Steven D. Plofker, a 1978 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University, is a real estate developer and attorney who has enjoyed success in multiple business ventures

In 2002, the Livingston Alumni Association honored Plofker as a Distinguished Alumnus. Plofker earned a Master’s Degree in urban planning and policy analysis from Harvard University in 1980, and a J.D. (law) degree from Rutgers’ School of Law in Newark in 1993.

As of 2016, Plofker is a Commissioner of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. He is a past board member of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority and also served with the Montclair Economic Development Corporation.

Among Plofker’s many community activities, he has served as a member of the Livingston College Dean’s Advisory Board, co-chair of the Mountainside Hospital Campaign in Montclair, New Jersey, and a founding board member for the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center. He has served as a board member or trustee of Montclair Art Museum, the Board of Overseers and Governance Committee at Rutgers, the Overseers Committee on University Resources at Harvard, and the American Red Cross Northern New Jersey.

Plofker is a real estate developer who specializes in historic renovations, readaptive uses of commercial and industrial structures, and sensitive solutions to community projects. He is also a practicing attorney in Montclair and is a member of the bar in New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and the U.S. District Court.

In 1991, Plofker was a co-founder, with his wife, and Senior Director of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, a company that grew from a collection of 10 lipsticks into a full-line global competitor with products distributed in more than 300 stores. Plofker later negotiated the sale of the company to Estee Lauder, Inc.

His business interests include ownership in multiple tennis clubs and indoor sports field facilities. He also owns a film and photography studio, a boutique hotel, a parking company and a licensing company.

David A. Laskow, a 1977 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University, has been Chairman of the Surgery Department at St. Peter’s Medical Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey, since 2017.

In 2002, the Livingston Alumni Association of Rutgers University honored Dr. Laskow as a Distinguished Alumnus. He is also a 1981 graduate of Rutgers Medical School, now known as Rutgers’ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS).

He previously was Chief of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Service at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) and Associate Professor of Surgery at RWJMS. 

Dr. Laskow arrived at RWJUH in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to established a kidney and pancreas transplant program there. In 2007 Dr. Laskow spoke with The Star-Ledger about his career and his own heart transplant after he suffered a heart attack in 2005.

Prior to joining RWJUH, Dr. Laskow was the Director of the Division of Transplantation at Allegheny University Hospital-Hahnemann Division. His experience also includes appointments at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and Beth Israel Medical Center.

Dr. Laskow is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American College of Surgeons, American Society of Transplant Physicians, and the Association for Academic Surgery. He has conducted 14 innovative clinical trials advancing the art and science of kidney transplantation, and has been published in more than 40 peer-reviewed journals and books.

Dr. Laskow resides with his wife, Mary, in Middlesex County, New Jersey. They have two adult daughters.

Journalist Susan Kille, a 1974 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University, was drawn to the college because it promised a diverse student body and a social vision that didn’t exist at the South Jersey shore where she grew up.

In 2002, the Livingston Alumni Association honored Kille as a Distinguished Alumna.

Kille has worked for more than 30 years for The New York Times Company in print, online and mobile news, and has served as the editor of the in-house wire service connecting the Times’ 14 regional newspapers at the time. In recent years she has blogged about journalism, travel and her battles with lung cancer, among other topics.

Kille graduated from Livingston College with a major in Human Communications. While in college, she was an intern at the Rutgers News Service and also worked at the Targum. She began working for newspapers when she landed a summer job in 1970 at her hometown newspaper, the Ocean City Sentinel-Ledger. She has also worked for The Press of Atlantic City and The Morning Star in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Kille had been away from the campus for more than 25 years when Arnold G. Hyndman, then Dean of Livingston College, invited her to join his alumni advisory committee.

“I like to arrive early for meetings and walk through Tillett Hall, which was one of the first buildings on campus and where just about everything happened during my college days,” she says. “I see pieces of the past, but also the activity of the present. Then I walk into Quad 1 and look up at my old window and think — in words that resonated around those walls in the ’70s — ‘what a long, strange trip it’s been’.” Kille is married to Tom Sawyer (yes, that’s his real name) and they live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York. They have two adult daughters, Lucy and Eva.

