Community Mediation Inc. of New Haven will honor attorney Richard Bieder with its Honorable Robert C. Zampano for Excellence in Mediation Award. Bieder, a partner at Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder, P. C. is known for his handling of individual and class action cases resulting from mass disasters, consumer rights, personal injuries, unfair trade practices and commercial fraud and misrepresentation. He has represented victims in high-profile cases nationwide including families of individuals killed in the Oklahoma City bombing and families of victims of the Mianus River Bridge collapse in Greenwich, Conn. He helped create, and was president of, Trial Lawyers Care, a nationwide organization that aided victims of the 9-11 terrorist attacks and continues to seek ways to aid other victims of terrorism through pro bono legal work. The Zampano award is given annually in memory of U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Zampano, a pioneer in mediation and alternative dispute resolution. It recognizes and celebrates leadership, initiative and creativity in mediation in Connecticut. The award ceremony will be held June 10 at the Graduate Club in New Haven at 5:30p.m.
• • •
Dave Morales, of MetLife’s Barnum Financial Group, has been inducted into MetLife’s Hall of Fame. MetLife founded its Hall of Fame in 1977 to pay tribute to the company’s top financial services representatives. Since then, just one percent of the members of the MetLife field force have been honored with this recognition. Morales joined MetLife in 1995.
• • •
Chad Burney, the infrastructure officer at COCC in Avon, has been named a recipient of the InfoWorld CTO 25 Awards which honor senior information technology executives who have demonstrated leadership within their companies and in the greater IT community.
Burney directs information technology operations for COCC, a $65 million provider of IT services to retail financial institutions. He has led COCC’s infrastructure group since 2005 and garnered awards for the company’s innovative use of server virtualization in 2006 and desktop virtualization last year. The CTO 25 award salutes Burney’s accomplishments in deploying solid state disk storage in the company’s production data center, improving performance by 85 percent and reducing power consumption by 80 percent. The disks paid for themselves in just three months.
• • •
A $40,000 grant from Travelers will bring hands-on science education to six Hartford upper elementary and middle schools. With this funding, The Children’s Museum of West Hartford will expand a partnership begun last year to improve science achievement in Hartford schools and ensure children receive an opportunity for critical science learning. Whether through classes offered at the museum or outreach programs taught in schools, the program makes the museum’s brand of science learning available to more than 6,000 Connecticut students who otherwise might not have access to these high-quality science learning experiences.
Â
Please Note: All electronic submissions for Accolades should be sent to news@HartfordBusiness.com. Items can also be mailed to: Accolades, Hartford Business Journal, 15 Lewis St., Suite 200, Hartford, CT 06103. For more information about the Hartford Business Journal’s Accolades Page, please visit www.HartfordBusiness.com.
Â
