From OWENS COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Owens Community College has announced its 2026 class of Alumni Hall of Fame inductees, honoring four distinguished graduates whose careers, communities, and lives reflect the best of an Owens education.
The honorees – Andrew R. Kleopfer, Edward J. Kubiak, Dr. Nilgün Sezginiş, and Mark White – will be formally recognized during Owens’ Spring Commencement ceremony on Friday, May 8, at the Huntington Center in downtown Toledo. The induction will take place before hundreds of graduating students and their families, celebrating not only the accomplishments of the 2026 graduates but the enduring impact of Owens alumni across the region.
The four inductees represent a wide range of fields, from performing arts and information technology to health information management and career-technical education. Each has turned their Owens foundation into a career of impact, service, and distinction.
“Nearly everyone you meet in northwest Ohio has an Owens story,” said Kelle Pack, Owens vice president of institutional advancement and executive director of the Owens Foundation. “These four honorees exemplify what is possible when talent meets opportunity, and they serve as an inspiration to every student walking through our doors today.”
Kleopfer earned his Associate of Arts in Communication Studies from Owens in 2018, going on to perform professionally with theater companies in Chicago before returning to northwest Ohio. He now teaches performing arts at Whitmer High School, where he developed a CTE curriculum centered on student-created original work. He is also the founder of The Lords of Drawing, a touring theater company, and a published poet.
Kubiak first came to Owens in 1995, earning his Associate Degree in Applied Business while working in the campus computer lab to support fellow students. He built a distinguished corporate career, eventually leading global software development teams across four countries as senior director of software engineering at InMoment. All the while, he never stopped giving back, serving as an Owens adjunct instructor for more than 20 years before joining the full-time faculty in January 2026 as CIS instructor and coordinator in the School of STEM.
Sezginiş arrived at Owens as an adult learner, balancing a full-time career in medical coding with her coursework. She graduated magna cum laude in 2004 and never stopped pursuing excellence, earning three additional degrees, including a Ph.D. in Health Education, while working and raising a family. Today, she serves as senior lecturer and program director of the Health Information Administration program at the University of Toledo, where she created the university’s first fully online and Quality Matters-certified baccalaureate program. A 2024 AHIMA fellow and UToledo distinguished university lecturer, she also serves her community as a member – and recent past president – of the Wood County Board of Health.
White graduated in 1992 with an Associate of Applied Science in Automotive Technology and spent the next three decades transforming career-technical education across Ohio. He grew a struggling automotive program at Whitmer High School from 45 students to 150, co-developed a public transit technician training program with TARTA and returned to Owens as an adjunct instructor from 2005 to 2010. He currently leads the Engineering and Design pathway at Ohio Virtual Academy, where he continues to mentor the next generation of Ohio’s workforce.
For more information about the Owens Community College Alumni Hall of Fame, visit owens.edu/alumni/awards.
