Penn State Harrisburg honors alumni at ceremony

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. — The Penn State Harrisburg Alumni Society honored recipients of the annual Alumni Achievement Awards and the People to Watch Awards at a ceremony on Oct. 9.

The Alumni Achievement Awards recognize graduates from each of the college’s five academic schools, who earned the accolade thanks to their outstanding professional accomplishments.

The People to Watch Awards recognize graduates from each of the college’s schools who have made a significant contribution to the betterment of society through their personal and professional endeavors. Video biographies of the winners are available online.

The honorees were:

Alumni Achievement Awards

• David W. Caddick Sr., class of 1972, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology, is the owner and president of Caddick Construction, a company that has grown from two employees at its founding in 1977 to a large enterprise that today employs 150 people. Caddick has served as president of Penn State Abington’s Advisory Board, and following his wife’s breast cancer diagnosis, he established the Donna L. Caddick Health and Wellness Fund to provide free health screenings and education programs for Penn State students and faculty.
  
   
• Charles F. Fehlinger, class of 2005, School of Business Administration, is vice president and member of Fehlinger Construction Group, which he co-founded with his father, Herb Fehlinger. Together, they have built the company into a trusted contractor specializing in water, sewer, and storm sewer installation; natural gas pipeline and well line construction; wellhead hookups and fabrication; concrete, earthwork, paving, environmental remediation, and other complex underground projects. Fehlinger served as President of the National Utility Contractors Association (NUCA) from 2015 to 2018 and was named NUCA’s Contractor of the Year in 2018.
  
   
• Erik Keptner, class of 1994, School of Public Affairs, is a senior retail and healthcare executive recognized for driving growth, innovation, and large-scale transformation across some of America’s most prominent retailers. With extensive leadership experience as both a chief marketing officer and chief merchandising officer, he now leads his own retail consultancy, helping retailers, manufacturers, and service providers accelerate growth and unlock new opportunities. 
  
   
• Lori A. Suski, class of 1989 and 1995, School of Behavioral Sciences and Education, has devoted 36 years to public education in south central Pennsylvania, beginning her career as an elementary teacher and assistant principal and advancing ultimately to be superintendent at Middletown Area School District. Following her retirement, Suski was appointed chief recovery officer and later receiver for Harrisburg City School District, guiding the district out of receivership in 2025. She has been actively involved with Penn State Harrisburg, serving on the Teacher Education Council and Board of Advisers.
  
   
• Michele Torres, class of 1997, School of Humanities, is the director of special projects for the Commonwealth’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Belonging and Inclusion (DEBI PA) and special assistant to the chief diversity officer. With more than 20 years of experience in government, education, law, communications, real estate, marketing and project management, Torres — the first woman to lead the Harrisburg Municipal Authority — brings a wealth of experience to serve the multi-faceted needs of the DEBI PA office and the Commonwealth.
  
   
• John Yudichak, class of 2004, School of Humanities, is the eighth President of Luzerne County Community College, where he has brought a bold, forward-thinking vision — transforming partnerships, accelerating workforce development, and expanding educational opportunity across the region. Prior to his presidency, Yudichak, who earned his undergraduate degree from Penn State in 1993, served 24 years in the Pennsylvania legislature, where he championed bipartisan efforts to expand job creation, community revitalization, and educational access.

People to Watch Award winners 

• Austin Barket, class of 2016, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology, is a staff site reliability engineer at Google, where he has worked for the past nine years. His team is responsible for a collection of traffic engineering systems that scale Google's connectivity to the internet — systems that are critical to ensuring that Google's first-party and hosted Cloud services are reliably available to everyone with internet access, anywhere in the world. 
• Jolene F. Busher, class of 2011 and 2013, School of Humanities, is vice president of real estate for Reading & Northern Railroad, the largest privately owned railroad in Pennsylvania. She joined the real estate department at the railroad in 2013, was managing daily operations by 2016, and was promoted to assistant vice president of real estate in 2019 and vice president of real estate in 2024. She served on the Penn State Harrisburg Alumni Board from 2016 to 2022, finishing her term as the board’s secretary.
• Lilivet Duarte-Evans, class of 2015 and 2020, School of Behavioral Sciences and Education, School of Public Affairs, is vice president of programs at YWCA Carlisle & Cumberland County, where she oversees a dynamic team, leads coalition-building efforts, and develops community-based programs rooted in equity, collaboration and compassion. She is a trauma-informed, mission-driven leader with a decade of experience advancing survivor-centered services for individuals impacted by sexual assault and human trafficking.
• Jade K. Honey, class of 2010 and 2013, School of Public Affairs, is executive director of annual programs for Penn State Health and Penn State College of Medicine. She joined the Division of Development and Alumni Relations five years ago as the inaugural embedded director of corporate engagement, serving both the health system and the College of Medicine. 
• John Howie, class of 2008, School of Business Administration, is head of RIA internal and hybrid sales for Vanguard Financial Advisor Services. Prior to this role, he led multi-region teams in both Vanguard’s Personal Investor and Strategy & Finance divisions. He has held several board roles for non-profit organizations that target economic development and empowerment in the Greater Philadelphia region.