West Liberty Resident Named to Corridor "Forty Under 40" List - West Liberty Index article
by RotaryClub WestLiberty on Friday, August 7, 2009 at 5:48pm
by Sara Sedlacek
West Liberty sits on the southeastern tip of the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Corridor. With international and nationally recognized colleges and Universities, an exemplary transportation and communications infrastructure, diversified industries, cultural destinations, high quality of living and with one of the highest skilled workforce populations in the USA our place in this corridor is important.
"We sit right on the edge of greatness!" Gerry Wickham says about West Liberty’s location. President for the past two years of our local Rotary Club and resident of our community since 2002 Wickham has just recently been named to the 2007 Forty Under 40 honorees awarded by an independent panel of judges. The Corridor Business Journal will announce the members of this years Forty Under 40 class at a luncheon in Iowa City October 3. Te Forty Under 40 awards recognize professional and community excellence by people early in their careers.
Wickham is the Director of Experiential Education in the University of Iowa’s Pomerantz Career Center. He oversees a team of professionals who work with students to find high quality internships in Iowa, the USA and across the globe. He is also the director of the new Des Moines Center Internship Program, an academic internship program for UI undergraduates in the State’s capital. In addition to his professional duties he serves on The University of Iowa’s Civic Engagement Advisory Board. He is also a member of the experiential education committee of the Midwest Association of Colleges and Employers.
He is very involved in the community in West Liberty – leading the Rotary club with its many community service projects that include sponsorship of the McVey Chapter of the National Honor Society, the annual Chicken Bar-B-Que, sponsorship of the Cub Scouts Annual Bake Sale, an annual dinner honoring local firefighters amongst others. Under his leadership of the Rotary the club received the 2007 Best International Cooperative Projects award for its work with Casa Hogar Los Angelitos orphanage in Manzanillo, México.
West liberty Rotary Club has received three grants worth over $30,000 from The Rotary International Foundation used to provide a school bus, all new kitchen equipment and library materials to the orphanage in Mexico. This project has required collaboration with the Children Foundation, Inc. of Loveland, CO and the Rotary Club of Manzanillo. The Best International Cooperative Projects Award is not given out every year and is a significant achievement for a small Rotary club in a small community.
Wickham holds degrees from Carlow Institute of Technology (Ireland) the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland), Dominican University (Chicago) and The University of Iowa. He lives with his wife Heather Hermann (manager of technical support at Integrated DNA Technologies in Coralville), their 7 year old daughter, Cora.
He came to the USA from Wexford, Ireland in 1997 and became a US Citizen in 2004. In his spare time he likes to cook, travel (particularly to old cities in Europe), brew beer, and is an avid swimmer. He reads everything he can get his hands on about Antarctic explorers and hopes one day to venture onto the frozen continent.
Wickham will be profiled in the October 22 issue of the Corridor Business Journal along with other area honorees, and is West Liberty’s only resident to be included in this year’s class.