Tartan Athletics Club Adds Four to Board of Directors

(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) – As the Carnegie Mellon University Department of Athletics turns the page to the start of the 2018-19 season, the Tartans Athletics Club welcomes four members to its Board of Directors to provide continued leadership and insight. Joining the Board in 2018 are alumni Courtney Chin, Paul Hamerly, and Maria Russell, along with Stan Bikulege, the parent of two Tartan football players.

“Our Tartan Athletics Club Board of Directors has made a significant impact on the university and athletics department since its inception, and we continue to bring amazing and talented individuals on board,” said Director of Athletics Josh Centor. “The members of our Board lead busy lives, yet they continue to dedicate their time and efforts to helping Carnegie Mellon build one of the nation’s most competitive athletics programs.”

Bikulege, who has more than 30 years of experience in various manufacturing and service businesses, is currently the Chairman and CEO of NOVOLEX, a leading manufacturer of plastic and paper packaging products. He joined the company as CEO in 2008 when it had revenues of $500 million and built it into a premier packaging company with revenues of more than $3.5 billion, 10,000 families, and 62 global manufacturing sites.

Bikulege is the parent of Stanley, a 2018 mechanical engineering graduate who played football for the Tartans, and Luke, who is embarking on his sophomore year on the football team and in the Tepper School of Business.

Chin is a 2012 graduate with a bachelor’s degree in economics. She is currently an Associate in the Business Operations and Strategy group at Coinbase, Inc., a digital currency startup in San Francisco. Prior to joining Coinbase, Courtney worked in the Hedge Fund Strategies Group at Goldman Sachs in New York. She began her career as an Investment Banking Analyst at UBS in the Secondary Advisory Group.

Chin was a four-year women’s tennis player who helped the Tartans make four NCAA appearances, advancing to the quarterfinals three times. In her freshmen campaign, the women's tennis team won the inaugural ITA National Team Indoor Championship. Chin was a senior co-captain and three-time All-American. In 2011, Courtney reached the semifinals of the NCAA Doubles Championship with classmate Laura Chen.

Hamerly earned his Bachelor of Science degree in management science and math from Carnegie Mellon in 1977 while playing for the men's basketball team. Two years later he finished his MBA in Industrial Administration at Carnegie Mellon. During that time, Hamerly played professional basketball in Liege, Belgium, in 1977 and 1978. In 2014, Hamerly became a certified professional coach at The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.

Hamerly has enjoyed a corporate career in packaged goods as a branded marketer on seven businesses from entry level to the role of Vice President at companies such as Nestle, H.J. Heinz (including Weight Watchers), and Beecham Products. As an entrepreneur, Hamerly founded Kitchen Basics Inc. in the basement of his house in 1996, rolling it out to 16,000 supermarkets nationally before selling to McCormick in 2011. He also started Novus Energy in 2014, a company seeking to improve gasoline engine performance with reduced emissions. Its early success resulted in 22% efficiency gain.

Maria Casella Russell is an executive in the Advisory practice at Ernst & Young (EY), a global professional services consulting firm. At EY, Russell spends time leading teams to grow the business through sales best practices, and inspiring EY leaders to build and grow client relationships centered on trust. 

Russell was a four-year starter and two-year captain for the women’s soccer team, graduating from CMU in 1996 with a major in social and decision sciences and a minor in industrial management. After graduation, she accepted a position with Accenture (then Anderson Consulting) in Nashville, Tennessee, where her husband of 20 years, Vince Russell (CMU ’95), was living and working. Maria spent the first 14 years of her career at Accenture, working with $10B+ clients on IT and back-office transformations, living and traveling across the United States.

In addition to the four new members to the Board, the Tartan Athletics Club has also elevated women’s soccer alumna Christina Isaly Liceaga (BHA’95) to the role of president-elect. Former football and club baseball player Mark Weinsten (DC’85) will assume duties as Board president, while men’s basketball alum Evan Gelacek (DC’05) will become past-president.