The Nicholas G. Carter Volunteer Recognition Awards recognize the outstanding efforts of American Philatelic Society volunteers at the national and local level.
National Service
Michele M. Bresso, PhD
Dr. Michele M. Bresso has been collecting stamps since she was nine, thanks to a gift of stamps from her fourth grade teacher. A retired educator, she often used stamps in her public speaking and leadership communication classes as topic catalysts for students’ speaking and research assignments. She also made it a practice to provide stamps to any students interested in starting a collection of their own.
Bresso serves on the board of the American Topical Association and is co-coordinator of ATA’s My One-Page Exhibit Program since 2020. She has presented philatelic programs on many topics both in person and virtually. As Vice President of the Knoxville (Tennessee) Philatelic Society, she organizes and schedules monthly stamp programs for members.
Bresso is affiliated with several other philatelic organizations – such as Women Exhibitors, the American First Day Cover Society, and Graphics Philately Association – and enjoys engaging with philatelists from around the world. She has published articles in several philatelic journals including The American Philatelist and Topical Time.
Jason H. Manchester
Jason H. Manchester has been active for over 50 years in these organizations: Columbus (Ohio) Philatelic Club, APS, Germany Philatelic Society, Bund Deutscher Philatelisten e. V. (German equivalent of the APS) Poststempelgilde e. V. (German cancellation study group), Germany and Colonies Philatelic Society (UK). He is also a member of The Worthington (Ohio) Stamp Club and The Collectors Club, and was a member of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Zensurpost when it folded.
For the Columbus Philatelic Club (CPC), Manchester has held the following offices: treasurer, vice president, president, newsletter editor, archivist, and judging coordinator for COLOPEX. Jason is an APS emeritus literature judge and has presented many programs at meetings of the CPC and Worthington Stamp Club. For the GPS, Manchester has served as president, vice president, and member of the board of directors. He has also written many articles for The German Postal Specialist.
As the USA agent for the Germany and Colonies Philatelic Society, he collects individual dues payments from members in the USA and Canada; he then forwards the sum to the treasurer in the UK.
Lisa Foster
Lisa Foster, a Washington state native and lifelong/third generation stamp collector, is a 25-plus year member of the APS with additional philatelic memberships with the American Topical Association, American First Day Cover Society, and American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors. Herollecting interests are primarily U.S. and postal history with a focus on marcophily. She has exhibited on a variety of topics, including American Postal Machine Co. flag cancels, invalid postage use, The Great American Eclipse, George Washington, and the Salish Sea. Her mission is to “Preserve the hobby and Promote Stamp Collecting for All” through volunteering, exhibiting, judging and promotion of philatelic activities.
Foster is the current President of Women Exhibitors (WE) and has been a WE member since its inception in 2007. Lisa has served as president and journal editor of Gay and Lesbian History on Stamps since 2018.
In 2016, Foster received the Northwest Federation of Stamp Clubs Club Member Service Award as a member and exhibits chairperson of the Evergreen Stamp Club (ESC). She currently serves as the ESC's president. In 2017, she received the SEAPEX Distinguished Service Award in recognition of her service as secretary to the board of directors and exhibits chairperson during the probationary qualifying period and initial years as a national-level stamp exhibition and WSP show.
A member of the Northwest Federation of Stamp Clubs (NWFSC), Foster has been a Regional Philatelic judge since 2015, served on the committee to promote exhibiting and was awarded the Northwest Distinguished Philatelist Award for outstanding and distinguished service to philately in 2019. She entered the APS apprentice program to become a National Philatelic judge in 2019 and was accredited in 2022.
George Struble
George Struble has been collecting stamps for over eighty years; in the last few decades he has focused on Swiss airmail; his exhibits “Getting Swiss Airmail Off the Ground” and “SCADTA mail to and from Switzerland” have won several grand awards in WSP shows, and gold awards in China and Switzerland. He has been an APS member since 1976.
Struble started teaching computer science in1958 while a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, then taught at the University of Oregon and Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, retiring in 1997. He wrote a successful textbook that has enabled stamp acquisitions (but first, the royalties put his kids through college). He and his wife Elsa have been married for 68 years and have three children, only one of whom still has an active stamp collection.
Struble was a charter member of the American Helvetia Philatelic Society, and credits that membership for his concentration on Swiss philately. Over the years, he has been auction manager, webmaster, and for twenty years editor of its journal TELL.
Struble has written numerous articles for philatelic journals: American Philatelist, TELL, The Philatelic Exhibitor, Schweizer Briefmarken Zeitung, and other publications. Three of his exhibits have been published in book form by Exhibitors Press and are available through Amazon.
