John and Mimi Pezzuto honored with endowed scholarship fund in their name
Hany Guirguis and Adele Etinas established the fund for student pharmacists in recognition of the Pezzuto’s significant contributions to the successful growth of the UH Hilo pharmacy college.
Hany Guirguis and Adele Etinas, longtime supporters of the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo’s pharmacy college, have established the John M. and Mimi F. Pezzuto Excellence Scholarship Fund. John Pezzuto is former dean of the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy, and his wife, Mimi Pezzuto, is a licensed pharmacist and a former instructor at the college.
“There is a couple behind the creation of this college and we need to recognize them forever,” says Guirguis, whose company has donated $80,000 to the college over the last four years and supplemented it with an additional $20,000 this year.
Guirguis and Etinas were co-owners of Mina Pharmacy, an independent pharmacy that included 11 locations throughout Hawaiʻi before being purchased by CVS Pharmacy earlier this year. Since the sale, the pair has set up a new corporation, Mina Compounding Pharmacy, which specializes in preparing a pharmaceutical product to fit the need of a particular patient.
Carolyn Ma, interim dean of the college, says alumni “know the face if not the heart of what was Mina Pharmacy” through student experiential training or from the graduation luncheons Dr. and Mrs. Guirguis attended each year.
“We are very grateful to Hany Guirguis and Adel Etinas for demonstrating an essential part of our students’ education, which is not only how to lead while in professional school but how to remain leaders in the community all their lives,” says Ma.
John and Mimi Pezzuto
As founding dean of UH Hilo’s pharmacy college, John Pezzuto assembled a staff of faculty who built the school into what is now a contender for one of the top-25 ranked colleges in the U.S. His scientific research has identified the cancer-preventive component of grapes and grape products known as resveratrol.
Mimi Pezzuto specializes in pharmaceutical history, managed care and the art of compounding. As the former curator of the college’s historical collection, she amassed decades of Hawaiian health information that will serve as data for many future student pharmacists.
The Pezzutos resigned from UH Hilo in Aug. 2015.
