The A+ Foundation for West Aurora Schools will honor the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Honor recipients on April 25 and 26. This year’s inductees, Dr. Paul Eccher (Class of 1981) and Col. Richard Taylor (Class of 1996), will be formally recognized during the celebration.
The recipients are scheduled to spend Friday, April 25, reconnecting with their alma mater, West Aurora High School. The day’s activities will encompass a meet and greet breakfast, interactive sessions with students, a culinary class-prepared lunch, and a formal plaque presentation in the designated Hall of Honor corridor. Saturday, April 26, at 5:30 p.m., the public is welcome to attend a banquet at the Aurora Country Club, where the honorees will be celebrated alongside their families and friends. Dinner tickets are $85 per person. For further details about the banquet or to secure tickets online, please follow the button below or contact Randi Ochsenschlager at 630-897-6785.
In addition, to coincide with Distinguished Alumni Hall of Honor weekend Friday, April 25, all West Aurora alumni are invited to join the All Alumni Reunion hosted by the A+ Foundation Alumni Committee. The event will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Pine Room in Open Range Restaurant in Sugar Grove. This casual gathering is designed to bring West Aurora High School alumni together in celebration of the Hall of Honor weekend, with light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar available for all.
Dr. Paul Eccher, Class of 1981, is considered a thought leader in his field. His research and work with international companies and their top executives have allowed him to become an expert in talent growth and leadership development. Paul is founder and CEO of Vaya Group, a leadership assessment and development company that specializes in executive assessment and coaching as well as the accelerated development of emerging leaders. Vaya Group has been honored multiple times on the Inc. Magazine fastest growing company list. He is also an author, a founding member of Benedictine University’s Center for Values- Driven Leadership, and developer of an award-winning online coaching tool to help employees form skills needed to be the best they can be. Paul has more than 30 years of experience partnering with Fortune 500 clients to leverage talent to achieve improved business results. Through his innovative work at Vaya, Paul has been able to quantify his work by successfully building models that identify the drivers of performance. Paul’s greatest passion is coaching and developing CEOs to improve leadership capabilities and performance. He and his team are also actively engaged in many organizations that help communities locally, nationally, and internationally. One such organization is Dress for Success. Paul and his team are conducting leadership workshops and organizing clothing drives to support women in need as they prepare to enter the workforce. He has also provided critical support to Options for All, a California-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering individuals with intellectual disabilities, as well as supporting the Aurora Interfaith Food Pantry. He and his team mentor diverse graduate students as they embark on their careers in Industrial Psychology. Paul is a dedicated advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in leadership development. He is truly an advocate for others and a stellar contributor in his field.
Colonel Richard “Ricky” Taylor Class of 1996 is a highly decorated Army Ranger and Master Parachutist in the United States Army. Colonel Taylor served in the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, known as the Panther Brigade and whose motto is “H-Minus”, stands ready to jump, fight and win anywhere in the world within 18 hours. It is recognized as one of the Division’s rapid response forces for Joint forcible entry operations. This is the command position that required his early graduation from The U S Army War College. Colonel Taylor’s career has been built on his expertise as a team leader who also illustrates a humanistic style of leadership, where caring for those who he is responsible for leading is at the center of his daily duties. Colonel Taylor has been deployed many times throughout his career and, most notably, has received four Bronze Star medals for his leadership while deployed in both Iraq and Afghanistan, commanding direct action raids with missions of killing or capturing high value military personnel. He has received the Legion of Merit (a military decoration awarded to members of the US Armed Forces for exceptional conduct and outstanding service) as the Commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, which was deployed to Poland as a show of strength and support for Ukraine. In his ranking as a Colonel, he demonstrates his leadership abilities every day with the soldiers he commands. When his nominator asked him about the best part of his military career, he said, “My greatest rewards have come from seeing those who have been under my command achieve great success in their military career and be great individuals in their personal lives.” Due to his current active military duty, some of his more recent accomplishments are classified, but Colonel Taylor continues to impress with his commitment to leadership and service.
— A+ Foundation for West Aurora Schools