A graduate of Yale, Andy Erickson started with a summer job in the mail room at Amica, was hired as an underwriter in 1961 and enjoyed a career with the company that lasted 50 years.

Rising through the ranks of management, Erickson retired as the company’s senior executive vice president in 2003. He remained on the board of directors, stepping down from that position this year.

Amica chairman, president and CEO Robert DiMuccio paid tribute to Erickson at the company’s annual meeting last month, saying: “Andy is a living history book of Amica knowledge, and we thank him for his professionalism, his ethics and for serving this company faithfully for more than 50 years. He is an inspiration to all of us.”

Amica, which offers a variety of insurance products and is the oldest mutual insurer of automobiles in the country, is now headquartered in Lincoln. When Erickson started the offices were in Providence and his assignments included four years in New York, four in Chicago and opening an office in Orlando, Florida where he spent seven years.

Eventually the Ericksons returned to Rhode Island, locating in East Greenwich.  Their three daughters are graduates of East Greenwich High School and Andy and his wife Polly have a long history of church and civic activity. Andy’s connection with the Boy Scouts is lifelong and he recently completed three years as the board chairman at Kent Hospital.

Just before the Amica annual meeting, when Erickson learned the company was recognizing his career with the $50,000 fund and giving him the opportunity to direct its use, he quickly chose the East Greenwich Rotary Scholarship fund, which he says has been near and dear to his heart since its origin.

A longtime member of the East Greenwich club, Erickson thought club member Bill O’Neel had a brilliant idea in 1982 when he proposed marking the club’s 20^th anniversary by creating an endowed scholarship fund to endure to the future.

O’Neel, the club president at the time, was not successful in convincing his board of directors to implement the fund. Erickson, who followed O’Neel as president, made the fund a goal of his term in office and asked O’Neel to chair the project.

In December of 1984 the East Greenwich Pendulum, whose owner Bill Foster was an active Rotarian, reported the club was establishing the fund and would start with a capital base of close to $20,000. Half of the money came the Citizens Scholarship Foundation account which had been inactive for almost a decade, invested in certificates at 12%. High School principal Steve Coppinger was happy to have a strong local group to take on management of the money and willing to work to make it grow.

While Rotarians raise money and manage the fund, the job of choosing recipients has stayed with an awards committee at the school.

O’Neel served as president of the fund until 2004. He passed away in December of 2010. In addition to O’Neel, members of the committee who guided the fund’s creation were Walter Barney, William Foster, Robert Petrucelli, Alfred Saunders, Leslie Pomeroy and Arthur Vallely.

Today the fund committee is chaired by David Iannuccilli and an eight-member committee, plus a financial advisor, the club president and treasurer as ex-officio members.

Since creating the fund, the club has added money from their traditional projects and an occasional fundraiser over the years, growing it to $253,000.  The $50,000 from Amica brings it to just over $300,000.

In addition to awards to East Greenwich High School seniors, a $1,000 scholarship is presented to a graduate of Rocky Hill School, a private school with a long East Greenwich history.

Currently the scholarship fund hands out some $15,000 in awards each year, an amount which has not grown in the last several years due to low interest rates according to Iannuccilli.

Several scholarships are named for prominent deceased community residents, funded by their families.  They include Barbara Tufts, Arthur, Howard and Irving Silverman, Chuck and Bea Keyes and Walter G. Barney. 

Donations to the fund can be made in any amount, but due to current low interest rates Iannuccilli says the committee is recommending that named scholarships be endowed with no less than $20,000.

Established on May 22, 1963, the East Greenwich Rotary club turns 50 in 2013.

The motto of Rotary, a world wide organization, is “service above self” and that has been the hallmark of the local club.

Guided by prominent community leaders, the club developed fundraisers through the years such as their phone book and the citrus drive, both of which generate substantial amounts of money for community service projects.

Currently the club is in the planning stages of  a 50^th anniversary celebration.

The late Howard Russell, credited with founding the club, was the first president and the first meetings were held at Zenga’s which is now Café Fresco on Main Street.

Russell’s daughter Sally, who runs the insurance agency with his name, became the first female member of the club in March 1988 and became the first woman president in 1994.

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Originally posted: http://eastgreenwich.patch.com/articles/rotary-scholarship-fund-receives-50-000-gift