard S. Clarke, Alpha ’33, was Zeta Psi’s most generous donor, having made in excess of $1.8 million in contributions both during and after his lifetime and in the form of the largest bequest in Zeta Psi’s history—an unrestricted amount of over $1.6 million. The magnanimous bequest by Richard Clarke set a new standard of endowment funding that will continue to help Zeta Psi fund programs, staff and services for many generations of Zetes throughout the 21st century.

Brother Clarke, who was a native of New York City, spent most of his later years living in Seattle, but returned to a care facility in New York City at which he passed away in December 2003 at the age of 93.

Brother Clarke received the Fraternity’s Highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award at the 1992 Zeta Psi Convention in Seattle, Washington.

Len Hammer, Phi Lambda ’42, was the quintessential high-society Manhattanite. He was a leading Zete for several decades, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Brother Hammer rose to the level of Zeta Psi’s Alpha Phi Alpha in the 1969-70 operational year. He remained involved in Zeta Psi activities, primarily in and around New York City, until
his passing in July of 1996.

Brother Hammer was a natural mentor to scores of Zetes, providing a positive personal influence to many young men who were starting their careers in what must have seemed to many to be an impersonal and complex city. He was a man of strong convictions and opinions, but when it came to loyalty to his family, friends and fellow Zete brothers, there were few who could be counted on to the degree that Len Hammer provided.

His principal contribution to the New York City community was his service as a leader of the Zeta Psi New York Association in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as he helped to organize many social functions for Zetes during those years. Those luncheons were the predecessor and inspiration of tonight’s event.

Dr. Louis J. Capozzoli, Jr., Phi, 1947- He has endowed the Capozzoli Zeta Psi Leadership Training Institute since 1998, but to many of us he was more than the name on the LTI program. He was a friend, a Brother and an inspiration.

A native of New York City, he earned a B.S. from New York University, a Master’s Degree from Harvard University, and a Doctorate from MIT. All before he turned 23. In 1965 he founded Louis J. Capozzoli and Associates, Inc., a leading geotechnical engineering firm. The company specialized in consulting work on soils and foundation jobs in the United States and in many foreign countries. During his career he earned the Professional Engineering License in several states, belonged to the Louisiana Engineering Society, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the American Society for Professional Engineers. He remained active in his professional and civic organizations throughout his life.

He served as a Board member of the Zeta Psi Educational Foundation from 1983 to 1986. At a 1998 LTI speech, Lou listed his Six Traits of Leadership: Knowledge, Imagination, Flexibility, Understanding People, Group Participation, and Fairness. Lou did not just talk the talk, he walked the walk, as he lived those traits. The Fraternity honored Lou with the Distinguished Service Award in NYC in 1997.

Gregory E. McElroy, Phi, 1970. Executive Director, Zeta Psi Fraternity and Zeta Psi Educational Foundation 1972-1996. Recipient of both the McLaughlin Interfraternity Service Award, 1986. and the Distinguished Service Award, 2011. Making him one of only three Brothers to receive both honors. Namesake of the McElroy Order Of Excellence Award, making him, at the time, the only Zeta Psi Brother to have an award named after him in his lifetime. While serving as Zeta Psi’s ED, Greg served on the Board of the Fraternity Executives Association, becoming President in the 1985-86 year, and in 1999, he received their highest honor, the FEA Distinguished Service Award.

Brother McElroy has served not only his own chapter as an Undergraduate Phi and Elder Chapter Phi and Board Member, but he has also served on the Boards of the Phi, Eta & Sigma Elder chapters. He has served as the Grand Chapter and the Educational Foundation, in multiple offices, culminating with his being Phi Alpha #131 of the Grand Chapter and the President of the Educational Foundation from 2006-2008.

As a Brother, Friend, Mentor and Leader, Brother McElroy has personally touched the lives of more fellow Zetes than any other Zeta Psi Brother, past or present.

Class of 2013

Israel Coriell Pierson, Phi, 1865, Brother Israel Coriell Pierson was initiated into the Phi Chapter of the Zeta Psi Fraternity on May 2, 1862. He was class president, commencement orator, elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and Phi of the Phi chapter. He received a Bachelor of Arts in 1865, then a Master of Arts in 1868, and then a PHD in 1870.

Brother Pierson served as Alpha Phi Alpha 1867 and as the 35th Phi Alpha of Zeta Psi from 1887-1888. He was a member of the 1882 ritual committee, and with a few changes the ritual service in use today is overwhelmingly the same as that proposed in 1882. Our Fraternity enjoyed a period of prosperity from 1892 to 1908 largely due to the devoted labors of Brother Israel C. Pierson as the Chairman of the Standing Committee of Patriarchs, which would later become the Board of Trustees. Few members have bestowed upon Zeta Psi so much successful labor. The Committee of Patriarchs, created in 1892, practiced a very conservative policy: only two chapters were installed while Brother Pierson led the Patriarchs; the Mu at Stanford in 1892 and the Alpha Beta at the University of Minnesota in 1899.

