2003 Kenan-Flagler Alumni Awards

Since its inception in 1999, the alumni awards program has honored those who have made outstanding contributions to Kenan-Flagler, the business community and the broader society.

The 2003 honorees include:

• Rollie Tillman, Jr. of Chapel Hill, N.C., was honored with the Kenan-Flagler Business School Leadership Award. The award recognizes an alumnus who demonstrates exceptional achievement in a career field, personal endeavor and/or service to Kenan-Flagler.
• J. Alston Gardner of Atlanta, Ga., was awarded the Global Leadership Award, which honors an alumnus or friend of the school whose global participation and initiative advance the School’s education, research and public service mission.
• David W. Jernigan of Atlanta, Ga., received the Outstanding Young Alumni Award. This award honors an alumnus of the last decade who demonstrates leadership in career accomplishments and exceptional commitment to the School.

• Kimberly P. Ellis of Raleigh, N.C., received the Master of Accounting (MAC) Alumni Merit Award.
• Christopher T. Speh of Durham, N.C., was awarded the Executive Master’s in Business Administration (EMBA) Alumni Merit Award.
• George Smedes York of Raleigh, N.C., was awarded the MBA Alumni Merit Award.
• Edwina D. Woodbury of Chapel Hill, N.C., received the BSBA Alumni Merit Award.

Tillman was presented with the prestigious Kenan-Flagler Business School Leadership Award. A 1955 graduate of the BSBA program, Tillman received his MBA from Harvard in 1957 and his DBA in 1960, after which he returned to Chapel Hill. Until his retirement on June 30, 2003, Tillman was the H. Allen Andrew Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship.

Tillman has served the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as General College adviser, director of the MBA program, director of Executive Education, vice chancellor for University Relations and founding director of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. The Kenan-Flagler Business School Leadership Award is not the first time that Tillman was recognized for his devotion to UNC. In 1996, the General Alumni Association awarded him the Faculty Service Award as well.

Tillman has served the larger community as president of the North Carolina Museum of Art Society, president of the Museum of Art Foundation, president of the Food Bank of North Carolina, trustee for Saint Mary’s College (for 10 years) and director of the American Marketing Association.

Gardner, Global Leadership Award winner, is the founder and principal in Fulcrum Ventures LLC, a venture development firm focused on early-stage information technology, biotechnology and health care companies in the Southeast United States. Previously, he founded and was CEO of OnTarget Inc., which grew from a startup to over $75 million in revenue before being acquired by Siebel Systems in 2000.

As a recognized leader on sales force issues, Gardner has written articles in industry publications, co-authored academic research papers and developed several training programs, including Target Account Selling, Selling to Senior Executives and Managing Strategic Relationships.

Gardner is a founding board member of Chatham Capital and current advisory board member of Bandwidth.com and Marketing Central, among others. His continuing devotion to his alma mater, from which he received an AB in 1977, is evident from his service on UNC-Chapel Hill advisory boards for the Kenan Institute Asia, the Office of Technology Development and International Affairs, for which he is chair. Gardner also serves on the steering committee for the Carolina First Capital Campaign.

Jernigan was presented with the Outstanding Young Alumni Award. At age 25, he is the founding principal of KIPP WAYS (West Atlanta Young Scholars) Academy, a college preparatory public charter middle school.

A native of Elizabeth City, N.C., David was a Morehead Scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill and participated in the Summerbridge Houston program, through which he taught and mentored inner-city youth during the summers of 1997 and 1998. As a student in the BSBA program, his senior honors thesis on corporate America’s role in urban education reform earned the 2000 Wachovia Award for the Best Business Honors Thesis.

Following his graduation in 2000, Jernigan joined the Teach for America program, through which he taught third grade in inner-city Atlanta. Although his two years of teaching were so outstanding that he and his students were honored with a visit from First Lady Laura Bush, Jernigan felt impelled to do more. KIPP WAYS is now up and running with 82 fifth-graders and eight staff members.

Ellis, who received her BSBA in 1983, was honored with the MAC Alumni Merit Award. Ellis leads Deloitte & Touche’s Global Employment and Individual Solutions practice for the Southeast and is lead tax partner on many multinational clients. She has been named one of the Top 25 Women in Business and received the 40 Under 40 award for her professional and community accomplishments.

As one of only two female partners among the Big Four professional services firms in the Triangle, Ellis is committed to helping advance the careers of other female professionals. She serves as national tax partner in charge of Deloitte’s highly successful Women’s Initiative Program and was founding chair of the Triangle Executive Women’s Forum.

Speh, a 1991 graduate of the EMBA program, was this year’s EMBA Alumni Merit Award winner. Only a year after completing his EMBA, Speh co-founded Resource Solutions Inc. (RSI), a specialty clinical research organization providing services to pharmaceutical and device companies throughout North America. Since selling RSI to the Constella Group in 2003, he is acting president of Constella Clinical Informatics.

Speh began his career as a foreign service officer with the Department of State in Washington, D.C., where he helped automate embassies and consulates around the world. He then served as senior manager and marketing manager for the Washington, D.C., consulting practice of Deloitte Haskins & Sells (currently, Deloitte & Touche), and later as vice president and chief financial officer of Clintrials Research Inc.

York, a 1968 MBA graduate received the MBA Alumni Merit Award to honor his achievements in real estate and construction. York is president of York Properties, Inc. and board chairman of the related companies, York Simpson Underwood and McDonald-York Construction. He serves on the board of directors and executive committee of the Research Triangle Park Foundation, the Triangle United Way (campaign chairman) and the YMCA of the Triangle. He also is on the board of SCANA, a major public corporation.

York received an Army Commendation medal in 1966 for his three years as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He was Raleigh city councilman for District E from 1977-1979 and mayor of the city of Raleigh from 1979-1983.

Woodbury was honored as the BSBA Alumni Merit Award winner. Woodbury held increasingly responsible positions with Avon Products Inc. over her 20 years with the company. In 1977, she began as a general ledger accountant; when she retired in 1988, she was executive vice president for Global Business Process Redesign. In the interim years, she also served as Avon’s executive vice president, chief financial and administrative officer. When elected to that position in 1993, she was one of only 10 female CFOs in the Fortune 500.

Woodbury, who earned her BSBA in 1973, returned to Chapel Hill in 1999. She is now CEO and president of The Chapel Hill Press Inc., a custom book publishing company. Woodbury also serves on the boards of directors of Radio Shack Corporation, Click Commerce Inc. and Students In Free Enterprise.