N N IAL CEL O - Youngstown State University

Accomplished alumni
A Vice President and a
Philanthropist
Karen DelSignore, ’90
Karen DelSignore
was not pressured to go
to college by her parents
after she graduated from
Hubbard High School in
the mid-1980s.
Regardless, Del-
Signore, a first-generation
college graduate, had
no doubt she was going
to continue her education
at YSU.
“My education
helped me do well in my
career,” said DelSignore,
who graduated magna
cum laude in 1990 with a bachelor of arts degree in organizational
communication and a business minor.
DelSignore of Poland was hired by Alltel right out of
college as the company’s first telemarketer. Now the vice
president of business solutions, she is one of only six vice
presidents of business solutions in the company. Alltel employs
15,000 people nationwide, including 1,300 in Ohio and
many of them YSU graduates. DelSignore supervises 130
people, with 11 directly reporting to her.
Throughout her career, Alltel has had five owners.
“Though Alltel has experienced five name changes since I’ve
been here, I was able to persevere and grow,” she said. “To
me, that’s a major accomplishment, which I attribute to the
work ethic I developed while I was at the university.”
While at YSU, she worked part-time at a grocery store.
In addition, she served as the vice president of the Golden
Key Honor Society and was part of Phi Eta Sigma, an academic
organization.
DelSignore said she especially appreciated the personal
relationships she developed with several of her professors.
In her major, she said that Daniel O’Neill, professor in
the Department of Communications, and the late James P.
LaLumia, a professor of communication studies, stood out.
“Though they had different teaching styles – Dr. O’Neill
was laid back, but very effective, and Dr. LaLumia was more
structured in his approach – both always made time for me
out of the classroom,” she said.
Because DelSignore said YSU gave her so much, she
believes it’s important to give back. A long-time donor to
YSU’s Annual Fund campaign, she conceived of the idea for
Phon-A-Thon workers to use Alltel mobile phones to make
their calls. “The university goes beyond educating students
and does a lot of good in the community.”
A Launch Pad to A Better Life
Carl Alexoff, ’50
Though Carl Alexoff, a 1950 graduate with a bachelor’s
degree in electrical engineering, retired from a successful career
in 1989, his services are still sought by several different
companies to serve as a consultant on a variety of projects.
From 1960 to 1970, Alexoff of Haddenfield, N.J., was a
project manager for occupied and unoccupied space exploration
systems and equipment supplied by RCA to NASA and
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of Cal-Tech in RCA’s Aerospace
Project Management Office in Camden, N.J.
In the 10 years he was at NASA, he worked on the Project
Ranger, an unoccupied lunar probe that mapped possible
moon landing sites for the Apollo program, and the Apollo
Extra Vehicular Communication System.
“I have always felt my degree was my launch pad to a
better life. Coming to Youngstown College represents the best
investment I have ever made, and the return has been incalculable,”
said Alexoff, who returned to YSU in 2006 for a visit.
Alexoff was also instrumental in designing scratch off
lottery tickets in the early 1980s and starting the Pennsylvania
Lottery and other state lotteries – including Ohio’s in 1974
– throughout the 1970s. This was while he worked at System
Operations Inc., a gaming subsidiary of Mathematica, a policy
research and management consulting firm in Princeton, N.J.
Alexoff merged Mathematica with Webcraft, an in-line
forms printer in North Brunswick, N.J., and founded Webcraft
Games Inc., becoming its president. The company printed
the scratch-offs with a process that was an industry first and
remains the industry standard.
While he was at the firm, the New Jersey State Lottery
Planning Commission selected Mathematica to conduct studies
regarding the lottery, which led to the establishment of the
first legal state public lottery in the United States in 1970.
The Campbell native became president of SOI, which
was the principle consultant in the ’70s to state governments
wanting to legalize state
lotteries.
He credits his
achievements to YoCo,
where, in 1946, his was
the first class to enroll
for the full engineering
course load.
Alexoff also said he
deeply respected Louis
A. Deez, the dean of
engineering from 1942
to 1950.