Most notably Brother Pierson was named to the office of Delta Alpha in 1895.As Delta Alpha, Brother Pierson enthusiastically and efficiently undertook the task of collecting and preserving documents and papers relating to the Fraternity as a whole. Under his loving care there grew a corpus of valuable material relating to the Fraternity. Brother Pierson is credited with the publication of several directories produced in the 19th century including the Semicentennial Biographical Catalogue published in 1899. This monumental 1000-page volume set a new standard the publications of all Fraternities. Israel Pierson held the office of Delta Alpha for a record 15 terms until his death in 1908.

The loss of Brother Pierson served largely as the inspiration for the Vision of Bill Comstock, then Phi Alpha, to establish a central office and to publish The Circle of Zeta Psi.

Roy A. Foulke. Lambda 1919, graduated from Bowdoin College cum laude and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa during his junior year.

Brother Foulke had a long and distinguished career on Wall Street as a financial analyst. He worked for Dun & Bradstreet for forty years retiring in 1961 as a Vice President and Director. He wrote five books on business and finance and developed the method for comparing companies in the same line of business. Named Norms and Ratios, the method remains in wide use today.

Brother Foulke was a stalwart of Zeta Psi being the prime mover in the establishment of the Zeta Psi Educational Foundation and making a significant contribution to the Foundation on his passing.

Roy A. Foulke, Jr. Lambda 1950, Mu 1952, graduated with honors from Bowdoin and received his MBA from Stanford.

A World War II Army veteran, Brother Foulke had a long and well-recognized career on Wall Street as a financial advisor, with a number of major investment houses. Brother Foulke also continued his father’s involvement and leadership in the American Institute of Economic Research (AIER) serving as a Board member and Chairman. The AIER continues to this day the annual Roy A. Foulke, Jr. Graduate Scholarships.

Brother Foulke was the long-time Gamma Alpha of Zeta Psi and served as Phi Alpha in 1978-1980. During his tenure as Phi Alpha, Zeta Psi chartered the Rho Alpha chapter at MIT and the Iota Alpha chapter at the University of Texas. Brother Foulke was one of the founding members of the Zeta Psi Heritage Foundation. Brother Foulke received Zeta Psi’s Distinguished Service Award in 1973.

Douglas P. Donaldson, Theta, 1972, is one of Zeta Psi’s most decorated, generous and recognizable Brothers.

Brother Donaldson was awarded the first Henry Elliot Award in 2001, the James J. Carey Leadership Award in 2009, and the Distinguished Service Award at the Orlando Zeta Psi Convention in 2003.

He has served in almost all the Grand Chapter and Educational Foundation officer positions, culminating as the Fraternity’s Phi Alpha #123 and Foundation’s President in the years 1993 and 1994. He has volunteered his time at countless banquets, conventions and seminars as a speaker and instructor.

In addition to serving as President of his own alumni chapter at UConn, he as also been the President of the Yale Chapter’s alumni association and has served on many International Fraternity committees. He is a founding member of the Heritage Society.

Class of 2014

Doctor John Van Nostrand Dorr, Delta, 1894 was born in 1872 in Deadwood, South Dakota. At the age of 16 he worked at the Thomas A. Edison Laboratory in East Orange, N.J. as a laboratory assistant to Mr. Edison. This inspired him to study Chemistry at Rutgers University and on November 25, 1890 Brother Dorr was initiated into the Delta Chapter of the Zeta Psi Fraternity. He was actively involved as an undergrad: he was the editor for the university newspaper, and the Phi of the Delta Chapter. Brother Door graduated from Rutgers University in 1894 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry.

After graduation, Brother Dorr went to work in the Black Hills of South Dakota as a mining engineer. While there he invented what became known as the Dorr Classifier, a device used to separate fine solids suspended in liquids. Demand for the Dorr Separator became so widespread that Dorr stared the Dorr Company to manufacture the device in 1910.

Brother Dorr continued to be an active member of the Zeta Psi Fraternity his entire life. In 1920 he advocated the establishment of a scholarship fund for use of undergraduate Zetes and in 1922 he played a large role in the purchase of the Zeta Psi Club at 31 East 29th Street in New York City. Doctor Dorr served as the 77th Phi Alpha of the Zeta Psi Fraternity from 1930 to 1931, and in 1947 he was honored for his efforts in starting the Zeta Psi Educational Foundation by being selected as the Foundation’s inaugural President.