He has been a member of the Greater Eugene Stamp Society and the Salem Stamp Society, and is currently the webmaster of the Salem Stamp Society. Therefore he was in position to initiate the Willamette Valley Stamp Show, a regional two-day-two-city show; the exhibits are shown in Eugene on Saturday and again in Salem on Sunday, in connection with bourses in each city. He initiated that show to encourage members of both clubs to become exhibitors.
Struble has been exhibits chair for PIPEX, a WSP show in Portland, Oregon from 2014 to 2023. During that time, he became a leader in the development of virtual stamp shows, first because Covid left few options, then to explore the advantages of hybrid shows. At his suggestion, the 2022 PIPEX was a primarily physical hybrid show; the 2023 PIPEX was a primarily virtual hybrid show. Both were highly successful.
Leonard and Darlene Bloom
In 2016, a group of volunteers, including Leonard and Darlene Bloom, come to the headquarters to help relocate the library from its previous location to the new space. Former APS Education Director Cathy Brachbill says of the Blooms, “They came to help move the library and never left.” In February 2019, Leonard and Darlene took over stamp donation processing and sales in the Stamp and Cover Shop, a popular spot for visitors to the APC.
Leonard has been a collector most of his life. He is a self-described Army brat who first joined the APS in 1967 when he was living with his family at Kitzingen Army Airfield in West Germany. Like many young members, he let his membership lapse, but rejoined in 1982 and has been an active member ever since. A general collector with a focus on U.S. and German stamps, Leonard was a municipal law enforcement officer for much of his life, retiring not long ago after 25 years of service.
Darlene joined the APS in 2019, but that scarcely hints at her eclectic and enthusiastic love of stamps. Her chief passion has been topical collecting, looking for cartoon characters and Star Wars stamps that she’s shared with her children and grandchildren over the years. Darlene is starting to explore perfins now, and she just generally “keeps an eye out for things that are interesting.” Darlene retired from Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Resources, now the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
The greatest challenge the Blooms faced in their tenure at the APS was the first club to visit to the Stamp and Cover Shop. Leonard said it was bit overwhelming at first, but the visitors made it fun and it was like being with old friends before it was over. Today, their top priority is getting the generous donations from members back into the hands of collectors as quickly as possible. They’ve been very successful, hosting several club visits and sending away happy customers with new additions to their collections.
Over the years, Leonard and Darlene have become more than volunteers, they’ve become members of the APS family. They have worked tirelessly processing donations, greeting collectors, and connecting them with new items for their collection, pitching in anywhere they’re needed. As a result of their work, they have generated over $1 million in sale and use of donated postage for the APS.
Local Service
Lou DiFelice
Lou DiFelice of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, had been a member of the Philatelic Society of Lancaster County, since 2002. He quickly assumed the role of president in 2004 and has since 2011 has been the club’s longstanding treasurer and co-chair of the club’s annual Lancopex show.
As treasurer, DiFelice pays outside bills, reimburses officers for club expenses, prepares monthly and annual financial reports, submits tax payments to Pennsylvania, collects annual dues and pays quarterly storage fees for exhibit frames.
DiFelice is now solo chair for the show, as well as being treasurer and bourse manager, and is on site from set-up on Thursday through takedown Saturday evening. DiFelice handles contracts for 21 dealers and interfaces with the storage facility for the club’s frames, the owners of the show venue and is director of the club’s regular meeting venue. He procures postage and mailing labels from the APS and prepares advertising cards that he mails to potential Lancopex customers.
“Lou is one of the most highly respected member of our club, and is always there to help, always reliable, a friend to many,” said DiFelice’s nominating petition. “Both our stamp club and annual stamp show have been quite successful … and these achievements are due in large part to the leadership, vision, initiative and sweat equity from Lou DiFelice.”
James Graham
James Graham resides in Columbus, Ohio, and has been an avid stamp collector for more than 40 years. He is a retired professional photographer, past president of the Professional Photographers of Ohio, and past president of his hometown Irish club. Graham is also treasurer of the Worthington Stamp Club of Columbus and is a member of “Charity Newsies” (an organization that involves providing new clothing to school-age children).
Graham belongs to APS, the American First Day Cover Society, American Topical Association, American Philatelic Congress and Éire Philatelic Association.
Graham helped develop the logo for the Worthington Stamp Club, and worked with a company that provided clothing with the logo for our members. He has presented many programs on various philatelic topics for the members at our meeting, and edited the club newsletter at one time. Graham has presented a PowerPoint program every year at a stamp club dinner for those that are not collectors. He has been involved in helping set up the club’s annual stamp show and bourse, prepares mailers and does whatever needs to be done.
