"Reaching For the Stars" 2025 Gala Honorees

Candace and Bruce, who recently celebrated their 25th anniversary, met on a blind date in 1999; four months later, they were married.After a career as a quality control engineer and entrepreneur, Bruce became a stay-at-home dad to their three adopted children, Simone, Sydney, and Seth, in addition to fostering over a dozen children.

Candace spent her stellar career in marketing and general management at Proctor & Gamble, Novartis, Coca-Cola, L’Oreal, and Amway, where she reached the C-Suite as Global Chief Marketing Officer and Regional President of the Americas at Amway and as President SoftSheen-Carson, a Consumer Products Division of L’Oreal USA. She earned her B.S. in metallurgical engineering and administrative and management science from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Since retirement, Candace serves on two public and three non-profit boards, including Figure Skating in Harlem’s since 2005 where she has served as Board Chair and a lead on the development of our affiliate Figure Skating in Detroit.

Candace and Bruce enjoy traveling, mentoring others, ballroom dancing, and the simple life with animals on their farm in Ada, MI. Their greatest joy (besides life itself) is raising their 7-year-old granddaughter, Rosalyn, whom they adopted last year.