McLennan rejoins Board, Boyer becomes chair
The Cornell College Board of Trustees has elected Robert McLennan ’65 as a member of the Board. Gilda Vinzulis Boyer ’84 assumed the position of chair of the Board at the conclusion of the meetings on Oct. 28. Boyer’s selection as chair of the Board marks a number of firsts for the chair: the first female, the first member of a Native American nation (the Seneca nation), and the first graduate of One Course At A Time.
Boyer takes over from John McGrane ’73, who served as chair since 2011. While serving as a Trustee since 2007, she chaired the Board’s Business Affairs Policy Committee and the Greater > Than campaign cabinet, and was a member of the presidential search committee that selected President Jonathan Brand. She attended the University of Iowa Law School, where she was the first woman editor-in-chief of the Journal of Corporation Law, graduating with honors in 1991. Since retiring as a partner from the Shuttleworth and Ingersoll law firm in 2008 she has served and chaired numerous community boards, and has continued with her spouse, Barry Boyer ’84, to be involved in promoting community philanthropy in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, area.
McLennan has served three past terms as a Cornell Trustee and is a real estate executive with deep community involvement. He graduated from the University of Illinois Law School and wrote for the Law Review. In 1982 he and a partner formed McLennan & Thebault, Inc., a commercial-industrial construction and real estate development firm. From 1985 to 2002, he was chairman and majority shareholder of PlainsBank of Illinois, and he currently serves on the boards of four privately held companies. McLennan received Cornell College’s Leadership and Service Award in 2015, and he is a member of the college’s Delta Phi Rho Lecture Advisory Board. He and his wife, Becky Martin McLennan ’64, live in Naples, Florida. Their charitable foundation helped to establish Cornell’s McLennan Center in Chicago. The McLennans’ philanthropy extends beyond Cornell College to include charities throughout Chicago, especially the theater arts.
