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Niles business group gives Kubli Jr. community service award
HOWLAND
Fred Kubli Jr. of Howland, long-time community leader, received the Niles Area Business Council’s William Clayman Community Pride Award.
“I am honored to receive the award,” said Kubli, 93, former Niles resident, who said he worked with Clayman on several Niles Chamber of Commerce projects.
The Clayman Award, named for the long-time owner of Niles Iron and Metal, recognizes business ethics, professionalism, character, integrity and service above and beyond, community outreach, leadership, volunteerism, and commitment to the Niles area.
The award was presented to Kubli on Thursday by Rick Mattix, vice-chairman of the Niles Area Business Council Board and associate director for Shepherd of the Valley-Niles. The ceremony took place at the Chapel at Shepherd of the Valley – Howland, where Kubli and his wife, LaVerne, live. The couple has four children and eight grandchildren.
Mattix, in introducing Kubli, described him as an “incredible man whose arrival in the Niles area nearly 55 years ago resulted in our community gaining a friend, an advocate, dedicated volunteer and so much more.
Kubli came to Niles in 1960 to work at RMI Titanium as a metallurgist, was promoted several times, and retired in 1991 as manager of quality assurance and customer technical services.
In the 1980s, the company asked Kubli to join the Air Force Association because RMI made titanium for aircraft. That involvement led to Kubli being asked to join what was then known as the 910th Tactical Airlift Group to help organize a base community council, of which he is treasurer.
Because of his longtime service to the Youngstown Air Reserve Station, he was made a honorary colonel and commander of the 910th Airlift Wing in 2009, and this year was promoted to honorary brigadier general of the 910th Airlift Wing.
Kubli, born in 1919 in Turtle Creek, Pa., was drafted into the Army during World War II and was a Holocaust liberator. He was a member of the 139th Evacuation Hospital that went to France and Austria and treated Austrian-Jewish and Polish citizens in German concentration camps.
In Niles, Kubli was involved with The Friends of the McKinley Library, Shepherd of the Valley Board of Directors, Board of the Niles Community Improvement Corp. and Civil Service Commission, past chairman of the Trumbull Metropolitan Housing Authority and the Niles Historical Society Board of Trustees, and received the Silver Beaver Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He is a member of Living Lord Luthern Church in Howland.