Randy Charles ’87 and Wendy Wimmer ’97 to Receive the Distinguished Alumni Awards
UW-Green Bay will recognize four outstanding alumni and two honorary alumni at the 2025 Alumni Awards Reception & Dinner on Thursday, March 27, 2025 in the Phoenix Room in University Union. The event will begin with a reception at 5 p.m. Dinner will be served at 6 p.m. with the program to follow. The event is open to the public.
Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients being honored at the event are Randy Charles ’87 and Wendy Wimmer ’97. Outstanding Recent Alumni Recipients are April Garza-Leon ’14 and Jose L. Villa ’16 an Honorary Alumni Recipients: Kathy and Larry Treankler. Congratulations to all!
Tickets are $30 per person and can be purchased at UW-Green Bay Alumni Awards Dinner. Registration closes on March 13, 2025.
Randy Charles ’87 (Business Administration) for Distinguished Alumni Award
Randy co-founded Port City Bakery, which is best known by its trade name AK Pizza Crust, in 1989. Randy became president of the company in 1991 and CEO in 2011. A&K makes custom pizza crust for pizza assemblers, restaurant chains, and foodservice distributors throughout North America. In 2021, Port City acquired the assets of Pep’s Pizza Co., formerly known as Hansen Foods, Inc. Pep’s is a pizza manufacturing company based in Green Bay, WI and owns several pizza brands, including Pep’s Drafthouse, Legit, and Luigi”s. Port City operates four production facilities in Green Bay and one in Burnsville, MN and employs over 600 people.
Randy is from Green Bay and lives in the area with his wife Cheryl. He attended Preble High School and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in 1987 with a B.S. degree in Business Administration. Randy serves on the Advisory Boards of The Altrusa House, Boys & Girls Club of Greater Green Bay, Cofrin School of Business at UW-Green Bay, and the Greater Green Bay Chamber Economic Development.
Wendy Wimmer ’97 (English) for Distinguished Alumni Award
Wendy graduated from UW-Green Bay with a B.A. in English in 1997, a M.A. degree in English from UW-Milwaukee and a Ph.D. degree in English Language and Literature/Letters from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in 2020. Wendy is a technology journalist, a speaker, moderator, creative writer and adjunct instructor.
Wendy is an author and editor living in Wisconsin. Wendy runs two major technology publications as editor in chief, responsible for over a million dollars in annual revenue and millions of page views annually, with six editors reporting into her. Internally she was an honoree in the Informa Tech awards as a Bright Star, as well as named Editor of the Year in 2013. She has earned four ASBPE awards for editorial reporting at the national level. Wendy worked to this level after more than a decade in enterprise information technology, making a career leap toward her true love of writing in 2010, starting as a junior editor and working her way up for her second act. In addition, Wendy is an award-winning creative writer. Her debut short story collection ENTRY LEVEL: STORIES received the 2021 Autumn House Fiction Prize, positive reviews including one from Publisher’s Weekly, and a starred Kirkus review. The Washington Post called it one of the short story collections worth reading for fall 2022, and People Magazine called it “gleefully subversive” in its Best New Books feature. The book was also recently named to Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Short Fiction for 2022 as well as an honoree for the Society of Midland Authors 2023 Book Awards. Her novel THE DOOMSCROLLER’S COMPANION was a finalist for the AWP James McPherson 2024 Award and will be forthcoming from University of Wisconsin Press in fall 2026. By day, she works as a technology journalist and also is the president of the board of Green Bay’s The Art Garage.
