RIT Announces Five Appointments to Board of Trustees

Rochester Institute of Technology is adding five new members to its Board of Trustees. The new trustees are business leaders from diverse industries. The announcement was made during RIT’s Trustees meeting, April 8-9.

Appointed to the board are:

Irene Taylor Brodsky is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning, producer, director, writer and cinematographer whose documentaries have shown theatrically, at film festivals and on television worldwide. Brodsky’s most recent film, The Final Inch, was nominated for a 2009 Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject.

Richard Kaplan is president and CEO of Pictometry International Corp., a rapidly growing visual information systems company headquartered in Rochester. He is the former president of Richland Industries Inc. and Max Pies Floor Coverings, a retail floor covering chain. Kaplan has done private consulting and guest lecturing on marketing, economics and organizational development at universities as well for many business groups.

Gen. Roosevelt “Ted” Mercer Jr. is vice president and director of intelligence at ITT Space Systems Division. He retired from the U.S. Air Force on Jan. 1, 2008. Prior to joining ITT Space Systems, Mercer was director of plans and policy for U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Among his duties were the development and implementation of national security policy and guidance, and the development of America’s strategic war plan.

Lella Vignelli is the Chief Executive Officer of Vignelli Associates and the president of Vignelli Designs, a company dedicated to product and furniture design. The graphic and product designs created by Ms. Vignelli and her husband, Massimo, are icons of international design. Her work is widely featured in design publications. Examples of her work have been included in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Montreal, and Die Neue Sammlung in Munich.

Massimo Vignelli is the president of Vignelli Associates and Chief Executive Officer of Vignelli Designs, which he operates with his wife, Lella. His work includes graphic and corporate identity programs, publication designs, architectural graphics, and exhibition, interior, furniture, and consumer product designs for many leading American and European companies and institutions. Vignelli’s work has been published and exhibited throughout the world and entered in the permanent collections of several museums; notably, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York; the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Montreal; and the Die Neue Sammlung in Munich.

Scheduled to open in September, the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at RIT will house the entire archive of Massimo and Lella Vignelli. The center will serve as a resource for students and scholars from around the world and provide space for the teaching of design including classrooms, archival storage, offices, and critique and exhibition space.