: PERSONS OF THE YEAR PICKING THE PERSON: Bad Boys Overruled By Generosity

The concept was simple – there are so many people in Queens who are worthy of recognition on a regular basis, why not pick one, and name him or her as the person of the year?

In initial meetings to establish a Queens Tribune Person of the Year, we created some basic criteria for the honor. This person’s actions must have had an impact on a broad range of life in Queens, he or she must have been in the public eye, but not necessarily dominating our vision.

From there, the idea gets a bit hazier. We didn’t wish to confine ourselves to some predetermined rules that would eliminate anybody from our field of choices. We figured the person’s actions themselves would be enough to stand apart from the crowd.

And looking at 2006, we saw some dominating figures that clearly towered over the others, but many for the wrong reasons.

Brian McLaughlin was one; his decision to opt out of the 2006 Assembly race and open the ticket to a slew of candidates was how he began the year, but feds raiding his Central Labor Council office and later his indictment on federal racketeering charges helped further catapult him into the news stratosphere.

Alan Hevesi, the Queens career politician who spent the last few weeks of his State Comptroller re-election campaign ignoring the growing clamor over Chauffergate, and who later resigned, pleading guilty to a felony for failing to properly reimburse the state for a chauffer who drove his wife around for years.

But we didn’t feel like going negative this time around – not for the first Person of the Year award, at least.

Instead, we began to look at people who have made a positive influence on their communities, on Queens as a whole or simply for the greater good. We pondered soldiers, bank presidents, the Wilpon family, the New York Mets (let them win the World Series and we’ll consider it again) and a slew of other low-and high profile people.

And then we came across the low-profile personalities of the Kupferberg families.

Kepco, the electronics company founded by the Kupferberg brothers more than 60 years ago, helped define the word “electronics,” has grown in leaps and bounds, but has remained in Flushing the whole time, even receiving a Congressional honor in 1999 for their exporting.

Twin brothers Kenneth and Max were physicists in the first graduating class of Queens College who went on to work on the Manhattan Project, giving their knowledge to help defend their country. They shared their business sense in building a successful company, and they shared their lives – Kenneth Marrying Harriet and Max marrying Selma.

All these year later, they have not stopped giving.

In 2006, years after Kenneth’s death, Harriet, who has given her time to Queensborough Community College for more than 30 years – and especially to the victims, survivors and families of the Holocaust – decided to give financially to be sure that the Holocaust center would have a permanent and prominent home.

Also in 2006, Max and Selma decided to give back to their alma mater, Queens College, and help jumpstart a $100 million fund-raising campaign. Their gift to the college resulted in another honor – the Colden Center was renamed for them, though founder Charles Colden’s name is still carried inside the center’s theater.

The Kupferbergs’ legacies will be ones where people look past the enormous financial generosity and see the giving that started in their hearts at a young age. Their names will be left for generations to see, to hear and to learn – and what gift could possibly be more important than the gift of educating the future?

Congratulations to Selma, Max, Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg – the Queens Tribune Persons of the Year.