Pictured: Kille at the Brooklyn Bridge.

John S. Lipori, a retired bank executive, was one of the first four Livingston College Distinguished Alumni, honored in 2000.

Lipori, a 1977 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University, served as National Director of Portfolio Management at BNY Mellon from 2010 until his retirement in 2015.

Lipori had previously served as Executive Vice President (EVP) and Chief Trust Officer of BNY Mellon Wealth Management and EVP at The Bank of New York, after joining the Bank in 1979.

He has served as a Trustee of the Variety Preschooler’s Workshop in Syossett, NY, a nonprofit organization that works with handicapped preschool children and their families.

He has also served as the Chair of Livingston College’s Dean’s Advisory Council and as a member of the Rockefeller University’s Committee on Trusts and Estate Gift Plans. 

Photos: Top, courtesy of John Lipori. Bottom: Lipori as pictured in the 1977 Livingston College yearbook, The Rock, Volume II.

Clifton R. Lacy (MD, FACC, FACP), honored in 2000 as one of the first four Livingston College Distinguished Alumni, is the Director of Rutgers’ Institute for Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security (IEPHS).

He also has directed the University Center for Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response (UCDPER). In 2004 he was inducted into the Rutgers University Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

Dr. Lacy, a 1975 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University and a 1979 graduate of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (now part of Rutgers), has a long and distinguished career in medical leadership.

He previously served as president of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH), and also as Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs and Chief of Staff at RWJUH. He also is a former New Jersey state Health Commissioner.

At the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), he served as Senior Vice President and earlier as Chief of Cardiovascular Diseases and Hypertension. He is widely published in the field of cardiovascular diseases and is an active research investigator in national and international clinical trials. Lacy has served on several national, regional, and local clinical and scientific committees and advisory boards, including the National Institutes of Health, the American College of Cardiology, and the American Heart Association.

Photos: Top, courtesy of the Rutgers Institute for Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security. Bottom: Lacy as pictured in the Livingston College yearbook, We the People.

Alfred E. Ramey, Jr. was honored in 2000 as one of the first four Livingston College Distinguished Alumni. As of 2016, Ramey is the University Counsel for New Jersey City University in Jersey City.

Ramey, a 1973 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University,  previously served as Counsel to the Executive Commission on Ethical Standards and as Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the Attorney General of New Jersey.

During his nearly 25 years of service to New Jersey, he has served as Counsel to the Department of Education, and is one of the state’s leading authorities on school funding. He has served on Rutgers University’s Board of Trustees and as a member of the Trustees of the Mercer County Bar Association. He earned his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Riki E. Jacobs, a 1980 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University, served as executive director of Hyacinth AIDS Foundation from 1993 until her death in 2009.

In 2000, Jacobs was named one of the first four Distinguished Alumni by the Livingston Alumni Association of Rutgers University (LAA).

In 2010, the LAA renamed its award for an outstanding graduating undergraduate senior, to the Riki Jacobs Livingston Pride Award.

Hyacinth AIDS Foundation was a “mess” and “about ready to go under” when Jacobs joined, said Jerry McCathern, Hyacinth’s senior director of development at the time of Jacobs’ death. “Riki could have been a hero or the agency could have failed,” McCathern said. “It would have failed under most people, but she took it from there to present, in that we have become the ‘premier AIDS service agency in the state.’”

Under Jacobs’ direction, Hyacinth became the only organization in New Jersey with a public policy and community organizing staff dedicated to protecting the rights and benefits of people living with HIV/AIDS in New Jersey. During her tenure at Hyacinth, Jacobs served as a fellow of Leadership New Jersey 1995.

At the time of Jacobs’ death, New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine called her “a guiding light in the fight against HIV/AIDS in New Jersey for more than 25 years. She was an articulate and compassionate voice who was highly respected for her efforts to ensure health care access for those living with, infected with, and affected by HIV. Riki’s vision and unwavering commitment will be greatly missed.”

