Commencement Honors Sheriff, KEYT-TV

Tom Nguyen, Westmont trustee and managing director of U.S. sales for China International Capital Corp. (CICC), speaks at Westmont Commencement on Saturday, May 5, from 9:30-11:30 a.m. on Russell Carr Field at Westmont. President Gayle D. Beebe presents the Westmont Medal to Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown and the KEYT NewsChannel 3 team for their exceptional work and courage during the Thomas Fire and Montecito mudslides.

Commencement is free and open to the public, but no parking is available on campus. Guests must park their cars at Santa Barbara City College and use Westmont’s free shuttle service to campus, arriving at SBCC no later than 8 a.m.

About 328 students will participate in Commencement, and 89 will graduate with honors. Forty-seven Golden Warriors, who graduated in 1968, will attend the event to celebrate their 50th reunion.

Nguyen, a graduate of Pepperdine University, earned a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. Before joining CICC, he was managing director at Bank of America, head of international sales at Deutsche Bank, head of global markets in Vietnam for Deutsche Bank and vice president in equity sales at Merrill Lynch in Chicago. Nguyen, whose daughter, Mackenzie ’17, attended Westmont, has worked to connect Westmont to Wall Street and expand the college’s global footprint.

Brown, who has served as Santa Barbara County’s Sheriff-Coroner since 2006, began his law enforcement career in 1977. He oversaw numerous evacuations during the Thomas Fire, the Jan. 9 flood and debris flow, and subsequent rain storms.

KEYT’s C.J. Ward, Beth Farnsworth, John Palminteri and Tracy Lehr provided insightful, around-the-clock coverage of the Thomas Fire and the debris flow.

The Westmont Medal honors those whose lives embody the very principles associated with the character of the college. Past recipients include Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree, Gerd Jordano, Dr. Bob Emmons, the late Michael Towbes, and Rolf Geyling to name a few.