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# 70 • OCTOBER 19 , 2015
dents from across the nation to the
Foundation’s events so that they might interact with the Italian American
leaders of the day. Many of these students have continued to participate
in the Foundation’s leadership as they
have grown into their own lives and
careers. NIAF’s fourth Chairman, Dr. A.
Kenneth Ciongoli, was instrumental in
expanding NIAF’s presence in academia and on America’s college campuses, even creating “NIAF at the Ivies”
to address the lack of Italian American
enrollment at the nation’s top academic institutions. This forward-looking
strategy included the release of the
now iconic NIAF logo in an effort to
update the Foundation’s brand with
a modern look. The much loved logo,
which substituted a Roman column for
the letter “I” and an American star within the “A,” remains the basis of NIAF’s
visual identity even today and holds
pride of place at the center of the new
NIAF crest introduced in 2012.
By the end of the 1990s, NIAF was
hosting its annual Business Leadership Summits under the direction of
New York Stock Exchange Chairman
and NIAF Vice Chairman Dick Grasso. Many of the business world’s top
decision makers, both Italian American and not, sought out membership
in the Foundation’s Business Council,
quickly growing into an organization
for business leaders of all ethnic backgrounds to come together around
some of the world’s most respected
executives.
In the new millennium, this developing
role as leaders for all Americans was
addressed by Congressman Frank J.
Guarini, as he summed up his sense of
how the Foundation had evolved over
its first 25 years: “This marriage of past
and present, along with our unparalleled sense of family values place Italian Americans in a natural leadership
position. We have the ability to show
other ethnic groups how to honor
their roots while not alienating themselves from America, the land that has
given so many of us the opportunity
to realize our dreams.”
2005–2015: “Stewards of our Heritage”
Kenneth Ciongoli As NIAF approached its fourth deca-
34 | WE THE ITALIANS
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