Jeannine Schoenecker, president and chief operating officer of American Refining Group Inc., was unanimously elected chair of the Advisory Board at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, the first woman to be elected to that leadership role.
Schoenecker replaces Craig Hartburg, who completed his term of service as chair after 12 years.
“I have no doubt Ms. Schoenecker will be successful in her new leadership role,” said Dr. Livingston Alexander, Pitt-Bradford president. “She follows a long line of distinguished leaders.”
Schoenecker has been a member of Pitt-Bradford’s Advisory Board since 2012 and its Executive Committee since 2013. For two years, she served as chair of the board’s community, corporate and government outreach committee and was a member of the governance committee.
“I firmly believe in the mission of Pitt-Bradford,” Schoenecker said, “and I look forward to working with everyone on the Advisory Board and the other members of the campus community.”
Schoenecker joined ARG in 1985, shortly after graduating from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in economics and accounting. Schoenecker, also a certified public accountant, served as controller until 1991 at which time she was named vice president of accounting. In was in that post that she was involved in ARG’s purchase of the Bradford refinery in 1997.
She was promoted to chief financial officer in 2008 and three years later was named president and chief operating officer. At that time, she and her husband, Brett, relocated to Bradford.
In addition to planning and directing all aspects of ARG’s operational policies, objectives and initiatives in order to ensure the company’s growth, Schoenecker lends her time to myriad community endeavors.
She is a member of the Upper Allegheny Health System board of directors and its audit/compliance and human resource committees. She also serves as vice president of and development chairperson for the Bradford Creative and Performing Arts Center board of directors, is a member of the Bradford Hospital Foundation board of directors and was a founding steering member for the recently established McKean County Community Foundation.
Schoenecker is also ARG’s representative to the Bradford Area Alliance and the Neighborhood Partnership Project. She is actively involved in the Bradford YMCA’s annual campaign and had served as a co-chairperson for the United Way of the Bradford Area’s annual campaign.
She has been recognized for her work in the community. She received the Bradford YMCA’s George G. Blaisdell Community Service Award in 2016 and the Bradford Area Chamber of Commerce Director’s Award in 2014. She also was recognized as an extraordinary woman in the community during the YWCA of Bradford Leader Luncheon in 2013.
