Chester County Chamber recognizes 2 with awards
Developer Robert Hankin and educator Lawrence J. Mussoline took home honors for their contributions
Two longtime leaders in their fields in the Downingtown area were honored with top awards from the Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry.
Developer Robert Hankin, president and CEO of the Hankin Group, and Lawrence J. Mussoline, who served as superintendent of the Downingtown Area School District for eight years, received their recognitions Thursday night in front of around 500 county business supporters at the chamber’s annual dinner at Longwood Gardens.
“There were so many people here I haven’t seen in so many years. I’m just so appreciative of the Chester County business community,” Hankin, the chamber’s Executive of the Year, said following the awards ceremony. “It means a lot.”
Mussoline, who retired from the school district after the last school year, said he accepted the Citizen of the Year award on behalf of others.
“I am not the citizen of the year — all of the administrators and teachers of the Downingtown Area School District are. I accept this only on their behalf,” said Mussoline, who spent 36 years in education, including 19 as a superintendent.
For Hankin, the road to Tuesday night’s podium started in 1987 when his father, Bernard, brought him to what at the time were empty fields in Uwchlan.
Over the next three de- cades The Hankin Group turned the land into Eagleview, an 800-acre mixeduse community in the Exton area near the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s Downingtown interchange.
Eagleview is recognized nationwide as a leading example of New Urbanism, a movement that promotes sustainable and walkable towns containing a wide variety of housing and job types, the chamber noted.
Hankin said the company has tried to “create a sense of place” with its developments, incorporating town squares as well as nature areas in them.
“The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts,” he said of his development goals.
In addition to Eagleview, the Hankin Group has redeveloped the Phoenixville Foundry, is working on the Downingtown Train Station site, is developing the Keva Flats apartments in Exton, is building a new