A lifetime devoted to the sport of rowing has earned STAN POCOCK, ’47, the 2012 U.S. Rowing Medal of Honor, the highest honor awarded by the organization.

“It’s a great honor to receive this and it will be cherished by me and my wife,” Pocock says. Pocock was presented with his medal at the Golden Oars Awards Dinner at New York Athletic Club in November. He was honored two weeks later in Seattle, surrounded by friends and colleagues in the rowing world.

Pocock was introduced to rowing and boat building by his father George, who founded Pocock Racing Shells in 1911. After rowing for the UW and graduating with a degree in engineering, Pocock coached at UW from 1947 to 1955. After leaving UW, he became the first coach of the Lake Washington Rowing Club and coached several crews that represented the U.S. at the Olympics, including the gold medal-winning men’s four at the Rome Olympics in 1960.

Throughout a career of innovations to boat building, the establishment of the Pocock Rowing Center, and his involvement in masters level rowing, Pocock has continuously to give back to the sport that has given so much to him.

If there’s one thing JOHN BULLER is all about, it’s community. The former executive director of the UW Alumni Association, Buller, ’69, ’71, loves to bring people together. This makes his new role as 2013 chairperson of Seafair, Seattle’s grand summer festival, a perfect fit. Buller is energized about the first Seafair event: A holiday cruise for people with developmental disabilities from Lake Union to Lake Washington, that takes place on Sunday, Dec. 2. The rest of Seafair launches on the first day of summer, June 21.

ERIC COLEMAN, who completed his residency in primary care internal medicine in 1995 and a fellowship in geriatric medicine in 1998 at the UW, was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in October. Coleman, who received a $500,000 no-strings-attached gift along with his “Genius Award,” is a professor in the Division of Health Care Policy and Research at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. His work focuses on the miscommunications and errors that occur as patients transition from hospitals to other sites of care.

JOHN McKAY, ’78, received the Judge Learned Hand Award from the American Jewish Committee in September. McKay, a visiting professor of law at Seattle University, served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington until 2007. He also was president of the Legal Services Corp., established by Congress as a national, private, nonprofit to ensure equal access to justice under the law for low-income Americans.