Prior to her service with Hyacinth, Jacobs served as a staff attorney and the assistant director for New Jersey’s Commission on Sex Discrimination in the Statutes, where she advocated for laws impacting victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. From 1982 to 1992 Jacobs was the director of development at the New Jersey Association on Correction (NJAC) where, among other responsibilities, she provided AIDS education to inmates in county jails. In the late 1980s she realized the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS on the association’s clients. As a result, she developed one of the first pre-release programs in the country targeting offenders living with HIV/AIDS and also created an HIV/AIDS prevention and education program at the Mercer and Middlesex County correctional facilities.

She had been involved since 1986 with organizing local and statewide coalitions. She co-founded the New Jersey Women & AIDS Network (NJWAN), an organization devoted to address the impact of AIDS on women in New Jersey. She was also responsible for the development of NJAC’s first domestic violence shelter in Passaic County. 

Jacobs was strongly committed to the work of the non-profit community. She served on the boards of the Center for Non-Profits and the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). She also served on the advisory board of the New Jersey AIDS Partnership. Since the administration of Governor Jim Florio, Jacobs had served as a member of the Governor’s Advisory Council on HIV and other blood-borne pathogens. 

Jacobs received numerous awards and recognition for her work, including: honors in 1998 from NJWAN, the AIDS Benefit Committee of NJ (Humanitarian Award) and the Middlesex County Commission on the Status of Women (Women of Excellence Award for her work in the AIDS field); the Public Policy Leadership Award from the New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute in 2003; and the Humanitarian Award from the Health Care Foundation of New Jersey in 2007.

Jacobs, born on November 12, 1957, and raised in Union, New Jersey, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Livingston College in 1980, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) degree from Rutgers University School of Law (Newark) in 1989.

Jacobs, who died March 14, 2009, was survived by her husband of 22 years, Angel M. Perez; children, William, Eli and Kara; her sister, Ellen; her brother, Robert; and her parents, Harold and Betty.

Bottom photo: New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine with Riki Jacobs in 2007.

Thomas F. Daley, honored in 2002 as a Livingston College Distinguished Alumnus, was a district attorney, district judge and appellate judge who served in St. John the Baptist Parish in Louisiana for more than 30 years. He died January 31, 2015, at age 61.

Daley, a 1975 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University, had served as the St. John the Baptist District Attorney from 2009 to early 2015. He bowed out of a December 2014 runoff election, citing ill health.

On February 24, 2015, the St. John the Baptist Council renamed U.S. 51 Park as Thomas F. Daley Memorial Park in his honor.

Before serving as District Attorney, Daley was an Appellate Judge in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal in Louisiana, a position he had held since 1996.

Daley, a native of South Seaville and Neptune, New Jersey, earned his master of laws degree at the University of Virginia and his Juris Doctor (JD) degree from Loyola University. After graduating from Loyola, he remained in the New Orleans area the rest of his life.

Daley served as an Assistant District Attorney for St. John the Baptist Parish, in private practice, and then as State District Court Judge and Chief Judge. Daley was also an adjunct professor at Louisiana State University School of Law, and served on the Louisiana Supreme Court Committees on Judicial Ethics and Legal Internships. 

In 2007 the Louisiana Bar Foundation honored Daley as a Distinguished Jurist.

His additional service to the community included cleanup efforts throughout St. John the Baptist Parish, developing a program to offer job skills training to inmates and after-school tutoring, as well as leadership within his local 4-H Foundation and church.

Daley’s survivors included his wife,  Margaret Mary (Versaggi) Daley; two daughters, Bernadette Daley of LaPlace and Monique Daley of Baton Rouge; five brothers, Steve Daley of Qatar; Joe Daley of Tuckahoe, N.J., Anthony Daley of South Seaville, N.J., John Daley of Amite and Matt Daley of Woodbine, N.J.; five sisters, Terry Budd of Seaville, N.J.; Mary Anne Azzato of Southport, N.C., Chrissie Ternosky of Sea Isle City, N.J., Rosie Daley of Encinitas, Calif., and Kathleen “Tootsie” Daley of Ramsey, N.J.

Daley had lived in LaPlace, Louisiana, at the time of his death. He is buried at St. Elizabeth’s Cemetery in Goshen, New Jersey.

