Four Honorary Degrees to Be Awarded By UMass Amherst at Commencement Ceremonies

May 3, 2007

Contact:

Patrick J. Callahan 413/545-0444

Alumnus Edward P. Marram to receive a Distinguished Achievement Award

AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst will award four honorary degrees during its undergraduate and graduate commencement ceremonies May 25-26.

At the Undergraduate Commencement at Warren P. McGuirk Alumni Stadium on May 26, Grace K. Fey, former chairwoman of the UMass Board of Trustees, will receive an honorary doctor of public service degree, and James Michael Smith, an alumnus who is chairman and chief executive officer at EDO Corp., will receive an honorary doctor of engineering degree. Alumnus Edward P. Marram, an entrepreneur and businessman in high technology, will receive a Distinguished Achievement Award.

At the Graduate Commencement May 25, alumnus Tisato Kajiyama, president of Kyushu University in Japan, will receive an honorary doctor of science degree, and Andrew H. Card Jr., former chief of staff for President George W. Bush, will receive an honorary doctor of public service degree.


BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILES

Grace K. Fey is an executive vice president and director of Frontier Capital Management Co., LLC, a Boston-based, $6 billion investment-management firm. She manages $800 million in large cap growth and SRI portfolios for institutional and individual investors, and is a member of Frontier’s management committee.

Fey is the former chairwoman of the UMass Board of Trustees and president of the UMass Foundation, which leads and supports private fund-raising on behalf of UMass. She currently serves on the foundation board and investment committee, and chairs the board of governors of the University of Massachusetts Club. Fey is a former member of the state Board of Higher Education, which oversees state and community colleges, and is now on the advisory board of the Center for Collaborative Leadership at UMass Boston.

A chartered financial analyst (CFA) and member of the CFA Institute and the Boston Society of Security Analysts, Fey also belongs to the Investment Management Consultants Association, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and the Social Investment Forum. Her work on behalf of civic and cultural institutions includes, in part, chairing the boards of Zoo New England and The Commonwealth Institute, and being a trustee of the Huntington Theatre and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy. Fey has been featured in Business Week, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and other major publications, and has frequently appeared on CNBC and CNN.


James Michael Smith is chairman, president and chief executive officer of EDO Corp., a provider of military and commercial products and professional services in technologies such as defense electronics and communications and aircraft armament. The company has annual revenues of more than $700 million and employs 4,200 people.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from UMass Amherst in 1967, Smith began his career at AIL Technologies Inc. He held a series of increasingly responsible positions and earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of New York in 1971. Smith was named AIL president in July 1991, and in January 1992 became the corporation’s CEO. In April 2000 AIL merged with EDO, and Smith was appointed president and CEO. He was elected chairman of the board on May 7, 2002.

Under Smith’s leadership, EDO has been included in 2002 and 2004 in Fortune magazine’s “Annual List of the 100 Fastest-Growing Companies.” Forbes recognized EDO in 2005 as one of the “200 Best-Managed Small Companies” and in 2006 as one of the “25 Fastest-Growing Technology Companies.”

Smith serves on the board of governors of the Aerospace Industries Association and on the boards of trustees of the Polytechnical Institute of New York and the Naval War College Foundation. He has served as chairman of the New York Council of the American Electronics Association and the Long Island Association, and on the board of the National Defense Industrial Association.


Edward P. Marram is the founder, president, and CEO of Geo-Centers Inc., which provides services and products for homeland-security preparedness and has twice been recognized by Inc. magazine as one of the nation’s fastest-growing privately held companies.

For 35 years, Marram has exercised his talent for high-technology entrepreneurship and helped foster a whole generation of new entrepreneurs. Marram has a history of taking charge at centers of great crisis. He was at Three Mile Island the day of the 1979 accident, helping to direct the transporting of radioactive material out of the area. The first responders to the 9/11 World Trade Center attack were trained by Marram in handling weapons of mass destruction. He has twice been appointed to the Summer National Defense Science Board, crafting strategic recommendations for the Pentagon.

Marram is entrepreneur-in-residence at Babson College and has taught executive management courses in Venezuela, Germany, Belgium, France, Scotland, Israel and elsewhere. At UMass Amherst, he created a scholarship 20 years ago and has served for more than 10 years on the advisory committee of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

Marram has served on many public and private boards. He is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and the board of overseers for Children’s Hospital Boston, and a former member of the Health and Educational Financial Authority of Massachusetts.


Tisato Kajiyama is president of Kyushu University, founded in 1911 as one of the former seven imperial universities in Japan. He also serves as vice president of the Japan Association of National Universities. One of the world’s most respected polymer scientists, Kajiyama is generally credited with having initiated and developed the polymer surface and interfacial phenomena.

In 1969 Kajiyama was the first doctoral graduate from UMass Amherst’s department of polymer science and engineering. He is today responsible for securing and maintaining strong relationships between this campus and Japanese polymer and physics societies. After joining Kyushu University as an assistant professor of polymer chemistry in 1970, Kajiyama earned a doctor of engineering degree there in 1975. He served on the university’s engineering faculty from 1984 to 2001, and as dean of that faculty from 2000 to 2002.

Kajiyama has conducted research in surface structure, fatigue analyses of polymeric solids, molecular design of monolayers and LB films, and blood compatibility of biomedical polymers. He has received many Japanese and international awards for scientific accomplishment, service and outreach, including the Polymer Science Award from the Society of Polymer Science, Japan; the Divisional Award from the Chemical Society of Japan; the UMass Amherst’s Chancellor’s Medal, and recently a Distinguished Alumni Award. He has written close to 800 scientific papers and more than 150 other articles.

His extraordinary body of work has greatly influenced the polymer science and engineering department at UMass Amherst and has done much to generate support and funding for research and development on campus and within the field generally.


Andrew H. Card Jr. served as chief of staff to President George W. Bush from 2000 to 2006 and was the second-longest serving White House chief of staff. From 1992-93, Card was the 11th U.S. Secretary of Transportation under President George H.W. Bush. In August 1992, Card coordinated the administration’s disaster relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Andrew and later directed Bush’s transition office during the transition from the Bush Administration to the Clinton Administration.

From 1988-92, Card served in the first President Bush’s administration as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff. Card also served in President Ronald Reagan’s administration as special assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and subsequently as deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs, where he was liaison to governors, statewide elected officials, state legislators, mayors and other elected officials.

Card was General Motors’ vice president of government relations from 1999 until he joined George W. Bush’s administration. From 1993-98, Card was president and chief executive officer of the American Automobile Manufacturers Association (AAMA), the trade association whose members were Chrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. The AAMA dissolved in December 1998.

A native of Holbrook, Card served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1975-83. Card graduated from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor of science degree in engineering. He attended the United States Merchant Marine Academy and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and has received numerous honorary degrees and awards.

#220-07

Photos available upon request

E-mail story to a friend Printer-friendly version