The 1970 Awardees

Henry J. Blommer
(1904-1988)

AB 1926
Chicago, IL

Henry Blommer, a business executive and Georgetown benefactor, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Hotel Ambassador in Chicago, IL on October 3, 1970.

Blommer was born in Milwaukee, WI in 1904, the third generation of a family of confectioners which ran various candy and ice cream businesses in the early 20th century. Following his degree from Georgetown in 1926, Blommer worked for the family ice cream business before becoming an investor in a Milwaukee chocolate company. A decade later, three Blommer brothers set up a company in Chicago. The Blommer Chocolate Company was not built to compete with national brands like Hershey and Mars, but support it. Blommer became the nation's largest chocolate processor, producing half of all cocoa beans entering the United States annually.

A member of the Alumni Association Board of Governors and the Presidents Council, Blommer provided a major gift to the Reiss Science Building project in 1962. Wrote the Georgetown Library Associates newsletter: " Mr. Blommer thought that the university needed a single building within which to centralize the science departments and, equally important, a single science library. He assisted Father Bunn in the fund raising required to pursue this vision, flying his small plane around the central part of the country with Father Bunn as his passenger, visiting alumni and friends who might be persuaded to share their dream. They succeeded. The Reiss Science Building was built and the Blommer Science Library was a significant component from the outset."

Three generations of Blommers have studied at Georgetown, maintaining the family-run business.

Henry Blommer died in 1988 at the age of 84.

George D. Crowley
(1912-1987)

AB 1934
Chicago, IL

George Crowley, a Chicago based trial attorney, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Hotel Ambassador in Chicago, IL on October 3, 1970.

Born and raised in Chicago, Crowley was an active undergraduate while at the Hilltop, serving as captain of the tennis team and president of the Philodemic Society. he pursued a law degree at Loyola University in Chicago and practiced law with the Securities and Exchange Commission before serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Upon his return to civilian life, Crowley worked for the Internal Revenue Service before returning to private practice in 1949. In his 1987 obituary, the Chicago Tribune noted that Crowley "was noted for successfully defending city and state politicians and business executives in federal tax fraud cases."

"In 1969, he defended three Chicago police officers charged with assaulting Chicago Daily News reporter John Linstead, who was struck while trying to stop the police from beating several youths," wrote the Tribune. "In a successful defense of the three, Mr. Crowley appealed to the jury with the assertion that all that stood between them and anarchy was 'a thin blue line.'"

In addition to the John Carroll Award, George Crowley was named Man of the Year by Loyola University in 1978. He died in 1987 at the age of 74.

Paul R. Dean
(1918-2008)

LLB 1946, LLM 1952, Honorary degree 1969
Washington, DC

Paul Dean, who transformed the Georgetown Law School into a center of national importance, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Hotel Ambassador in Chicago, IL on October 3, 1970.

Born in 1918 in Leetonia, OH and educated at Youngstown State, Dean arrived at Georgetown after Naval service in World War II. Following his LLB in 1946, he began teaching course in contracts and taxation, and by 1954 had succeeded the ailing Hugh Fegan as law dean. The school was at a crossroads: it was managed from the main campus by a Jesuit regent with no legal experience and who relied on the registrar to administer the budget. The law school did not offer tenure, failed to attract the best students outside Catholic colleges, was deficient in full time staff, and was severely overcrowded in crumbling downtown facilities. Over his 15 years as dean, Dean took each of these challenges head on, and with remarkable success.

"The institutional landmarks of his deanship are easy to identify," said former associate dean David J. McCarthy, Jr. (LLB 1960, LLM 1972, Hon. 1983) in 1995. "The adoption of the name 'Law Center' to signal out commitment to a new vision of legal education, the path-breaking establishment of the E. Barrett Prettyman Fellows; the reversal of the traditional admissions policy that produced high attrition rates; the attraction of a truly able and diverse student body" were all elements of Dean's vision. His executive team, which included McCarthy, A. Kenneth Pye (LLB 1954 LLM 1955, Hon 1978) and Richard Alan Gordon (AB 1950, LLB 1953, LLM 1961) elevated the Georgetown law experience. Admissions rates, which were once as high as 72 percent, narrowed with each passing year, while faculty were recruited from the best law programs nationwide.

Numerous faculty initiatives, internship programs, and faculty chairs followed in Dean's tenure, with the crowning achievement being the construction of the Law Center's new home, McDonough Hall, completed in 1971. Dean's polite but resolute battles with the main campus for fundraising and autonomy were made manifest in the project, which set the Law Center on a road for excellence which continues to this day.

"In building for the future," McCarthy wrote, Dean "did not sacrifice the treasures of our past. Indeed, he made them pillars of our present prominence."

Paul Dean died in 2008 at the age of 90. The Law Center alumni awards are named in his honor.

William J. Lawlor
(1907-1992)

AB 1928
Chicago, IL

William Lawlor, former director of the Midwest Stock Exchange, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Hotel Ambassador in Chicago, IL on October 3, 1970.

Raised in Chicago, Lawlor came to Georgetown from Loyola Academy in 1924, receiving his undergraduate degree in 1928. He returned to Chicago as a bond trader for the firm of Hickey, Doyle & Co. and then served 23 years as an investment banker for the Chicago firm of Hornblower & Weeks.

"Mr. Lawlor, who was often quoted in the Chicago financial pages on stock market subjects, chaired the Chicago Investors` Information Committee of the Midwest Stock Exchange," wrote the Chicago Tribune. "He was a board member of Catholic Charities and served as general chairman of the annual awards dinner for Loyola University's Stritch School of Medicine."

William Lawlor died in 1992 at the age of 84.

J. Nevins McBride
(1908-1993)

AB 1929
Franklin Lakes, NJ

J. Nevins McBride, a successful developer of industrial and office parks in New Jersey and a former president of the Georgetown University Alumni Association, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Hotel Ambassador in Chicago, IL on October 3, 1970.

Born in Paterson, NJ in 1908, he received his degree from Georgetown College in 1929, where he was a two sport letterman in basketball and tennis. " He has most surely established his versatility in sports, studies and the drawing room," wrote the College yearbook. McBride returned to Paterson to work in his family's construction business, but turned his attention after World War II to the rapid growth in the suburban areas of northern New Jersey.

"His first major project, Fair Lawn Industrial Park, begun in the early 1950's, was the first industrial park in New Jersey," wrote the New York Times. "As the state's suburbs grew, McBride Enterprises constructed industrial and office parks in Rockleigh, Oakland, Wayne, Totowa and Mahwah. Mr. McBride also built one of the state's first planned residential communities, Urban Farms at Franklin Lakes."

A longtime volunteer and alumni leader, McBride served on the Board of Governors of the Georgetown University Alumni Association and the Board of Regents. From 1968 through 1970, he served as president of the Alumni Association. He also served as a trustee to boards at Seton Hall and Fairleigh Dickinson University.

McBride died in 1993 at the age of 85.