To begin by discussing the honors that physician Bernard Schneider has received would perhaps serve more to distract from than to add to the portrait of a man whose own priorities have been to serve others all of his life. Having served as Chief of Ophthalmology, President of the Medical Staff and Trustee at major hospitals, Bernard Schneider also holds teaching appointments at some of the world’s finest schools of medicine.
Throughout his career, Dr. Schneider has been on the front lines of health care reform both locally and nationally and earlier this year was honored by the Pennsylvania Medical Society for five decades of outstanding service to the medical profession. This well deserved award followed closely after Schneider’s receipt of Methodist Hospital’s prestigious Norris Award in recognition of his extraordinary career in health care as well as the superlative spectrum of human qualities that have made him not only one of the finest clinicians in his field but also a leader both of the medical profession and of each human community that he has served over the course of the past half-century.
While Bernard Schneider is universally respected among all who have known – or known of – him for the professional skills and professional integrity that formed the basis of these honors, it is above all for his personal qualities that he has been revered. A man totally dedicated to principles of compassion and trust, Bernard Schneider MD has lived a life not only founded upon but actually constituted of mankind's highest ideals and unwaveringly devoted to bettering all human existence. As it has been on this basis that Bernard Schneider became most universally admired and loved by his colleagues, patients, family and friends, it was inevitable it would be these qualities that became the foundation of his Schneider family legacy – and that it would be these qualities that would resonate throughout all that this unique family has accomplished in so many ways for so many years.
During this exceptional lifetime of service to others, Dr. Bernard Schneider has been married for nearly six decades to his beloved wife, Marjorie Schneider – herself an internationally recognized antiquarian and fine arts expert. Marjorie Schneider can fairly be described as another extraordinary human being who, together with her husband and the children whom they have together raised, has enabled the Schneider family as a whole to forge a unique legacy for mankind from the union of these two great human beings’ visions of human potential.
Bernard and Marjorie Schneider's two eldest children, Jill Schneider MD and Susan Schneider MD, both followed in their esteemed father’s footsteps by becoming internationally respected physicians and innovators in the field of health care; whereas the couple’s two younger children, Barbara Schneider Esq and Kenneth Schneider Esq, also have followed in their parents' footsteps by serving the world as respected attorneys who have taken the lead not only as legal practitioners and legal reform advocates but as leaders in new fields of their own invention directed to maximizing human potential.
When Bernard and Marjorie Schneider graciously agreed to serve as inaugural Directors of a young charity dedicated to helping others fulfill their life dreams, few could have foreseen the global implications that would one day result from this. That organization, which came to be known around the world as The Apogee Foundation, is now globally renowned for fostering human creative excellence around the world – and it is the ongoing commitment and combined talents of the entire Schneider family that have ensured the spectacular success of this institution every step along the way.
The name ‘apogee’ means ‘the highest point, the culmination,’ and The Apogee Foundation's vision is inspired by the power of the creative arts to transcend boundaries in both embodying and inspiring human excellence. The Apogee Foundation, the Schneiders and everyone working with them to fulfill this mission are dedicated to nothing less than discovering, developing and celebrating humanity's greatest vision of itself. As a result, The Apogee Foundation has this year achieved the highest point and culmination in its own field: less than five years after Apogee’s incorporation, the Foundation was recognized as the “Top Non-Profit” with a major national award based on a rigorous selection process that evaluated more than 10,000 nominees for such distinction.
Thanks to the purity and power of the Schneiders’ collective vision, and to Bernard Schneider’s and Marjorie Schneider’s stewardship of these aims both at home and at-large, what we have witnessed here is the forging of a new vision: of a global family representing that collectively represents the highest ideals of human excellence. What this new paradigm for human achievement may achieve in the future now seems to be as unlimited as human potential itself…
Susan Schneider and Kenneth Schneider have now succeeded to their parents’ seats on The Apogee Foundation's Board of Directors – thus continuing Bernard Schneider's and Marjorie Schneider's rich traditions of service to mankind. But, in doing so, they also are now taking the Schneider family's living legacy to new heights for the benefit of future generations. In so doing, they have succeeded not only in living up to their parents’ superlative professional standards but also to their supreme human ideals.
The Schneider family and The Apogee Foundation are thus like mirrors of each other and of human benevolence at its culmination. And both institutions also serve as perfect reflections of Bernard Schneider’s and Marjorie Schneider’s beautiful spirit and profound devotion to the best that all of us can achieve. Through The Apogee Foundation and everyone whose lives have been improved and whose highest potential is now being realized around the world, Bernard Schneider and Marjorie Schneider have been able to empower others to fulfill their dreams – and thus have achieved their own highest potential in life.