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CCC Honors Educational Testing Service Chief with Alumnus Award

Walt MacDonald – who is devoted to helping advance quality and equity in education by improving teaching and assessment of learning around the world as president and chief executive officer of Educational Testing Service, the company that developed and administers the SAT, GRE, TOEFL, PRAXIS and other such exams – has received Camden County College’s 2014 Outstanding Alumnus Award.

The Mercer County resident was born in Massachusetts and grew up in “humble beginnings.” He left home at 19, coming to the Camden area to live with a brother employed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and work in construction.

“I was encouraged by my fellow construction workers to go to college, but I didn’t know where to start until one of them brought me some information about this little college in Blackwood, NJ.,” MacDonald recalled. “CCC certainly whetted my appetite for more knowledge, lots of it, in fact, so that after the associate degree, I continued on to earn bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Rutgers and even made education my career.

“CCC was my incredible doorway to higher education.”

MacDonald, who also completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University’s Business School, has spent most of his professional career at ETS. The company administers and scores more than 50 million exams in 180 countries around the world every year. Before becoming president and CEO, he was executive vice president and chief operating officer and previously served as Programs and Services executive vice president, Higher Education and School Assessments senior vice president, College Board associate vice president, Advanced Placement Program executive director and National Assessment of Educational Progress test development director.

“Camden County College gave me the opportunity to create a foundation for my academic and professional life,” MacDonald said. “Whatever successes I’ve achieved in those spheres can be traced to the associate degree that I earned here -- without it I wouldn’t be who and where I am today.”

CCC’s Outstanding Alumna/Alumnus Award has been presented annually since 2008. Past recipients include Vietnam veteran Eugene J. Toni (Class of 1973); internationally recognized agronomist J. Mark Powell (Class of 1973); Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Trymaine Lee (Class of 2000); award-winning documentary filmmaker Robert A. Emmons Jr. (Class of 1996); research scientist and writer Julie Feinstein (Class of 1980); and Higgs boson discovery team member F. Mitchell Newcomer (Class of 1974).

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