SUNY Morrisville Professor Christopher Scalzo is making his mark not only in the classroom, but also around the world.
His global philanthropy was recently recognized with a President’s Volunteer Service Award from Winrock International. It is the second time he has received the award, a prestigious national honor which lauds international volunteer service.
Scalzo, professor of business, is among 32 volunteers to receive the award, which is issued by the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, a group created by former President George W. Bush to recognize the valuable contributions volunteers make to our nation.
Scalzo, of Liverpool, has contributed more than 1,000 hours of volunteer service on international assignments in Honduras, Kenya, Lebanon, Malawi (remote) and Nigeria.
Working with Winrock and USAID under the Farmer-to-Farmer program, Scalzo completed financial training and analysis with dairy farmers in Honduras, strategic planning workshops and training with Kabba College of Agriculture in Nigeria.
“I am happy to utilize my experience to help other areas of the world,” Scalzo said. “These trips allow me to sharpen my business skills and experience different cultures up-close while making friends in various parts of the world.”
His international philanthropy, a catalyst for companies and farmers in developing nations, also sheds a unique light in his SUNY Morrisville classroom, where he has taught for 23 years.
“These trips will help students in their future career, providing an experience that broadens their perspective about business, culture and the world,” he said. “I bring this back to the classroom and it is applied learning that students would not normally get.”
Scalzo’s consulting includes three trips to Kenya, one to help a soy and maize-producing company enhance its operations, and another to Lebanon to assist several companies in the organic food industry with creating a business model and conducting financial analysis.
He also ventured to Nanjing, China, where he taught macroeconomics at Nanjing Institute of Industry and Technology (NIIT) and most recently, spent three weeks as a consultant, sharing his expertise in Kabba, Nigeria, where he worked with a team on a five-year strategic plan at the Kabba College of Agriculture. The college is a division of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, located in West Africa.
Winrock has a long history of international volunteer service, with more than 7,000 volunteers who have performed volunteer service on behalf of the organization, largely through the Farmer-to-Farmer Program funded by the United States Agency for International Development.
“Farmer-to-Farmer volunteers continue to represent the best of America’s talent and values by bringing innovative solutions to persistent problems, sharing their technical skills with communities across the globe to adapt to their local context, inspiring all of us through their commitment to service and to making the world a little better than they found it both at home and abroad,” said Aaron Sundsmo, associate vice president of Winrock’s Agriculture, Resilience & Water Unit.