Brother Dorr received numerous honors and awards throughout his life. Doctor Dorr served as a trustee of Rutgers for 30 years and was an active member of several other professional organizations. In 1941 he was selected unanimously to receive the prestigious Perkin Medal, the highest honor given in the US industrial chemical industry. In the 1950s Doctor Dorr was the first to suggest adding the white line along the outside shoulders of roads to improve highway safety; this is just another example of his genius and enduring contribution to society.

Brother Dorr received Zeta Psi’s Distinguished Service Award in 1957

Arthur H. “Red” Motley, Alpha Beta, 1922, who earned his nickname for his thatch of flaming red hair, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota in 1922 and almost immediately joined Zeta Psi’s staff in New York as Assistant Secretary. Succeeding in the following year to the General Secretaryship, Red threw himself into a whirlwind of activity on behalf of the fraternity, visiting chapters and alumni groups all over the continent, and by his enthusiasm and persuasiveness convincing the Fraternity to revive struggling chapters, charter new ones, and recommit itself to academic excellence. Later, as a wartime Phi Alpha, he was instrumental in keeping New York’s Zeta Psi Club going in the 1940s, and in establishing the Zeta Psi Educational Foundation in 1947.

Red was a legendary salesman in the publishing industry, After a series of successful turnaround assignments, he was offered the presidency of PARADE Magazine in 1946, and increased its circulation from 2 million in 1946 to more than 19 million when he retired on January 1, 1978. He made famous his favorite expression: “Nothing happens until somebody sells something. “

Zeta Psi’s Red Motley Leadership Fund is named in his honor. In 1958 Brother Motley received Zeta Psi’s Distinguished Service Award.

Henry M. Elliot, Jr., Eta ’45, was Zeta Psi’s Phi Alpha #60 in the 1969-70 operational year. He is credited with being the most important and accomplished volunteer of the second half of the 20th Century. It is because of all the many positive things that “Uncle Henry” did for Zeta Psi for over fifty years that the Fraternity’s Volunteer of the Year Award is named in this Zete’s honor. Brother Elliot spent a good deal of his very successful career in the insurance business in the extended New York City area.

His service to both his own Eta Chapter at Yale and to the Pi Chapter at RPI is legendary. He served on the Eta Elder Board for much of his life, including many years as the Elder Phi, and he was the long-time Elder Treasurer of the New York State Capitol District Association of Zeta Psi (the Pi Chapter’s Elder Chapter), and is oftentimes credited with keeping that chapter’s finances solvent in the 1960s and 1970s by paying some routine expenses out his own pocket. He also served as the Zeta Chapter’s major Elder overseer for many years, including several years following Williams College ban of fraternities in the 1960s when the Zeta Chapter was forced to operate as an underground chapter. In addition to his many years of service to the Eta, Pi, and Zeta chapters, he also played an important part in the establishment of the Pi Tau Chapter at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the 1976, as his son Doug—one of his eight children—was the Founding Alpha Brother of that chapter.

His generosity to Zeta Psi was known to many, especially to Eta Zetes over the years, as he would annually

host and pay for an annual banquet at the New Haven Lawn Club or at the famous Mory’s following the reactivation of the Eta Chapter in the mid-1970s. He was also credited with planning and developing Zeta Psi’s first major gifts fund raising campaign in the early 1980s, which raised millions of dollars for Zeta Psi’s endowment and programs.

Brother Elliot received Zeta Psi’s Distinguished Service Award in 1973.

Dr. James J. Ljunglin, Pi, 1957 was initiated into Zeta Psi at Rensselaer as a freshman 60 years ago. He took bachelor’sand doctor’s degrees in chemical engineering in the ensuing eight years, and served two years ROTCobligation in the Chemical Corps of the US Army.

Jim joined a specialty chemicals division of Exxon shifting from research to manufacturing and worldwide investment planning. He retired after 32 years as Economics and Planning Manager located in NY, NJ, and Texas. Having been continuously a member of the Pi Chapter elder board since graduation, he was elected to the Zeta Psi International board in 1981, becoming Gamma Alpha in 1982, Alpha Phi Alpha in 1987, and Phi Alpha in 1989. He stepped down from the International board in 1998 after 17 years. Jim returned to local chapter affairs serving as treasurer and property manager of the Pi elders in recent years and sometime advisor to the nearby Omicron Epsilon Chapter.