Graham has exhibited at his club’s annual show. He manages a program that provides a bonus for members who are involved with the club activities called “Stamp Bucks,” which can be exchanged with dealers at the club’s stamp show.
John M. Hamman
John Hamman lived in Central Illinois before eventually until moving to Florida. He attended the University of Illinois and earned bachelor’s degrees in civil engineering and economics. Hamman later obtained a masters in engineering administration from Bradley University. He worked for 31 years for a telecommunications company, mainly in engineering department.
Hamman has been a U.S. collector all his life. He began to branch out around 2010 and now collects worldwide to 1965 with an emphasis on English-speaking countries and Western Europe. He also collects several topics but especially baseball, pirates, Golden Gate Bridge, and sea turtles, as well as picture postcards. He is a member of numerous stamp organizations.
Hamman joined the Venice (Fla.) Stamp Club in 2002. He was elected president in 2013 and 2014, later was treasurer for total of six years, secretary for one year, and was on the board all but one year up to present. While president, Hamman wrote a monthly column for the club newsletter. During his presidency, membership increased about 15 percent to more than125. Hamman planned the 50-year anniversary celebration, including banquet, prepared a 50-year history of the club, designed a cachet cover and commemorative pictorial postmark, and prepared 200 covers each with three stamps to commemorate stamp collecting, Venice’s location on the beach, and being the winter home of the circus. The cancel also included a shark’s tooth to signify Venice being the “Sharks Tooth Capital of the World.”
With the help of the local postmaster, Hamman moved a nine-exhibit page wall display cabinet into the retail lobby of the post office, where people queue up for the distribution associate windows. He personally changes the exhibit monthly. He also arranges for a full day staffed exhibit, including “stamp evaluations” in the outer lobby to celebrate Stamp Collecting Month each year, from 2012 to 2019. Both generated new members for our club.
Hamman set up a five-hour Stamp Collecting 101 class, which attracted about 25 adults. He established a class for youth at a county day camp in the summer, which met weekly for six weeks, and also worked with the city librarian to have an annual “stamp day” as part of her Saturday youth class.
Hamman maintains the roster, distributes newsletters, and assists with the club’s two live auctions. He created packets of donated stamps that members can take home and search to buy for two stamps for a nickel.
For the Sarasota National Stamp Exhibition and Sarasota Philatelic Club, he has been on the show committee since 2012 where his main responsibilities are volunteers. For the last several years, Hamman has worked with contributing societies (10 in 2022) by assigning table space and scheduling various meetings.
At the American Topical Association and National Topical Stamp Show (now part of the Great American Stamp Show), Hamman was the show chairman from 2015 to 2017 for the NTSS. Hamman had an integral part in analyzing the benefits of combining the show with APS StampShow for 2018 and all the succeeding shows. He managed the NTSS portion from 2018 to 2021 and am again the manager for 2023.
Bradford A. Hathaway
Bradford A. Hathaway, 87, of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, is a life member of both the APS and Hawaiian Philatelic Society and has been a philatelist for almost 80 years.
For more than 40 years he wrote a weekly stamp column for the New Bedford (Massachusetts) Standard-Times. In 1968, he wanted to see how it might stack up against others in competition at the national stamp show in Rochester, New York. Quite satisfied with a gold award, he never entered that contest again.
For more than 30 years, as a member of the New Bedford Stamp Collectors Club, Hathaway served on the SEAPEX committees formed by two clubs in New Bedford and one on Cape Cod. He served on the committee for the first day issue in New Bedford for the Moby Dick stamped envelope.
During the mid-to-late 1900s, whaling postal history became Hathaway’s main collecting interest. He developed one of the finest collections in the country and became an expert in the field. He was invited by Sister Fidelma, of the Cardinal Spellman Philatelic Museum, to exhibit his whaling collection. The show was extended for six months after opening.
Soon after Hathaway retired, he wanted to use his time to help others in need. Using his stamp collecting knowledge he asked his Quaker meeting to support him in establishing a project he named Quaker Missions. He began collecting mostly used stamps from Quakers all over the world and from a prisoner in Arizona who wanted to help. Hathaway got local volunteers from other faiths to help him. He prepared stamp packets to be sold for $7 each. An advertisement in Linn’s Stamp News brought in and got a lot of buyers.
Soon, Linn’s gave his offerings a positive review. So good, that it did the project in — temporarily. The project ran out of stamps and had to refund more than $500. Slowly, the project recovered, this time with the extraordinary help of one of the world’s most prestigious stamp companies, Gary Posner, Inc.
