Machtley earns spot in Heritage Hall of Fame
WOONSOCKET — Former U.S. Congressman and now Bryant University President Ronald K. Machtley, pictured at right, may not be a native
Rhode Islander but he has done enough for the state to earn a berth in the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame.
Machtley, a retired Navy captain who unseated Woonsocket’s Congressman Fernand J. St. Germain in a stunning election upset in
1988, is among the nine honorees named for induction to the Hall of Fame on May 5 at the Inn at the
Crossings in Warwick.
Also named to the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2018 are Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr., Kenneth R. Dooley, former Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy, who served as Woonsocket’s First District Congressman for eight years after Machtley, Ronald R.S. Picerne, James P. Riley, Dr. Rudolph E. Tanzi, Spencer W. Viner, Esq., and WJAR TV’s longtime news anchor Patrice Wood.
Machtley was nominated for the Hall by Albert R. Beauparlant, a member of the Hall of Fame’s board of directors.
“He was always involved with the whole community so it is going to be an honor for me to induct him into the Hall
of Fame,” Beauparlant said of Machtley. Beauparlant, a city native and resident, said he got the idea to nominate Machtley after talking with Dr. Stanley Gurnick of Chicago, a noted taxation specialist who had attended Bryant University and knew of Machtley’s work there.
It was Machtley’s role in building Bryant into the university it is today that capped his inclusion into this year’s class of honorees, Beauparlant explained.
“He took Bryant from a college to the university that it is today and oversaw the physical build out of the university and the enhancement of its programs over the 30 years he has been president,” Beauparlant said.
Machtley also gained recognition for his three terms in Congress between 1988 and 1994, where he served as a member of the House Armed Services Committee and was the ranking Republican on the Small Business Committee’s Minority Enterprise, Finance, and Urban Development Subcommittee.
To Beauparlant, however, Machtley was a congressman who spent many hours walking the streets of his district and getting to know the residents he served.
“In the six years he was congressman, he really engaged the public,” Beauparlant said. “He was always seen walking the streets downtown and talking to people,” he said.
And Machtley has kept that interest in the people he served even as Bryant’s president, Beauparlant offered. When he visited him at the University about the Hall of Fame induction, Beauparlant said he was still talking about Woonsocket. “He said ‘Albert they have always been some of the nicest people I have met in my life,” Beauparlant related. “Even to this day, he holds a lot of respect for the people of the city,” Beauparlant said.
His talents for leading are well apparent in his work at Bryant and Beauparlant said the University’s growth and success is the highlight of Machtley’s resume.
“He is a great, energetic and spirited human being and you can see why Bryant College rose to the height of becoming a university after he became president,” Beauparlant said.
Machtley was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and first came to live in Rhode Island after receiving a bachelor of science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and entering active duty, some of it with the Navy in Newport.
After choosing Rhode Island as a his permanent home, Machtley earned his juris doctor degree from Suffolk University Law School in 1978 and then gained admission to the Rhode Island Bar. He ran against St. Germain as a moderate Republican after a decade of law practice in the state. While a U.S. Representative, he also helped cofound the first House Working Group on Mental Health, a focus that his successor, Patrick Kennedy, continued during his eight terms as the state’s First District Congressman.
Machtley left the House for a bid to serve as Rhode Island governor but was defeated in a primary by Lincoln Almond, who won the governorship.
Hall of Fame President Patrick Conley said that while the position of U.S. Congressman is an important achievement few of Rhode Island’s congressional representatives have been honored for just their legislative work.
“It takes a legislative career like that of John E. Fogarty, or an impressive supplemental career, like those conducted by Ron Machtley and his fellow inductee, Patrick Kennedy, to earn this recognition,” Conley said.
“For Ron that stellar career is his tenure as the hugely productive president of Bryant University from 1996 to present,” Conley said. “In that capacity, the strength of his leadership shines through,” Conley added.
Machtley’s Bryant career has included dramatic improvement in academic excellence, faculty up-grades, increased enrollment, campus expansion, athletic programs, and technological innovations which all raised the reputation and ranking of Bryant University, Conley said.
He has also serves on the boards of several corporations and many civic and charitable foundations including the presidency of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.
Machtley and his wife, the former Katherine Webb, are the parents of a son, Todd, and daughter, Erin.
Conley will be inducting Kennedy into the Hall of Fame during the 54th Annual Hall of Fame Dinner in Warwick.
Kennedy, elected to a state representative while still a student at Providence College, served three terms as member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives between 1988 and 1994. He went onto win his U.S. House of Representatives seat as the state’s First Congressional District representative in 1994, becoming the youngest member to ever be elected to Congress.
His eight terms included service as a champion for health care reform along with his father, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, and also served as the lead sponsor for the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush with bipartisan support.
The legislation, or the Federal Parity Law, requires insurance companies to cover illnesses of the brain, such as bipolar disorder or substance abuse disorders, no more restrictively than diseases of the body, such as cancer or heart disease.
After leaving Congress in 2011, Kennedy has remained an advocate on behalf of mental health and addiction treatment and for parity enforcement. He is the founder of The Kennedy Forum; co-founder of One Mind; and author of the New York Times bestseller “A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction.”
He was also named in 2017 to the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.
After his marriage in 2011 to Amy Savell, Patrick and Amy moved from their residence in Portsmouth to Amy’s home state of New Jersey where the couple reside with their young and growing family. They are the proud parents of Owen, Nora, and Nell, Conley said.
More information on this year’s inductees and tickets for the Hall of Fame dinner can found at www.riheritagehalloffame.com. Follow Joseph Nadeau on Twitter @JNad75