QCC to Honor Three at Partners for Progress Gala on April 25

Queensborough Community College will honor an alumni who is the president of a bank founded in Queens as well as two others during its Partners for Progress gala on April 25.

The gala will be held at 6 p.m. at Terrace on the Park, which is located at 52-11 111th St. in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

The annual event celebrates the school’s achievements and acts as a fundraiser for scholarships that allow students to attend the Bayside-based community college.

Joseph Ficalora, who graduated from QCC in 1967, will be honored as Alumni Partner of the Year. Ficalora is the president and chief executive officer of New York Community Bancorp, Inc., which is ranked as the 21st largest bank holding company in the United States.

Under his leadership, the bank has evolved from a mutual savings bank with branches in Queens and Nassau County to a publicly traded multi-bank holding company with 276 branches in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio and Arizona.

“[QCC’s faculty] reached out to me and made certain I achieved a solid academic foundation, so that I could go on to bigger things,” Ficalora said of his time at the college.

Dong Chan Kim, president of Korean American Civic Empowerment, is another of this year’s honorees. His group’s mission is to empower the Korean American community and promote human rights issues around the world.

In 2012, Kim’s organization partnered with QCC’s Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center and Archives to launch the Asian Social Justice Internship Program, which taught students about the victims of aggression in Asia during World War II.

John Kuitwaard, president of Metropolitan Food Service, will be honored at Campus Partner of the Year.

The company has been the sole provider of on-campus dining and catering at QCC for 25 years. Metropolitan was ranked in Food Management magazine’s “Top 50 Management Companies” list for the past few years.