Norman '77 and Alicia '76 Tashash
Couple Who First Met on Kingston Campus Give Back to Alma Mater
Norman Tashash ’77 and his wife, Alicia ’76, have a soft spot in their hearts for URI—not only do they ascribe their marriage to the school, but they give it credit for their professional success as well.
And over the last few years, they have demonstrated exactly how they feel by putting their financial support behind the University.
Recently, the College of the Environment and Life Sciences (CELS) held a ceremony for the Tashashs, during which Conference Room 152 in the new Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences building (CBLS) was dedicated in their honor.
The naming of the Tashash Family Conference Room was fitting. The couple generously gave $50,000 toward the completion of the new, state-of-the-art building. Their efforts are helping to ensure that the $60 million structure, which opened in January 2009, will have its fourth floor fully outfitted with laboratory and administrative space by the fall of 2012.
Jeffrey Seemann, former dean of CELS, initially approached Norman, asking him to help raise the private funding necessary to enhance the building, above and beyond what was planned as a part of taxpayer-approved bond financing for the major construction project. Norman readily agreed.
At the spring ceremony, CELS Dean John D. Kirby expressed appreciation for the Tashashs’ great dedication to both the College and University. “We are fortunate to have such committed and involved alumni who are willing to take such an active role in our progress and growth.”
This instance, however, was not the first time the Tashashs demonstrated their generous support of URI. In 2008, they made a gift of $25,000 to establish a scholarship endowment to provide financial assistance to a third-year student pursuing a degree in molecular biology.
“URI is very special to us,” says Norman, who adds that both he and his wife are alumni—he a member of the class of 1977, with a degree in medical technology, and she a 1976 graduate. They met at URI after he transferred from the University of Vermont.
“We got to thinking about how to give back to the University that gave us so many valuable lessons, and, thankfully, we had the means,” he explains.
After graduating from URI, Norman worked for nine years in hospital laboratories before deciding he wanted to pursue a different challenge. He received his MBA from Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I., and landed a job with Abbott Laboratories in Chicago.
In 1988, he joined a small Boston-based firm, Genzyme, which, at that time, had 300 employees and about $20 million in annual sales. Genzyme Diagnostics is now known as Sekisui Diagnostics LLC, with $10 billion in sales annually. Norman currently serves as vice president and general manager of the clinical chemistry business unit.
The Tashashs, who live in Greenville, have two children: a son, Joseph, who is completing his MBA at URI, and a daughter, Elizabeth, who just finished her studies at Northeastern University in Boston, and is now headed for law school.
As for the new CBLS building, where students can congregate in the Tashash Family Conference Room, Norman has nothing but praise: “I think it is a building that the University can—and should—showcase. It’s a wonderful learning environment for students and a cornerstone building for URI. The facility projects ‘education,’ and it’s a very positive investment that will undoubtedly pay dividends for generations of students.”