RIT Staffer Receives Prestigious Military Honor

Retired U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Edward McCarthy, senior program manager at the Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology, and his family have been named recipients of the National Military Family Association’s Family Award. McCarthy, his wife, Karen, and their five children are one of 12 families in the nation chosen for the honor and the first retired military family ever selected.

The association will honor the McCarthy family during a ceremony on the RIT campus at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, July 20. Local congressional and state legislative representatives as well as officials from the military and RIT are scheduled to participate.

“This is an incredibly gratifying honor for me and my entire family,” McCarthy says. “I would like to thank the National Military Family Association for recognizing the tremendous contributions military families make to the support of our troops and our overall national security.”

Maj. McCarthy, a graduate of the Naval Academy, served for 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps as an armor officer and electrical engineer. He supported combat operations in Iraq and the Horn of Africa and received the Meritorious Service Medal and the Naval & Marine Corps Commendation Medal.

He is currently a volunteer firefighter in Pittsford and he and his family are active members of the Pittsford Community Church and the Pittsford Little League.

“Ed McCarthy is a tremendous asset to RIT and the entire community and I am very pleased to see him and his family receiving such a well deserved award,” says Nabil Nasr, director of the Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies.

The family award is given to military families who exemplify the best of the military family lifestyle and demonstrate the association’s theme of “Strong Family, Strong Force.” It considers both service to the military and the community and is sponsored by Nestlé USA and the Association of Military Banks of America.

The award includes a cash prize and a donation to the honorees’ charity of choice. This year was the first year a retiree family was selected as a recipient.

“We are especially pleased to celebrate the good works of the McCarthy family who have continued, even into retirement, their life-style of service to others,” says Tanna Schmidli, the association’s chairman of the board

The National Military Family Association is the only national organization whose sole focus is the military family. For more than 35 years, its staff and volunteers, comprised mostly of military family members, have built a reputation for being the leading experts on military family issues. Visit www.nmfa.org for more information.