2012 Distinguished Hall of Honor Recipients

Walter Bothe – Class of 1959
Walter Bothe achieved national recognition as a security professional, and was most eloquently memorialized for his achievements by Dr. Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and news anchor Ted Koppel at his death in 1987. He served as Director of Security for Dr. Henry Kissinger and as the Senior Security Advisor for David Rockefeller and the Rockefeller family. He traveled the world providing personnel protection for the Rockefeller family and for Dr. Kissinger in that capacity. Bothe began his career as a special agent for the United States Secret Service, conducting many high profile investigations as a member of the elite Federal Organized Crime Strike Force. In a subsequent position with the USSS, he provided personnel protection to then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during Kissinger’s many shuttle diplomacy trips to the Middle East, engagement in the Vietnam peace talks and key diplomatic role in the opening of China.

William C. Gifford – Class of 1959
William Gifford has been a lawyer, author, and teacher of great distinction.  As a specialist in U.S. and international tax law, he worked in Washington, New York, and Paris as a partner in three leading law firm, planning, negotiating, and implementing the tax aspects of large international business transactions. He taught income taxation, international tax planning, business planning, commercial law, and estate planning as a regular faculty member at the law schools of Cornell and the University of Alabama. He has also taught various tax law courses at New York University, University of Virginia, Yale, and Columbia. He has written several books and dozens of articles on tax law and related subjects. Gifford shares the distinction of membership in both the Hall of Honor and West High’s athletic Hall of Fame with Jim Groninger, a 2011 Hall of Honor inductee.

J. Scott Jordan – Class of 1980
J. Scott Jordan is a professor of Psychology and director of the Institute for Prospective Cognition at Illinois State University. He has developed an international reputation as a cutting-edge scholar on the topic of human cognition, with a special emphasis in the area of consciousness. Jordan has been an invited scholar at universities in Germany and Japan and has given more than 40 invited colloquia at internationally renowned institutions, including the McDonald Institute of Archeological Research at the University of Cambridge, England; The Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich, Germany and The Riken Brain Institute in Tokyo, Japan. Jordan also has edited three books and published more than 40 papers.

Bruce Kammenzind – Class of 1976
Bruce Kammenzind is an engineer for the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory which supports the United States Nuclear Naval Program. The laboratory designs, oversees the construction and supports the operation of the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine and aircraft carrier fleet. He has been with the Bettis Laboratory for 33 years. Currently, Kammenzind is a manager of the Reactor Core Materials Technology subdivision, with approximately 50 engineers and scientists reporting to him. His group is responsible for research and development work supporting reactor core material performance in the nuclear Navy fleet and in new designs. Kammenzind has edited two books on the performance of zirconium alloy in the nuclear industry for ASTM International, and has published approximately 20 technical papers.

Raymond W. Reed – Class of 1964
Raymond Reed was a dedicated advocate, counselor, educator and administrator whose own progressive hearing loss enhanced his commitment to assisting others in achieving communication access and living fully while being deaf or hard of hearing. Reed began his 25-year career as a counselor and instructor at the Delgado College Regional Education Center for the Deaf. Later, he obtained his doctorate in Special Education and Habilitation and served as a specialist with the Communication Access Technology and Training Services within the Massachusetts Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Martha Evans Sloan – Class of 1957
Martha Sloan is a professor and associate chair of the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan Tech. She is especially noted for her groundbreaking service to engineering societies. Sloan is the first woman to serve as president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Computer Society, the IEEE, and chair of the American Association of Engineering Societies. Her early committee work in computer engineering curricula laid the basis of what is now one of the three largest engineering disciplines.