Inaugural Gala 2005: Outstanding Illinoisans

Ice carving of the Chicago skyline.  In forground is the glass block

with the Gala logo which was part of the table center piece.

The 2005 Illinois Presidential Inaugural Gala will mark the 3rd Anniversary of the Outstanding Illinoisan Awards presented to individuals from Illinois who display outstanding life-long services in the following areas: Arts and Entertainment; Business; Literature and Journalism; Military Service; Public Service; Non-Profit Service; Science and Technology; and Sports. Below are those that have accepted the nomination for 2005 along with their achievement that has earned them this mark of distinction.  

Nancy G.  Brinker
Founder -- The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
 
Nancy Goodman Brinker’s career encompasses philanthropy, diplomacy and business. Nancy Brinker is the Founder of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and Race for the Cure® and was U. S. Ambassador to Hungary from 2001 to 2003.
 
Nancy established the Komen Foundation in 1982 to honor the memory of her sister, Susan, whom she had lost to the disease in 1980. The Race for the Cure® was created the following year in an effort to raise community awareness and funding for breast cancer education and scientific research. Today it is the world's largest 5K race series, with almost one million people participating in 109 cities nationwide. Since its inception, the Foundation has raised more than $225 million for breast cancer research, education, and screening treatment programs across the country. Nancy has taken an active political role and served on the Board of Directors of several organizations in support of cancer research.
 
In 2001, Brinker accepted President George W. Bush's nomination of Ambassador to Hungary , and her achievements there are equally impressive. She helped to preserve tax benefits and lower tariffs on U.S. companies doing business in Hungary. Brinker negotiated the hosting and training of the Free Iraqi Forces, an expatriate group who later joined coalition forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom, making Hungary the first European country to contribute to regime change in Iraq. Her groundbreaking efforts to advance the cause of women's health in Hungary included a symposium and ceremonial walk across the country's oldest bridge (lit pink for the occasion) to raise breast cancer awareness.
 
Nancy 's remarkable life story is a profound testament to the possibility within all of us to effect positive change in the world. At the podium, she shares her extraordinary journey from humble beginnings in Peoria, Illinois, to her philanthropic achievements in the fight against breast cancer, to her accomplished Ambassadorship in Eastern Europe. Her inspiring presentation reveals the power of hard work and perseverance in accomplishing the American dream.  

Leon M. Lederman
Winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics
 
Leon M. Lederman, internationally renowned high-energy physicist, is Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois and holds an appointment as Pritzker Professor of Science at Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Dr. Lederman served as Chairman of the State of Illinois Governor's Science Advisory Committee. He is a founder and the inaugural Resident Scholar at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, a 3-year residential public high school for the gifted. Dr. Lederman was the Director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory from June 1, 1979 to June 30, 1989. He is a founder and Chairman of the Teachers Academy for Mathematics and Science, active in the professional development of primary school teachers in Chicago .
 
For more than thirty years Dr. Lederman has been associated with Columbia University in New York City, having been a student and a faculty member there. Professor Lederman was the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics at Columbia from 1972-79 and served as Director of Nevis Laboratories in Irvington ,Columbia 's center for experimental research in high-energy physics, from 1962-79. With colleagues and students from Nevis he led an extensive and wide-ranging series of experiments that provided major advances in the understanding of particles and interactions, thus contributing significantly to what is known as the "standard model."
 
Major experiments included the observation of parity violation in decay of pi and mu mesons, the discovery of the long-lived neutral kaon, the discovery of two kinds of neutrinos and the discovery of the upsilon particle, the first evidence for the bottom quark. His research was based upon experiments principally using the particle accelerators at Nevis Labs, Brookhaven and Fermilab, although he has carried out research at CERN ( Geneva ), Berkeley, Cornell and Rutherford ( England ). His publications exceed 300 papers and he has sponsored the research of 52 graduate students.
 
In 1990 he was elected President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest scientific organization in the U.S. He is a member of the National Academy of Science; and he has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science (1965), the Elliot Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute (1976), the Wolf Prize in Physics (1982), the Nobel Prize in Physics (1988) and the Enrico Fermi Prize given by President Clinton in 1993. He served as a founding member of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel of the United States Department of Energy and the International Committee for Future Accelerators. Lederman serves on the Board of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the Council of American Science Writers, the Weizmann Institute in Israel and the University Research Association Board. Lederman has received honorary degrees and memberships in over 30 institutions, including those in England, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Italy, Israel, Finland and Russia .  

Professor Donald N. Frey
Industrial Business Leader

Professor Donald N. Frey was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1923. After a boyhood in Iowa, he entered engineering school at Michigan State College in 1940. World War II then intervened and during the years of 1942-1946, Donald Frey served as an officer in the United States Army. He then re-entered engineering school, this time at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he completed his Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering in 1949 while maintaining an Assistant Professorship.

Donald Frey's career in the world of international business began at the FORD MOTOR COMPANY in 1950. He became Vice-President and Chief Engineer at Ford in 1964. Dr. Frey was responsible for many industrial innovations. In 1965 he was project manager for what would become the icon vehicle of an era, the original Ford Mustang. He then resigned in 1968 to become the president of the GENERAL CABLE COMPANY. He then actively directed himself to environmental issues in 1970 by establishing new methods of copper recovery for the recycling industry using a tolling principle. In 1971, Don Frey was appointed President and CEO of the BELL & HOWELL COMPANY. In 1975, while at Bell & Howell and as a Director of Twentieth Century Fox Corp., he was responsible for the first high-volume integrated manufacture of video cassettes for the Hollywood movie industry. And ten years later, in 1985, Bell & Howell produced the first successful CD-Rom based information system initially for General Motors dealer service operations.

Donald N. Frey retired from industry in 1988. He then channeled his industrial experiences into academia by accepting a Professorship in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IE/MS) at NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY'S McCormick School of Engineering on the Evanston, IL campus. His career continues at Northwestern, now in its 15th year, where he is a lecturer and a supervisor of Ph.D. students –16, at the current count. His guest lecturing requests are as plentiful and widely diversified as is his wealth of knowledge and expertise.

Don Frey is married to opera soprano, Helen-Kay Eberley, the father of six children, and a proud grandfather of thirteen.

Dr. Mona Khanna

Former ISS Cherry Blossom Princess, Medical Doctor, Journalist, Humanitarian

Dr. Khanna was raised in the Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park until 1979 when her family moved to Arlington Heights.  she attended Arlington High School and was graduated with top honors in 1983.   She matriculated to Northwestern University and was graduated from its Medill School of Journalism.  She then  entered the University of Illinois College of Medicine from which she was graduated in 1991.  She did her residency training in 3 areas:  Internal Medicine, Preventive Medicine and Public Health, and Occupational Medicine. 

She served as Medical Director of San Bernardino County and Riverside County, of southern California until 2003 when she combined her journalism education with her medical career and became a medical broadcaster.  She served as Medical Reporter for CBS Channel 2 in Palm Springs, California and is currently serving as Medical Correspondent for CBS’ Channel 11 in Dallas-Fort Worth. 

Dr. Khanna has also been active on several disaster response teams since 1999 which resulted in several deployments, including serving at the medical clinics at Ground Zero immediately following the catastrophic events of September 11,.  Most recently, Dr. Khanna has just returned from Sri Lanka where she was reporting on the medical crisis in the aftermath of the tsunami.    

In addition to these many accomplishments, Mona Khanna was also the Illinois State Society’s Cherry Blossom Princes in 1988.