Kole Cited by Idaho State
POCATELLO
A plaque in the Hall of Fame at West Technical High School in Cleveland reads, "Peter C. Kole, Class of January, 1955, industrialist-CEO Humanitarian."
For all those reasons and more, Kole was named this year's winner of the Idaho State University distinguished alumnus award.
Formal presentation was made during Homecoming Week at the university president's Alumni Recognition Dinner last Friday at Cavanaugh's Pocatello Hotel. The award is ISU's highest, recognizing exemplary professional and/or personal achievements and contributions to community and civic work.
A 1963 graduate of ISU with a BBA degree in business and finance, Kole is president and owner of one of the largest manufacturing firms in Cleveland. In large part through his efforts as chair of book collection for the New England Albanian Relief Organization, his hometown of Pogradec, Albania, has a library of more than 300,000 volumes.
Pogradec has a population of only 30,000, but people throughout Albania travel there to study in what has been described as the only American open-stack library in Europe. NEARO is the only U.LS. humanitarian group specializing in libraries and the only humanitarian organization to establish library and learning center in a former Communist country.
The library was dedicated on June 17, 1995, with Kole one of the speakers. He has also had books shipped to Albania's elementary and high schools and universities and collected hospital and dental equipment for the Balkan country. Before 1985, owning books or magazines in a foreign language could be a capital crime under Albania's totalitarian government.
The books came from many sources. The Cleveland Public Library tore down an annex to make space building, and all of its books could not be stored. Kole got the 100,00 discards, plus 100,000 from Cleveland's "Cuyahoga County Public Library. In addition, 50,000 books were collected in Worcester, Mass., and 50,000 came from other places. Rand McNally contributed 7,000 atlases.
Kole was brought by his parents to the United States when he was 1. He returned to Albania in 1990 and saw the poverty there. When he returned to the United States, he accumulated the books and stored them in one of his Cleveland warehouses until shipment.
His company, Paramount Metal Products, employs 300 and has five divisions: Paramount Seating, Paramount Stamping and Welding, Anchor Special Machines, Anchor Paramount Seating, Paramount Stamping and Welding, Anchor Special Machines, Anchor Template/Dye and Vanco Products.
PMP won Cleveland's 1992 Community Improvement Award for its efforts " to enhance local neighborhoods through reinvestment, job creation, and other improvements to the community."
Kole elected to attend ISU through an unusual circumstance. Most of his high school friends attended large colleges in Ohio, but he looked through a number of college catalogues and thought ISU looked the most interesting.
"Peter C. Kole is an outstanding example of a businessman our students can emulate and admire for both is business success and community involvement." Said Dr. Bill Stratton, dean of ISU's College of Business.
"In addition to his library project in his home country of Albania, Peter is talking to experts in Idaho about the potential for raising trout there as a means of helping his many relatives attain a better livelihood. The College of Business is very proud to claim Peter as one of our graduates. He is most worthy of being named the 1998 ISU Distinguished Alumnus."
Although Kole's home is far from Pocatello, he continues to be a friend of ISU and serve it well. He has endowed three scholarships at ISU with gifts totaling $150,000. In 1994, Kole endowed the Frank Seelye-Peter C. Kole Scholarship with a gift of $50,000. The scholarship honors the memory of Frank Seelye, longtime ISU business professor and dean of the College of Business from 1964 to 1968. It is awarded to a non-traditional student in the College of Business with preference given to children of single parents.
The Klime and Athina Kole Memorial Scholarship was created to honor his parent with a gift of $50,00, and it is requires the same criteria as the Seelye-Kole Scholarship. The Peter Kole Scholarship was also created with a gift of $ 50,000, and is awarded to a student in the College of Business.