The Inspirational Young Alumni Award was created three years ago by the Student Alumni Relations Committee to honor younger graduates who achieved success within a short time (less than 10 years) since their graduation. On March 3, Edward Tessier '91 became the first man to win the award. Tessier was an obvious choice: as an activist, community leader, and businessman, he has built up a remarkable resume of accomplishments and accolades.

Tessier, who is a quadriplegic due to a bodysurfing accident in 1984, was presented with many opportunities for involvement. During his five years at Pomona, Tessier campaigned ardently to make the campus more accessible to the disabled. He contributed to the design of several new buildings, such as Lyon Court and Seaver Theater, and advised the College how to improve access to older facilities. He also founded the Claremont Colleges' first disabled rights organization, Students for Handicapped Awareness and Personal Equality.

While still in college, Tessier found the time to create or assist numerous off-campus organizations as well. He started a non-profit consulting firm, Designs For Independence, specializing in issues for handicapped access; joined the board of directors for the Services Center for Independent Living, a grassroots aid group for the disabled people in the region; and served as chairman of the City of Claremont's Committee on Disability. Tessier's efforts were recognized nationally when he was named one of 20 recipients of the Time magazine's 1989 College Achievement Awards.

After graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1991, Tessier expanded his activist work into community redevelopment. In 1992, he took over his parent's firm, Jeved Management, Inc., which owned a large portion of Pomona's then-decaying downtown. He set out on a massive campaign of revitalization, envisioning part of the area as a mixed-use art colony akin to Haight-Ashbury in the early 1960s or Old Town Pasadena in the 1970s. Tessier and a business partner opened coffeehouse/gallery/concert club called the Haven, which would become the centerpiece of the revival. He also created a Disability Community Center in the area that year.

Over the next few years, as alternative-minded artists, retail stores, restaurants, and galleries flocked to the Pomona Arts Colony, everyone from the Pomona residents to the Los Angeles Times heralded a renaissance in the city and credited it in large part to Edward Tessier. By 1994, Tessier had a slew of new community-related positions to add to his curriculum vitae: he was founder of the Pomona Arts Colony Merchant's Association, president of the Pomona Central Business District, board member of the Pomona Economic Development Corporation and the Pomona Valley Latino Chamber of Congress; and planning commissioner of the city of Pomona. Tessier also became the 1994 Democratic nominee for the 41st Congressional District's seat in the House of Representatives.

Although he retired from both the Planning Commission and the Central Business District last year, Ed Tessier is still active in community affairs. He is now concentrating on "finding members of the community that have a vision, that have a lot of energy and a lot of time (but) don't have any organization" and then "getting involved and putting that organization together." Currently, his main project is the non-profit Prog Underground Gallery, where local students can show off their work off campus. There is, Tessier feels, "an Ivory Tower thing going on with student art..... The Community never sees it." With Prog, Tessier hopes to change that. To that end, he has donated over five thousand square feet of within one of his buildings to the gallery, which opened on May 30.

The gallery now takes its place among more than 7 occupied storefronts in the booming Arts Colony, which has had a new storefront open every month for the past 4 years. The colony is, Tessier says, "not only a commercial center, but a functioning neighborhood, and those are just unheard of in Southern California.... It's a small bit of urban sanity in the midst of a suburban nightmare."

For his work in bringing sanity-sanity for those who live and work and shop in Pomona, and sanity for those with disabilities who attempt to maneuver around campuses, homes, and businesses in the region- Edward Tessier has been awarded the 1998 Pomona College Inspirational Young Alumnus Award. --Kelli Shapiro '00