Eddie Jordan, named in 2011 as a Livingston College Distinguished Alumnus, has led basketball teams on the court, and he’s been a coach for more than 30 years.

As of 2019 he is an assistant coach with the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets.

His careers as both a college player and a college coach began at Rutgers. He returned to Rutgers as the head coach of men’s basketball from 2013 to 2016.

Jordan attended Rutgers University’s Livingston College from 1973 to 1977 but didn’t graduate at that time. He completed his bachelor’s studies at Rutgers in 2015, with a degree from the School of Management and Labor Relations.

Rutgers University also has honored Jordan with induction into both the Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Hall of Distinguished Alumni in 2004.

When Jordan took to the basketball court in the 1970s, the College Avenue Gym shook with cheers of “Eddie, Eddie,” sparking a wave of enthusiasm and school spirit that captivated the state.

He responded in spectacular fashion, scoring 1,632 points and setting all-time Rutgers records with 585 assists and 220 steals. He led the 1975–76 undefeated basketball team to the NCAA Final Four. (See articles from Rutgers Athletics and from . In May 2016, NJ Advance Media, publisher of The Star-Ledger, placed Jordan at number 17 in its list of “the 50 greatest athletes in Rutgers history.”)

He was drafted into the NBA in 1977 by the Cleveland Cavaliers and acquired by the New Jersey Nets midway through his rookie year. As a Net, he led the league in total steals in 1978–79 and was second in total steals in 1979–80.

He joined the Los Angeles Lakers in 1980, and earned a place on the 1982 World Championship squad. In his seven-year career, he averaged 8.1 points, 3.8 assists, and steals per game.

His coaching career began at Rutgers and included a number of positions in both collegiate and professional basketball. He spent four years as lead assistant coach of the Nets, guiding them to consecutive Eastern Conference championships in 2002 and 2003.

In 2003, the Washington Wizards named Jordan head coach, a position he held through 2008. Jordan led the Wizards to four straight playoff appearances, which includes the team’s first postseason series win since 1982.

Jordan returned to Rutgers in 2013 with an NBA Championship ring and with 28 seasons of coaching experience, including eight at the collegiate level and 19 in the NBA. His first day as head coach was documented in the video on this page (or open the video in a new window.)

At the same time, “Quietly, amid all of the noise about the controversial hiring of his new boss, athletic director Julie Hermann, men’s basketball coach Eddie Jordan was focused on his own tasks,” including studying to finish his bachelor’s degree he started to earn in 1973 at Rutgers’ Livingston College, ESPN’s Andy Katz reported.

Jordan eventually earned his bachelor’s degree in 2015.

<!--Jordan accepted the Livingston College Distinguished Alumni Award at a celebration on May 14, 2011. The LAA also named Gregory Q. Brown, LC'82, as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2011. -->

Union County, New Jersey, on July 29, 2013, dedicated its new county building to the late Colleen Laura Fraser, an advocate for people with disabilities and a 1974 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University.

Fraser was one of the heroes of United Airlines Flight 93 who kept their plane from becoming another weapon of destruction on September 11, 2001; she was 51.

Flight 93 crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. All 40 passengers were killed.

The dedication of the $11 million Colleen Fraser Building, at 300 North Ave. East, Westfield, occurred on what would have been Fraser’s 63rd birthday.

Fraser, an advocate for people with disabilities for 20 years, served on the New Jersey Developmental Disabilities Council for more than 11 years. She was appointed chair of the council by New Jersey Governor James Florio in 1990 and served in that position for five years. She also served as the director of the Union County Office for the Disabled from 1985 to 1988.

The Livingston Alumni Association (LAA) posthumously honored Fraser at the 2006 Distinguished Alumni Awards. Watch the LAA’s video tribute to her (1 minute, 33 seconds), embedded on this page, or open in a new window.

Read more about Fraser from The Star-Ledger‘s coverage of the building dedication and from her obituary.

Photos of Colleen Fraser: (top) Courtesy of the Fraser family; (bottom) From the 1974 Livingston College yearbook, We the People.