Three longtime activists receive union’s Nina Mitchell Award for Distinguished Service

The Nina Mitchell Award for Distinguished Service recognizes UUP members who have served the union with distinction. The three recipients of this year’s awards go far beyond that qualification, with years of unselfish, dedicated service whose cumulative efforts have helped to make UUP the strong union it is today.

Gregory Auleta is marking his 20th consecutive year as a UUP leader, including a 16-year stint as chapter president at SUNY Oswego. He began his service as the chapter’s vice president for professionals, and is currently a statewide Executive Board member. He also served as a member of UUP’s Negotiations Team in 2003.

Former Oswego Chapter president Donald Vanouse praised Auleta for the way he promotes union membership through a variety of campus activities.

“In addition to assisting individual colleagues, he has helped to establish a tone of cooperation between UUP and the president and other officers of the college,” Vanouse said.

Albert Ermanovics traces his activity in UUP all the way back to 1978, when he became a delegate and a member of the executive board at the SUNY Buffalo UUP Chapter, positions he continues to hold. He distinguished himself in the grievance field, through his chairmanship of the union’s statewide Grievance Committee for the last 19 years.

UUP President William Scheuerman praised Ermanovics as “a tireless defender of the rights of all UUP members.”

His past service includes six years each on UUP’s statewide Executive Board and as chapter vice president for professionals.

Ermanovics served as his chapter’s treasurer for eight years and chaired its Grievance Committee for Professionals for seven years.

“Al has been a friend, a mentor and leader of UUP for a very long time,” Buffalo Chapter President Ezra Zubrow said. “He is a strong and vocal advocate for the issues that most concern our members.”

Robert Reganse draws praise as “the quintessential unionist” from Farmingdale Chapter President Michael Smiles, who said Reganse is likely the longest serving unionist in UUP Farmingdale’s history.

“Bob is a master strategist with a tremendous ability to understand how the other side would react to something we say or do, and then correctly predict the consequences for each side,” Smiles said.

Reganse’s union service dates back to 1979, when he won elections for the Farmingdale Chapter’s vice president for professionals and for its executive board. He later became chapter president, the first professional at Farmingdale to be elected to that position.

Reganse pioneered UUP’s legislative advocacy, an activity that since has become one of the hallmarks of UUP.

“He was one of the first to argue that our political ties to state legislators were critical for success,” Smiles said.

UUP presented the awards — named after the late Nina Mitchell, the revered unionist from Brooklyn HSC — during last month’s Fall Delegate Assembly in Buffalo.

“The officers of UUP, as well as all of our members, would like to say ‘thank you’ to these activists for their years of standout service,” Scheuerman said.

— Donald Feldstein