Tate McCoy head shot

Tate McCoy ’93

Tate McCoy ’93 is the CEO of the Mountain West Series of Lockton Companies, a global professional services firm that specializes in risk management, employee benefits, and retirement services. As CEO, he leads a team of more than 500 associates and is an expert on real estate, private equity, construction, and manufacturing. Before being promoted to the position in 2018, McCoy served as the executive vice president. He was named to Denver Business Journal’s 40 under 40 in 2009. He previously served the College as a Wooster presidential fellow. As a student, he was an English major, a member of Phi Omega Sigma, and a lacrosse player. McCoy and his wife Eileen, a fellow Wooster alum, have four sons and currently live in Denver, Colorado. He is active in the community, including serving on the board of directors for Colorado Open Lands, which protects land and water.

Paul Edmiston

Paul Edmiston

Paul Edmiston is the Theron L. Peterson and Dorothy R. Peterson Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The College of Wooster. Known for his patented organosilica materials for water treatment, environmental remediation, and personal care, Edmiston researches advanced materials for water purification and the development of chemical sensors based on molecularly imprinted materials. He has been featured in over 50 publications, the most recent being in Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts, Catalysis Today, and Journal of Catalysis. He was awarded the Top 10 Breakthrough of the Year Award from Popular Mechanics Magazine in 2011, as well as Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Clean Energy Prize in 2009, among several other recognitions in his career. Since 1999 Edmiston has received over $5.2 million in grant research funding. Recently, he received a significant federal grant from the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, a partnership between the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency, to study the mitigation of “forever chemicals,” or chemicals that don’t break down in the environment and are found in many consumer products. Edmiston also has 12 patents, the most recent of which was acquired in 2022. At Wooster, where he’s been a member of the chemistry faculty since 1997, Edmiston teaches a variety of courses, including Instrumental Analysis, Analytical Chemistry, Chemistry and the World in Which We Live, and many others. Paul holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Pepperdine University and Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Arizona.

Jordan Biro Walters, associate professor of history at The College of Wooster

Jordan Walters

Jordan Biro Walters, associate professor of history at The College of Wooster, received her Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico in 2015. Her research focuses on racial and heteronormative underpinnings of American citizenship, the relationship between mobility and queer identity formation, and the intersections of artistic and sexual freedom. Walters published her book, Wide-Open Desert; a Queer History of New Mexico, in 2023 and has authored several articles featured in historical review publications, such as Pacific Historical Review and New Mexico Historical Review. She served as the director for the Wooster Digital History Project from 2017 to 2019, co-directing in 2022, and is still involved as a public historian, working in conjunction with the College’s Special Collections, the Wayne County Historical Society, and the Wayne County Public Library to document a comprehensive and representative account of Wooster’s history. Walters is also a board member of the Wayne County Historical Society. Outside of her work at Wooster, Walters acts as an oral historian of the Bennet Hammer LGBT Collection at the Center for Southwest Research in the University of New Mexico, an exhibit featuring testimonies of LGBT community members and activists from New Mexico during a period of significant development of LGBT issues and policies. She has taught a variety of courses during her time at Wooster, including but not limited to The Craft of Public History, Civil War: Gender & Commemoration, A History of Native America, and LGBTQ+ History of the Twentieth Century United States.