Thomas A. Oreck '73 was presented the George B. Walter ’36 Service to Society Award. Tom Oreck, president and chief executive officer of the Oreck Corporation of New Orleans, was selected for this award because of the manner in which he and his company responded to the human needs of their employees immediately following Hurricane Katrina. When Katrina hit, the Oreck plant in Long Beach, Mississippi, was seriously damaged, and the homes of many of its 600 employees were destroyed. The company provided employees with housing, food, water, generators, fuel, and other supplies and brought in medical trauma specialists and advisors to help with insurance and FEMA claims. “Our first responsibility was to our employees,” Oreck has said. “The business could wait; the people could not.”
Lawrence Today magazine, Fall 2007
