About the Program:
On the last day of Akron's 199th year, historian Dave Lieberth looks back at the legacies that have provided the foundation for the city's growth. The author of "Imagine.Akron:2025," Dave last appeared before the Roundtable in 2000 to deliver the report of more than 400 volunteers who assembled over 12 months to define what the community would need to sustain its prosperity for the next 25 years. Dave delivers a report card on how accurate the Imagine.Akron:2025 forecast was, and offers a historian's view of what the future holds for Greater Akron.
Dave Lieberth is president of the city's new downtown museum, The Akron History Center, and serves as Executive Secretary of the Akron Bicentennial Commission.
About our Presenter:
Dave Lieberth is the Executive Secretary of the Akron Bicentennial Commission and the president of the Akron History Center, Inc. that will open in 2024 to become the city’s first enduring exhibit of the 200-year history of Akron.
He is chairman emeritus of the Summit County Historical Society and has been a member for 58 years.
From 1970 to 1999, he was a broadcast journalist, a lawyer, and an ardent civic activist. From 2002 to 2012, he was Deputy Mayor of Akron.
Dave was the founding president of the National Inventors Hall of Fame (1987.) He chaired Akron’s successful efforts to be named an “All-America City” by the National Civic League. (1995, 2008). In August 2000 he delivered the report of “Imagine.Akron:2025” to the Akron Roundtable after chairing a year-long visioning project for the City of Akron.
He is a charter member of the LeBron James Family Foundation Community Advisory Board. He became a member of the board of Summa Health in 1999 and presently chairs its Community Engagement Committee. He is the lone surviving member of the steering committee that founded the Leadership Akron program in 1983 and has presented to all 40 classes of its signature program.
In 2019, the Akron Community Foundation selected him as the recipient of the annual Bert M. Polsky Humanitarian Award for volunteering thousands of hours and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Akron civic, cultural, and charitable organizations.