Erik Joh Intercollegiate Rowing Program Endowment

Type

General Endowment

Year Established

1998

Purpose

Benefit the students and coaches who participate in the College's Intercollegiate Rowing Program. (GF000168)

Description

History

Erik Edward Joh, Esq., grew up in Binghamton, NY and throughout his life, he maintained a farm there, growing hops. He attended Dartmouth College from 1963-1967 where he fell in love with rowing and football. While majoring in Government and History at Dartmouth, he joined the Psi Upsilon Fraternity and rowed competitively for the Dartmouth Rowing Club. Erik went on to coach crew from 1966-67 and was recognized with Steward's Award for contributions to Dartmouth Rowing.

Erik once shared that he would have continued as a rowing coach, but his father made an offer to pay for law school and told Erik he had to take that offer now or it would be rescinded.  This jolted Erik to go to law school and he earned his JD from Albany Law School in 1970. In law school, he served as Football Coach At Christian Bros Academy, was the Social Chair for the Student Bar Association, and was a research editor for the Albany Law Review. After graduating, he was admitted to the New York and Florida Bar Associations.

Erik went on to have an outstanding career in law and politics and served for nearly 53 years as an attorney for Hinman, Howard & Kattell, LLP. The firm specialized in offering sophisticated and highly personalized wealth-transfer strategies to high-net-worth individuals.
Here Erik counseled clients on tax law, wills, trusts, and estates, as well as non-profit corporations and foundations.

Erik was involved in numerous campaigns, including working with Nelson Rockefeller.

He also served as the President and CEO of Cypress Trust and for 32 years was managing trustee for the Gertrude E. Skelly Charitable Foundation.

Mr. Joh was an active member of several industry-related organizations, including the Broome County Bar Association, the South Palm Beach County Bar Association, and the New York State Bar Association. He was also a member of the Real Property, Probate, and Trust Law and Tax Sections of the American Bar Association.

Erik was very supportive and saw the importance of nurses in health care. He was an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Society.

Some of Mr. Joh's avocational memberships include the Country Club of Florida and the East Coast Football Officials Association, as well as the Country Club of Florida Scholarship Foundation, where he serves as a board member.

Other roles included serving as a trustee of Colby-Sawyer College and trustee, vice chairman, and treasurer of Albany Law School (Union University). 

Active for more than 55 years with the American Red Cross, Joh served on the organization's National Board of Governors for more than six years.  In 2001, he received the organization's highest award:  the Harriman Award for Exceptional Leadership

In 1995 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Albany Law School and that same year earned a Leadership Award from the American Red Cross.

In 2001 he received The Harriman Award for Exceptional Leadership from the American National Red Cross.

In 2002, Mr. Joh was Knighted and admitted to the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller; one of the oldest orders of Chivalry still in existence.

2018, he received a 65-Year Volunteer Award 2018.

Erik joined the Board of Trustees for Florida Tech in 1998 and was an active leader, ultimately serving for many years as the Chair of the Development Committee. Everyone knew Erik as an incredibly personable and caring individual. He made it a point to get to know every member of the staff he could by their first name.

At FIT he started a crew scholarship and did not name it so that others could add to it. We added his name back to the fund upon his retirement from the board.

Erik received the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2019, he was listed in Marquis Who's Who.

If you would like to contribute to this fund, please go to Panther Fund and use the "other" designation to identify that you wish to give to this named endowment fund.