27
LORNE ABONY
LLB ’94
A
bony is
CEO and
chairman of
Mood Media, a
company valued
at $1.3 billion.
In January
2013, he was
featured on
the Emmy
Award-winning
CBS series
“Undercover Boss” in which the disguised
executive worked hand-in-hand with
employees who provide the company’s front-
line services.
The UWindsor grad’s phenomenally
successful company provides music, digital
signage, messaging, social/mobile applications,
location-based services and scent marketing
to retail stores, hotels, restaurants and
businesses such as McDonald’s, Gucci, H&M,
Abercrombie & Fitch, Nike, Hilton Hotel
and AT&T. Serving more than 560,000
commercial locations in 55 countries, Mood’s
products reach more than 150 million people
every day. In 2011,
PROFIT
magazine named
it Canada’s fastest-growing company.
With his company’s international reach,
Abony says his decision to pursue the
combined US and Canada law degree program
at UWindsor has paid off.
“My legal education in Windsor was
fundamental in teaching me how to think about
problems, how to challenge traditional ideas and
how to subject thoughts to rigorous scrutiny.”
Abony co-founded online skills game site
FUN Technologies in 2001 and attracted
more than 25 million registered users. In
2004, he became the youngest CEO of a listed
company on the Toronto Stock Exchange,
and in 2006 the
Globe and Mail
named the
dynamic entrepreneur to its Top 40 under
40 list. In 2005, Abony sold his 51 percent
controlling interest to Liberty Media,
for $196 million.
Abony is a 2006 Alumni Association
Odyssey Award recipient.
DAVID WATKINS
BA ’87, BEd ’89
D
avid Watkins is an exemplary, groundbreaking
educator, who has received a Governor General’s
Award for Excellence in Teaching Canadian History
for his outstanding teaching in the Toronto District
School Board.
“Those who feel they have a stake in the subject matter
find it exciting and will want to learn,” says Watkins,
whose unconventional approach to teaching African-
Canadian history starts by discussing students’ own
current situations, then helps them work backwards to
deconstruct their history while they concurrently uncover
a sense of pride and self-worth.
Watkin has remained invested in his alma mater, and has assisted with the annual
University of Windsor African Diaspora Youth Conference.
STACI WHITTLE
BA ’90, BEd ’99
A
fter Staci Whittle earned her Bachelor of Education
degree, as well as the Board of Governors Medal
in 1999, she quickly made her mark as an excellent
educator and an astute administrator. She has also
served as a counsellor, mentor and a shoulder to lean
on for her students.
Today, Whittle is the principal at Lawrence
Elementary School, part of the Living Sky School
Division, located in northwest central Saskatchewan.
Whittle began her career as a special education teacher
at Leamington District High School and became involved
with the Teachers’ Federation as Branch president, as well
as taking other leadership roles.
She works extensively with persons who are in a position of minority. She has
mentored “at risk youth”, and immigrant women in the teaching profession. She
developed programs for Mennonite students, and worked to stop bullying as a member
of the school board’s Violence Prevention Committee.
After a stint at Herman Secondary School in Windsor, Ont., she was named vice-
principal at Walkerville Collegiate, also in Windsor, and later vice-principal at Harrow
District High School.
Whittle joined the Living Sky School Division in 2010.
Among her awards, the Ontario Teachers Insurance Plan and the Ontario Teachers’
Federation honoured Whittle as the top secondary school teacher in Ontario in 2004.
In 2007, Whittle received a University of Windsor Alumni Association Odyssey
Award as a young alumna who has distinguished herself.