The Interchurch Council of Greater New Bedford presented Hathaway with its Sydney Adams Award “For Distinguished Service In Ecumenical Ministry.” Several times in the waning years, the bulk of sales were transferred to Quakers, first in California and then in Indiana, where it continues to this day. Mattapoisett’s Quaker Missions project officially ended last August after raising $105,000, the majority of it donated to Native American and Third World Countries’ causes. Now, Hathaway’s efforts are supporting a Mattapoisett Land Trust scholarship in memory of his late wife, Priscilla Alden Hathaway, a co-founder of the trust 49 years ago.
Keith and Anna Trischan
Keith Trischan began collecting stamps at age 8, thanks to his Uncle Louis, who provided international stamps received through his work. He collects classic-era worldwide stamps.
Keith is a member of the Milwaukee Philatelic Society, Wauwatosa Philatelic Society, and the Alle-Kiski Philatelic and Numismatic Society, for which he served as the treasurer for many years and participated in the club’s annual Scout Night, helping Scouts meet their requirements for the stamp collecting badge.
After moving from Pittsburgh to the Milwaukee area seven years ago, Trischan became an active member of the Milwaukee and Wauwatosa philatelic societies. He is the show chairman for Stampfest, Milwaukee’s annual spring show. Keith and his wife, Anna, are active members of the MPS donation committee, for which they process donations to the club and ready them for club auctions. The couple also provides guidance to non-members looking to dispose of inherited collections.
Keith helps with frame setup, teardown, and repair for Milcopex, the Milwaukee club’s fall show, a World Series of Philately show. For the past several years, he has been the MPS delegate to Wiscopex, the Wisconsin Federation of Stamp Club’s annual show.
Both Keith and Anna have worked at the registration table at Tosapex, Wauwatosa Philatelic Society’s annual show, and at the Milwaukee Holiday Folk Fair’s stamp collecting booth. Keith also gives presentations on various aspects of philately to both the MPS and WPS.
Anna Trischan began collecting stamps at age 25 after she married Keith, and they have spent many wonderful hours together collecting stamps, travelling to stamp shows, and making great friends over the past 40 years.
Anna’s primary collecting interest is Hungarian stamps, but she has wide-ranging philatelic interests. She is a member of the APS, Milwaukee and Wauwatosa philatelic societies, the Alle-Kiski Philatelic and Numismatic Society, Society for Hungarian Philately and Waukesha County Philatelic Society.
Anna is the Southeast Wisconsin Regional vice president for the Wisconsin Federation of Stamp Clubs. She and Keith are the auction co-chairs for Wiscopex 2024, and she helped with the silent auction for both Milcopex and Wiscopex for the past several years.
She is a life member of the Society for Hungarian Philately, and for the past few years has served as its auction chair, and is responsible for all aspects of the quarterly mail bid auction. She has worked the registration table at Stampfest and Tosapex, and helped staff the Holiday Folk Fair stamp collecting booth. The booth interacts with hundreds of young people every year, introducing them to the basics of stamp collecting. She also helped staff the AKVNPS’s annual Scout Night. Anna is a published author and has written several articles for The News of Hungarian Philately.
Oneal and Cassandra Tyler
Oneal and Cassandra Tyler started collecting and exhibiting after Ricky Johnson invited Oneal and spoke to him about stamp collecting. Next, the South Carolina members of the Ebony Society of Philatelic Events and Reflections (ESPER) shared a dinner and stamp gathering, offering many encouraging voices and helpful support. The Tylers attended some functions in North Carolina and the stamp club embraced them like family.
The Tylers constantly try to encourage individuals to appreciate Black heritage on stamps and carry this mission through their seminars. Students learn a little history, are given the opportunity to touch and look at various stamps, select what they like or don’t like about a stamp, discuss and research historical facts, and maybe create a product or spark an interest in stamps. The couple’s exhibits follow the same pattern. Displays are set up to catch the eye as youngsters and adults pass by seeing it as a gallery of colors, themes, informational folders, stamps (framed and unframed), collecting books and copies of Reflection magazine.
The Tylers gave a presentation, with the help of ESPER member Willie Amaker, in February 2022 at an elementary school in Columbia, South Carolina to more than 300 pupils. They also gave a presentation in 2019 to Scouts in Columbia, South Carolina, discussing U.S. Black Heritage stamps and how to start a collection. The Scouts received collecting books, framed poster-size prints of Black Heritage stamps and other historical figures on stamps, and packets of stamps.