Greenwald Gains Peru State College Distinguished Service Award

If not for a phone call from the then President Neal Gomon, Jeff Greenwald might have never made an impact on Peru State College.

(Peru, NE) – Jeff Greenwald might have never made an impact on Peru State College if not for a phone call from the then President Neal Gomon.

Now the retired Lincoln businessman has been named recipient of the College’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award. He will be recognized during Peru State College Commencement on Saturday, May 4 at 10 a.m. in the Al Wheeler Activity Center.

Greenwald spent part of his childhood in Falls City, Neb. before his family moved to Lincoln. His mother attended Peru State, but he never visited the College. A family member knew Dr. Gomon personally and promoted the idea that he should be invited to attend PSC. Greenwald was coming off an unproductive freshman year at another university and had all but decided he was going to take some time off.

Within a day Dr. Gomon himself made a phone call to Jeff and invited him to the campus. As Greenwald tells the story, the next day he was in Peru getting registered just a couple of days before the fall semester in 1967. 

Even then there was a gap in the Greenwald-Peru State history. After graduating in 1971 Greenwald launched a successful career in the insurance industry. Jeff and his wife Judy and family eventually settled in Lincoln. Greenwald had little time for Peru State.

That changed in 2018 when he retired as Chairman from INSPRO, a leading independent insurance agency, and risk management firm with over 150 employees in six locations in Nebraska and Iowa. Greenwald was introduced by mutual friends to then-PSC President Dan Hanson.

He was nominated for and became one of the first recipients of, Peru State’s Thousand Oaks Alumni Achievement Award for his professional achievements. Jeff was also a frequent guest lecturer in business classes at the College.

Greenwald was invited in 2019 to join the board of the PSC Foundation, a private non-profit corporation whose mission is to support the College. Since 2021 Jeff has served as Foundation Chair.

The Greenwald’s have established an endowed scholarship for students seeking a business degree. They have also made significant gifts to Project ROAR and the Natalie Hahn African Art Collection. 

Peru State is far from Greenwald’s only community service activity. He has served on Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development, is a past member of the UNL President’s Advisory Council, is a past member of the Board of Columbia Mutual Insurance Company, and currently serves as a Board Member of Edgewater Insurance LLC. Jeff and Judy are members of First Plymouth Church in Lincoln.

Nestled in the hills of historic southeast Nebraska, Peru State College offers a mix of innovative online and traditional classroom undergraduate and graduate programs, including online graduate degrees in education and organizational management.

Established in 1867 as Nebraska’s first college, Peru State has transformed over the past century and a half into a state-of-the-art institution offering diverse, multifaceted educational programs annually to nearly 2,000 students.