2006 NETWORKING® MAGAZINE’S DAVID AWARD HONOREE.

ALFRED DEVENDORF

Attorney at Law, Pacifico & Marmann, LLP

Alfred Devendorf can be described as veteran,
lobbyist, lawyer, advocate, fundraiser and
community servant. His commitment to people
in need, his wisdom and wise counsel, and his
desire to help children and promote strong, loving
families is generously mixed with his good humor,
quick wit and genuine enthusiasm for life.

AGreat Neck native, Devendorf attended The
Choate Rosemary Hall School in Connecticut, where
he says, at age 13 he was challenged to accept his
good fortune and give back to others. Taking this to
heart, he used his spare time to fundraise for the
school’s support of the local community’s needs. He
earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University
and served two years in the U.S. Army in Germany
as part of NATO in the late 1950s, attaining the rank
to First Lieutenant (artillery).

Devendorf was working full-time as a Washington

D.C. lobbyist for the Long Island Lighting Company
while he attended Brooklyn Law School. Married
with two young children, he would arrive at
LILCO’s Mineola offices at 4:30 a.m. to study, catch
an early flight to D.C., and return to attend night
classes. After receiving his law degree, and feeling
somewhat guilty about short-changing his family, he
took several years off to help raise his children,
George and Diana.
“ It seems like a little thing now,” remarks
Devendorf, “but it was like putting money in a sav

ings bank for the character, growth and development
of our children.” When his children entered
school, he applied his law degree serving as a
Nassau County Assistant District Attorney, gaining
valuable trial experience.

It was while serving as LILCO’s United Way representative
that Devendorf was introduced to large
scale fundraising. Working shoulder-to-shoulder
with the executive director, he visited organizations
and solicited funds. “I learned how fundraising for
charities was done,” he says. Afterward, he ran
LILCO’s internal campaign, and doubled the company’s
giving dollars within two years.

Devendorf served 25 years as trustee and past
president of Children’s House, now merged into
Family and Children’s Association. Children’s
House was in decline when he accepted the presidency.
Yet, he and the remaining three board members,
known as “The Four Musketeers,” turned the
agency around prior to the merger, from one serving
two dozen children in one home with a staff of 10
and a $400,000 budget, to the merged agency now
serving 30,000 people a year with a $25 million
budget and 400 professionals.

“Children’s House became the third child in my
family,” says Devendorf. “Whenever we were
adding a new program or opening a new facility, my
wife and I would bring our children to see what was
happening and meet the clients.” Devendorf chaired

Family and Children’s successful endowment campaign
in 2000 that raised $6 million, doubling the previous
endowment.

Devendorf served lunches for the North Shore
Interfaith Nutrition Network (the INN) in the basement
of the Baptist Church in Glen Cove. With his
ability to communicate in Spanish (thanks to his
Venezuelan mother), he became an advocate for the
“ guests,” helping them assess problems and find solutions.
While serving as director and president of the
Glen Cove INN, he wrote the chapter’s by-laws.

Through his lunch-team leader, Devendorf learned
that a RotaCare health clinic had opened in Uniondale
but the doctors couldn’t understand the Spanish-
speaking patients, so he began volunteering as a translator.
He’d sit with people in the waiting room, get
them to smile, laugh and leave in a better frame of
mind than when they arrived.

“It was great fun,” says Devendorf. “Many patients
were receptive. I made a lot of friends, and the staff
(he pauses), the salt of the earth.” He calls the clinic “a
modern American miracle. It’s providing services,
medications and even operations free-of-charge.
Doctors, nurses, pharmacologists and administrative
staff are volunteers.”

Devendorf served on the board of the New York
Council on Alcoholism, and was a Trustee, Parent
Council President and his Class’ Agent for The Choate
Rosemary Hall School. He was honored with the
Children’s House Scholarship Trustee Award, Family
and Children’s Associations’ Beacon of Hope Award,
and the 2005 Founder’s Award from Long Island
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence
(LICADD).

A passionate supporter of the recovering community,
Devendorf says LICADD has become “as important
to him as Children’s House.” He’s a founding member
of LICADD’s Leadership Council and former president
of the Board of Directors, and works diligently on
the board bringing his understanding, wit and commitment
to help generate funds to sustain and expand
the program.

In addition to accomplishments as a prosecutor,
Devendorf’s professional career included service as
Senior Deputy County Attorney and Nassau County
liaison to the NY State Legislature; Executive Assistant
to the Nassau County Commissioner of
Health/Counsel to the Board of Health, and NYS
Assistant Attorney General.

Devendorf serves as a Eucharistic Minister and
hosts Bible study and prayer groups at his home. He
says: “I always had a connection to religion, being
exposed to it by my parents. But when I was on my
own, I started working toward a closer relationship
than just arm’s length. I think my interests in not-forprofit
work and helping people preceded my really
becoming closer to my church.” At a recent Bible session,
the group struggled with the lesson “go out and
preach the gospel.” “None of us,” he adds, “could
imagine ourselves on a soapbox on the corner, but at
least we thought we could try to set a good example.”
He shared the response with LICADD’s executive
director, a calligrapher, who penned for him the
words of St. Francis of Assisi: “Go out and preach the
gospel … and sometimes use words.”

Devendorf and his wife Bonnie live in Locust
Valley and are proud of their children. Diana has
given years of service to Pueblo Indians in New
Mexico and disadvantaged NYC youth. George
works for Mercy Corps International and recent
on-site projects have taken him to The Sudan, Bosnia,
Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.

NETWORKING® January 2006