Brother Ljunglin received Zeta Psi’s Distinguished Service Award in 1993

Class of 2015

Louis R. Bruce, Jr., Gamma, 1930- graduated from Syracuse University where he was a champion pole vaulter and was recognized by the University as a Letterman of Distinction. Throughout his life, Louie was a passionate advocate for Native Americans, Boy Scouting and Zeta Psi.

Louie served as executive director of Zeta Psi Fraternity and its Educational Foundation from 1966-1969. During that time, Zeta Psi installed the Chi Gamma (Calgary), Delta Chi (American) and Tau Gamma (Purdue) chapters. He also served as Phi Alpha from 1962-1964 and as President and a long-time resident of the Zeta Psi Alumni Club at 31 East 39th Street in New York City. Louie received Zeta Psi’s highest honor the Distinguished Service Award in 1969.

Brother Bruce was born on the Onondaga Indian Reservation in New York and was a member of the Mohawk Tribe. He was an advisor on Indian Affairs to Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman and New York Governor Tom Dewey. President Eisenhower presented him with the American Indian Achievement Award in 1954. Louie served as executive secretary of the National Congress of American Indians and as the United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1969-1972. During his tenure as Commissioner, he was credited with hiring more Indians to head the Bureau’s offices and restructuring the bureaucracy to better serve the 950,000 Native Americans living on reservations.

Brother Bruce was a Champion of Boy Scouting and received its Silver Buffalo award in 1972.

He passed away on April 30, 1989.

Jay L. Rothberg, Delta Chi, 1969, was one of the founding brothers and first Phi of the Delta Chi (American University) chapter in 1969. He was rushed to join the fraternity by Louis R. Bruce, Jr., one of this year's other Circle of Honor inductees. As an Elder, Jay has served our Fraternity as Expansion Chair, (1970-1984) and Phi Alpha (1985-1987). He has also served as Elder President of the Beta Tau (Tulane University) and Delta Chi chapters and as Convention Chairman of two Zeta Psi Conventions.

As Expansion Chair, Jay worked hand in hand with Greg McElroy, to install the following Zete chapters: Tulane University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, University of Texas at Austin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Massachusetts, University of Illinois at Chicago, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Lehigh University, University of Maryland, University of California at Davis, and The Cooper Union.

Jay has been honored by Zeta Psi with the James J. Carey Leadership Award in 2011, and with our Fraternity's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award in 1995.

On a professional side, Jay served as a student personnel administrator at three colleges: Bloomfield College, Rider College and General Motors Institute. He then changed careers from higher education to association management and served as Regional Director of the National Automobile Association, Executive Director of the Society of Louisiana Certified Public Accountants and as a Director and Vice President at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Jay retired after 17 years at the Vice President – Office of the CEO at the AICPA in 2013.

Class of 2016

John Birchfield, Phi, 1949 - From 1988 to 2001 John served as the Editor of The Circle of Zeta Psi Magazine, publishing 24 issues. He has been recognized and honored by Zeta Psi with the James H. McLaughlin Interfraternity Service Award, the Distinguished Service Award in our Double Diamond Jubilee year of 1997 and a special Certificate of Appreciation for his work on the Double Diamond Jubilee history book. John is one of the very few Zetes to be honored with both the McLaughlin award and the DSA. As the namesake for the Birchfield Communications Award, he is also one of the few Zetes to have an award named after him. Along the way, he also served a term as the President of the College Fraternity Editors Association (CFEA): the first and only Zete to so serve. Outside of Zeta Psi John served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps in WWII. He enjoyed sport car racing and skiing. He was a member of the National Ski Patrol System since 1968. John is one of the few volunteers to have served as a member of the ski patrol at two Winter Olympic Games in North America: the Lake Placid games in 1980 and the Calgary games in 1988. He was selected as outstanding Ski Patroller in1985.

Class of 2017

Gary Mootz, Pi Sigma, 1963 - Brother Mootz has been a Sponsor of the NYC Founders Day Banquet from the very beginning. The support he has given to this event can not be over exaggerated. He has also donated generously to other Zeta Psi causes. In 2015 he was honored with Zeta Psi's highest award, the Distinguished Service Award. While in the Air Force, Br. Mootz served at Suffolk County AFB, West Hampton Beach LI, NY 1964 to 1967.

M. David Hunter, Iota Alpha, 1980 - Brother Hunter has served Zeta Psi as both Phi Alpha and as the Executive Director. As ED for ten years, Dave oversaw growth in both our number of chapters, and the amount of new initiates per year. He also oversaw Zeta Psi's expansion across the Atlantic Ocean. His help and support in getting the NYC Founders Day Banquet started was immeasurable. In 2017 Dave was honored with Zeta Psi's highest award, the Distinguished Service Award.

Class of 2018

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