She’s The Real Deal
Iris Crespo, ’83
Iris Crespo has lived
in Youngstown since
she was eight-years old.
Though her Puerto Rican
parents had minimal education,
it was their dream
that she, her two brothers
and four sisters would all
graduate from college.
In Crespo’s case, the
dream came true – she
graduated from YSU with
a bachelor of science
degree in education with
an emphasis on special
education in 1983 and
has been a teacher in the
Youngstown City School District for nearly 24 years.
Crespo said she is proud of her alma mater and its
reputation. “Sometimes people don’t appreciate what they
have in their own backyard,” she said. “I felt blessed to have
gone to YSU.”
While she was in school, the YSU Foundation helped
cover some of her educational costs, and she also worked at
a local creamery. In addition, she worked in YSU’s minority
student office where she stayed until she graduated.
Crespo said Professor Ivania del Pozo especially inspired
her. del Pozo, who is still in the Department of Foreign Languages
and Literatures, was the advisor of the Spanish Club
when Crespo was a student.
“She was very involved in the Hispanic community.
It was nice to see a Latino woman achieving that level
of success.”
Jobless after graduation, Crespo went to Hawaii to help
with her brother’s new family. But a week before the new
school year, she was hired as a special education teacher at
St. Patrick’s School on Youngstown’s South Side.
“Because of YSU, I was able to get a job and stay in
Youngstown. It’s once you get into the field, you find out the
real deal,” she said.
After a few years at St. Patrick’s, she returned to YSU to
graduate in 1989 with a master’s in special education.
Crespo then worked at Martin Luther King Oak Huntington
School for 19 years until it closed, and then moved
on to Harding elementary, where she works now.
She still lives with her parents and is very connected to
her family.
“If I didn’t go to YSU, I don’t know what I’d be doing,”
she said. “I know I wouldn’t have been a teacher. The university
helped me become more professional and proficient in
my field and provided me with a good foundation.”
The Doctor with A Heart
Christine Zirafi, ’80
Alumni News
Dr. Christine Zirafi’s life has been distinguished by a
lot of “firsts.”
A first-generation college graduate, Zirafi received a
bachelor of science degree in 1980 from YSU.
A few years later, she graduated with the second class
of the Northeast Ohio Universities College of Medicine, and
became a doctor. Zirafi, now an interventional cardiologist,
was the first to establish high-risk cardiac catheterization
laboratories and an open heart program at Parma Community
Hospital.
Another major first was using a high-speed multi-detector
ct scan that allows doctors to examine the heart without a
catheterization. Zirafi of Rocky River, Ohio, said she’s been
working with it for about a year and a half. Her Cleveland
practice was the first one with the machine.
Zirafi’s “thirds” aren’t so bad either – she was the third
female heart surgeon in the world to perform a cardiology
procedure in 1992 at Cleveland’s Southwest General Hospital.
“Cardiology is still very much a male-dominated field,” said
the Girard native.
Zirafi said she attributes these accomplishments, and
many others, directly to YSU. “I received such a good education
and was so well prepared. While I was at YSU, I was able
to work part time as a phlebotomist, which gave me practical
exposure.”
Zirafi said she also appreciated being taught by professors
at YSU instead of teaching assistants. Janet DelBene, a
professor emeritus of chemistry, was especially inspiring to
her. “Dr. DelBene was very supportive. All the professors I
had at YSU were always available to help.”
However, though she wanted to be a doctor since she
was four-years old, Zirafi didn’t start out at YSU as a medical
student.
She had four years of a five-year chemical engineering
degree completed when she got accepted into NEOUCOM.
Because it was important to her to have her degree from YSU,
she wrote a letter to then
Arts and Sciences Dean
Bernard J. Yozwiak and
explained her situation.
He waived a foreign
language requirement,
enabling her to graduate
from YSU.
Then, she accepted a
seven-year residency and
fellowship at the University
of Texas.
Currently, she is the
medical director of the
largest cardiology practice
in Cleveland.
46 Youngstown State University Summer 2007 47