First Posted: 6/5/2013
Atty. Joseph D. Burke, president of the Greater Pittston Chamber of Commerce, announced Michael A. Lombardo, vice chairman of Pittston City’s Redevelopment Authority, and Judith Aita, president of West Pittston Tomorrow, will serve as the guest speakers at the Mid-Year Breakfast Meeting of the Greater Pittston Chamber of Commerce.
Attorney Michael I. Butera will serve as general chairman.
The breakfast will be held on Friday, June 14, at the Gramercy Ballroom & Restaurant, 155 S. Main St., Pittston, which was also named recipient of the 2013 Outstanding Business of the Year Award.
Lombardo is the Director of Business Development for Quad 3 Architectural Engineering Environmental Services in Wilkes-Barre. He currently serves on the Redevelopment Authority Board in the City of Pittston, Pittston City Tomato Festival Association Board and Leadership Wilkes-Barre Board.
He is the recipient of the following awards: Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce Community Partnership Award, 2002; Pennsylvania Library Association Elected Official Award, 2000; Greater Pittston Person of the Year, 2000.
A graduate of the Pittston Area School District, Lombardo has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Education from Bucknell University. He resides in Pittston with his wife, Susan, and their daughters, Catherine and Kristen.
Aita has been president of West Pittston Tomorrow since its incorporation as a non-profit organization in January. She previously served as chairman of the steering committee which worked with FEMA’s long-term recovery team and hundreds of West Pittston residents to formulate a plan to help the 150-year old borough recover from the devastating flood of September 2011.
She was born and raised in West Pittston and is a graduate of West Pittston High School. She holds degrees from Penn State and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The owner of Company’s Coming invitations in West Pittston, Aita is also a journalist specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international relations.
Her journalism career began in Tokyo, Japan, where she was a copy editor for Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper and Japan External Trade Organization publications.
Returning from abroad and receiving a Master’s degree in journalism, she worked for the next 27 years reporting from Washington, New York City and the United Nations for the “Washington File,” a publication of the U.S. Information Agency and, in later years, of the State Department.
Her assignments took her to Nairobi and Beijing to cover the International Women’s Conference and to Vienna for the final negotiations of the International Illicit Drug Trafficking Convention.
She won the State Department’s highest award for her six-month series of articles and features written during the 2001 federal trial in New York City of the al-Qaeda terrorists who bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
For more than 20 years, she was an officer of the Dag Hammarskjold Scholarship Fund for Journalists, helping to bring over 80 young working journalists from developing countries to cover the beginning of the General Assembly for two to three months each year.
Aita is currently a vice president of the Luzerne County Community College Foundation and a member of the LCCC Schulman Art Gallery Committee.
Butera has been practicing law at the same address on South Main Street in Pittston for 35 years. He is a 1969 graduate of Wyoming Area High School, a 1973 graduate of the University of Scranton and a 1976 graduate of Temple University School of Law.
He is a member of the Wilkes-Barre Law and Library Association, the Northeast Pennsylvania Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Northeast Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association and the Pennsylvania Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.
He is admitted to the practice of law in all state and federal Courts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as well as the United States Supreme Court. He is currently a member of the board of trustees of the Greater Pittston YMCA and has been a member of the Greater Pittston Chamber of Commerce for over 30 years as well as serving on the Chamber’s Board of Directors.
He is a lifelong resident of the Greater Pittston area.
He is married to the former Mary Rohland and is the father of four children, Attorney Laura M. Butera Campbell, Justine C. Butera, Michael S. Butera and Peter J. Butera, along with three grandsons, Christopher Ryan Campbell, Colin James Campbell and Leonardo Campbell.
Invitations have been mailed to all members and friends of the Chamber and the breakfast is open to the public.
Reservations can be made with any Chamber member or by contacting the Chamber office at 655-1424 or info@pittstonchamber.org.