Richard Thibadeau of West Hartford awarded Saint Michael's College Verret Award for Distinguished Service

COLCHESTER, VT (06/20/2011)(readMedia)-- On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his graduation from Saint Michael's College, West Hartford resident Richard Thibadeau was awarded the 2011 Rev. John Verret '35 Award for Distinguished Service.

Mr. Thibadeau was cited for founding MATH: Medical Aid to Haiti, an organization that sponsors medical missions to Haiti with a Haitian-staffed mobile medical clinic that operates in and around Port-au-Prince.

After college Mr. Thibadeau founded AW Direct, an organization that supplies emergency roadside equipment to companies like AAA. After building the company from the ground up for over 20 years, he sold it in 2005, and has since turned his focus towards helping people less fortunate.

In 2007, he traveled with nine other Saint Michael's alumni to New Orleans to help rebuild homes in communities ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. That same year he made his first trip to Haiti on a medical mission. Moved by what he witnessed during that trip, he founded MATH, even before the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010.

MATH and its mobile clinic travel three days each week to the same medically-underserved areas, providing continuing care. In response to the earthquake, MATH sponsored five medical missions to Haiti last year to work hand-in-hand with the Haitian mobile clinic staff. As chairman, Mr. Thibadeau hopes to expand the operation of the clinics to five days each week and to have the funds needed to ensure its continued operation.

Rick and his wife Eileen Thibadeau, a 1980 graduate of Saint Michael's, have two daughters, Caroline and Margaret, and live in West Hartford, CT.

"For Rick's tireless efforts to improve the lives of underserved Haitians, and for his work to rebuild homes in New Orleans, and all of the ways he continues to help those less fortunate, the Saint Michael's College Alumni Association is proud to name him a 2011 Rev. John Verret '35 Award recipient," said Angela Armour, Saint Michael's Director of Alumni and Parent Relations.

Learn What Matters at Saint Michael's College, The Edmundite Catholic liberal arts college, www.smcvt.edu. Saint Michael's provides education with a social conscience, producing graduates with the intellectual tools to lead successful, purposeful lives that will contribute to peace and justice in our world. Founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, Saint Michael's College is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns. Identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nations Best 373 Colleges, and included in the 2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges, Saint Michael's has 1,900 undergraduate students and 500 graduate students. Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation's top-100, Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2011 U.S. News & World Report rankings.