During the May 23 graduation ceremony for the Sacred Heart-Griffin Class of 2010, two members of the school community were inducted into the SHG Hall of Fame.
The SHG Hall of Fame was established in 1995. Nominees must be graduates of Sacred Heart Academy, Cathedral Boys High School or Griffin High School a minimum of 25 years ago. Nominees should reflect efforts above and beyond the duties required of his or her chosen vocation.
The first inductee was Tom Suddes. Suddes, a 1967 graduate of Griffin High School, earned a bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame University in 1971 and then served in the U.S. Army as an Infantry Officer Airborne and Pathfinder. He began his professional career in the development office at Notre Dame, eventually becoming the director of development.
An entrepreneur from the age of 16, he founded the Suddes Group in 1983 and has since managed more than 400 campaigns, raising over $1 billion while helping generate 3 million new jobs in working with 125 economic development organizations around the country.
While a student at Notre Dame, Suddes became involved with the boxing program, twice earning the title of welterweight champion. The program, known as the Bengal Bouts, has for 80 years conducted an annual boxing competition to raise money for the Holy Cross Missions in Bangladesh. For 37 of those years, Suddes has returned to the campus for a six-week “mini-sabbatical” to coach the boxing team which this year generated over $100,000 for the missions. This puts the total given through Bengal Bouts to over $1 million.
Suddes and his wife Trudy are the proud parents of five children and have seven grandchildren.
The second inductee is Louise Phipps Senft. Senft, a 1979 graduate of Sacred Heart Academy, earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia in 1983 and a law degree from Washington and Lee University in 1988 where she was named Most Outstanding Woman Law Student.
In 1993 Senft founded the Baltimore Mediation Center — the first in Maryland. She was voted Baltimore’s Best Mediator by Baltimore Magazine and was honored with the Most Enterprising Woman award by the Baltimore Business Journal. She is known nationally for conflict resolution and transformation mediation skills.
An adjunct law professor at the University of Maryland School of Law since 1998 and Johns Hopkins Carrey Business School in Baltimore, Senft is also a member of the faculty and teaches at Harvard Law School.
The Safe Haven Network for children in Baltimore was established by Senft. Her work in elder care mediation was the featured story on ABC News with Charles Gibson in 2007. She is one of the founding members of Mediators Beyond Borders, a non-profit group offering conflict resolution aid and training to groups such as the Child Soldier Project in Ghana. In addition to her national and international mediation work, she is a prolific published author.
Along with her husband Bill, Senft takes a active role in her parish and in Springfield’s Cathedral School, attended by all five of their children.
For more information about past SHG Hall of Fame inductees, visit www.shg.org/alumni/alumni_hall_of_fame.php or call the SHG Advancement Office at (217) 787-9732.