Awards
Distinguished Grotonians
Since 1977, Groton School has presented the Distinguished Grotonian Award, which recognizes graduates whose lives of highly distinguished service reflect the essential values of the School.
This year’s Distinguished Grotonian is a member of the Form of 1980, Nicole Piasecki. Nicole is a graduate of Yale University, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Keio Business School in Japan.
Nicole, as she puts it, was “practically groomed from birth to work in aviation.” Her father Frank invented the twin-rotor helicopter that evolved into the U.S. Army’s heavy-lift Chinook. His company, Piasecki Helicopter, eventually became Boeing’s rotorcraft plant in Philadelphia.
One of the most prominent female executives in Boeing’s history, Nicole began her career at the company in 1992 as an engineer on the 777 program. Over the years, she rose through a series of key executive roles, including senior vice president of business development and strategic integration, and vice president of business strategy and marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. In 2006, she became president of Boeing Japan.
Returning to the U.S. in 2010, Nicole served as vice president of business development and strategy, where she helped define the next generation of Boeing aircraft. In 2013, she took over the Propulsion Systems Division within Boeing’s commercial aircraft business, leading it until her retirement in 2017 after a distinguished 25-year career.
Nicole’s past affiliations further showcase her expertise and influence. She has served on the Federal Aviation Administration’s Management Advisory Board, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Future of Aviation Advisory Committee, the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Seattle branch. She is also a former director of Howmet Aerospace Inc.
Cui Servire Award
The Cui Servire Award is given annually to outstanding younger alumni who, through their exceptional contribution to the School or the world, have truly lived up to the School's motto. The motto, Cui Servire Est Regnare, is alternately translated as "To Serve Is to Rule" or "For Whom Service Is Perfect Freedom.” In the motto's original context, service refers to a person's service to God. But the motto has been accepted more broadly to connote service to the community and the world, and it inspires many Grotonians to make community service integral to their lives.
This year’s Cui Servire Est Regnare Award honoree is David Cheever, a member of the Form of 2005 and an emergency medicine physician who works primarily with underserved and indigent populations in the American Southwest.
David is a graduate of George Washington University and Georgetown Medical School. He completed his residency at the University of Washington, and shortly thereafter became an attending physician at the Gallup Indian Medical Center in New Mexico, which serves the Navajo Nation’s 175,000 residents and the Gallup community. The hospital is a vital health-care resource for the region, staffed by 72 physicians, equipped with 68 inpatient beds and a six-bed Intensive Care Unit, handling approximately 250,000 ambulatory visits annually.
During the COVID-19 outbreak, David was thrust into a leadership role of expanding the center’s ICU, moving treatment areas outdoors, and tackling COVID-19 in one of the hardest-hit areas.
Native Americans are a high-risk group for COVID-19, and American Indian communities made up 40 percent of all COVID-19 cases in New Mexico. Thanks to efforts like David’s, treatment for the region’s Indian nations was proactive and mobilized as soon as the first cases appeared.
