Joseph V. Bowen Jr.

On behalf of the Alumni Association and the Alumni Board, I am pleased to introduce the first issue of the Achiever Newsletter. The newsletter is a shortened version of the Achiever magazine that you have been receiving for the past several years. The Achiever Newsletter will be printed quarterly and will also be available online. I hope you will find this newsletter both informative and fun, and that it will help you stay connected and up-to-date on the events and news of UMUC and the Alumni Association.

The Achiever magazine will continue to be mailed to you once a year with feature articles highlighting alumni careers, innovative projects, and stories about new directions, contemporary issues, and initiatives that affect the university.

In this first issue of the Achiever Newsletter, we are announcing the launch of a new Alumni Association Web site at www.umucalumni.org. The Web site is designed to offer you easy access to a variety of benefits and services through our new affinity program. We are especially excited about this new initiative and hope that you will be patient with us as we build an affinity program that will bring you special discounts and savings.

The Achiever Newsletter will allow us to keep in touch with you on a regular basis. It will focus on the excitement, energy, and successes of our fellow alumni, students, faculty, and staff, and it will announce special value-added services you won't want to miss!

Sincerely,

Joseph V. Bowen Jr. '84 & '95
President, UMUC Alumni Association

Gerald ("Jerry") Cranford, a veteran member of the UMUC overseas faculty, died
February 28, 2001.

Cranford first taught for the University of Maryland at Laon Air Base, in France, in 1965. During the next 35 years, he taught in Pakistan, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Belgium,
and Germany.

Jerry will be missed by all who knew him, students, faculty, and administrators alike. As one administrator put it, "Jerry was an incredible traveler, a totally dependable professional, and a tremendous supporter of UMUC."