Five Chosen to Receive Honorary Degrees
LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 29, 2011) – The University of Kentucky Board of Trustees today approved honorary degrees to be presented at the May Commencement to engineer, entrepreneur and educator Robert M. Drake Jr., researcher and entrepreneur Pearse Lyons, journalist Albert P. Smith Jr., and South African activists Ahmed Kathrada and Barbara Hogan.
A native of Georgia, Drake was educated in Kentucky‘s public schools, graduated from UK with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1942 and immediately joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. Serving as an engineer during the war, he researched advanced aircraft engine technology. After the war, his work in heat transfer led to collaboration with noted German mechanical engineer E.R.G. Eckert, which eventually resulted in the publication of three books judged to revolutionize the understanding of heat transfer.
After the armed forces, Drake enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley where he earned his master’s in science and doctorate in philosophy. He served on Berkeley’s faculty until 1954, when he became an engine design specialist with General Electric Company Aircraft Gas Turbine Division in Cincinnati. Three years later, he was named professor and later chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Princeton University. At Princeton, Drake created its Computing Center, co-founded Intertech Corporation, and led the creation of the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur.
Drake returned to his Kentucky alma mater in 1966 as dean to oversee the development of the UK College of Engineering. He recruited outstanding faculty from the nation’s leading engineering schools and developed exceptional doctoral programs. In 1971 he was named corporate vice president of research and development for Combustion Engineering, Inc., but returned to UK four years later as Special Assistant to President Otis Singletary in charge of major research programs.
In 1981, Drake partnered with Lee T. Todd Jr., then a young electrical engineering faculty member, to create a new high-tech company called Projectron. He co-founded three other high-tech companies in Kentucky, Massachusetts and California. He served as executive vice president in 1978, then president in 1979 of University Investment Company in Lexington, the first venture capital group in the region. During his career, Drake was an accomplished consultant to businesses and government agencies and a prolific publisher of heat transfer and fluid mechanics research literature. He is a UK Fellow and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the UK Hall of Distinguished Alumni, and honorary member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Lyons is the founder and president of Alltech, a global animal health company headquartered in Kentucky, with a presence in 113 countries and more than 1,900 employees. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the National University of Ireland in Dublin and his master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Birmingham, England. He later worked as a biochemist in Irish Distilleries before founding Alltech in Kentucky in 1980, which has grown to become a global leader in the animal health industry and a significant partner with UK in many projects, ranging from poultry to opera.
Key partnerships include the Alltech/UK Nutrition Research Alliance at Coldstream, the Margin of Excellence program, Alltech/UK Nutrigenomics Alliance, and the Opera Theatre program. In addition, Alltech and UK are also partners on the $30 million Department of Energy biorefinery grant. In addition, Alltech is currently supporting six UK graduate students. In 2004, Alltech entered into a research partnership with the UK College of Agriculture that will produce further advancements in environmental nutrition and management for poultry producers in Kentucky and around the world. The Alltech UK Nutritional Research Alliance is located on Coldstream Research Campus.
In 2006, Alltech became the sponsor of the Alltech Opera Scholarship Competition, which places UK Opera Theatre and UK School of Music in the top-tier for recruiting the best young vocalists in the country. Alltech also has initiated a program called the Alltech Margin of Excellence program, which was developed to reward the dedication of graduate students in the field of science while promoting technology and development in Kentucky. Students benefit from travel to conferences and other laboratories, bonuses for extraordinary performance, mentoring, and unique links to the industry. In 2008, Alltech named Anne Koontz its first Alltech - University of Kentucky Margin of Excellence Fellow.
Lyons was also the financial visionary behind the success of the Alltech FEI 2010 World Equestrian Games. Many believe that without his extraordinary generosity and persistence WEG would not have been as successful as they were. With the infusion of $35 million to the World Equestrian Games, Lyons personally made sure that the Alltech FEI 2010 World Equestrian Games was a success and that Lexington was highlighted in such a positive manner on the world stage.
For 40 years, Smith has been an important fixture on the public-policy stage in Kentucky, holding the state, its officials, its institutions and its journalists to higher standards that must be achieved for the state to realize its potential. Smith is best known as the founder, host and producer, through 2007, of “Comment on Kentucky,” the weekly roundtable on Kentucky Educational Television. This program continues to bring analysis of public affairs to the state and gave leading journalists a widely accessible forum to offer their perspectives on politics, business, education, culture and other topics in need of incisive commentary as well as strong news coverage.
Except for three years as federal co‐chairman of the Appalachian Regional Commission for President Jimmy Carter and President Ronald Reagan, Smith’s career in journalism spanned 60 years. He has spent most of his life in some form of public service, only in part through journalism. As a leader of the Kentucky Press Association, he helped pass Kentucky’s first open‐records law and its first effective open‐meetings law. He also was instrumental in ending KPA’s practice of accepting food and beverages from lobbying interests for its conventions.
Smith developed his reputation in community journalism, building a chain of six weeklies: two in Russellville and one each in London, Morgantown, Leitchfield, Cadiz and Williamson County, Tenn. Stories in Smith’s newspapers helped bring about school consolidation, new public libraries and community arts programs. He successfully fought to keep rural hospitals open and independent, and worked with Logan County leaders to bring 3,000 industrial jobs to the county, which remains economically strong because of them.
Smith created the Kentucky Oral History Commission, the Governor’s Scholars Program, the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, Leadership Kentucky and Forward in the Fifth. He was chairman of the Kentucky Arts Commission, Leadership Kentucky, the Shakertown Roundtable, the Governor’s Council on Educational Reform and a member of the Council on Higher Education. He developed the internationally respected Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in UK’s School of Journalism and Telecommunications. In 2007 he was named one of six Rural Heroes at the first National Rural Assembly led by the Ford Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. He is a charter member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame and won the Ralph Gabbard Distinguished Kentuckian Award from the Kentucky Broadcasters Association. He received the Kentucky Long‐Term Policy Research Center’s Vic Hellard Award, the Distinguished Rural Kentuckian Award from the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives, the Lewis Owens Award for Community Service from KPA and the Lexington Herald‐Leader, the UK Library Associates Medallion for Intellectual Achievement, and the East Kentucky Leadership Conference Media Award. The stateʹs annual Al Smith Arts Fellowships honor his support of community arts programs.
Kathrada was one of 10 (including Mandela) involved in the Rivonia Trial, which led to life imprisonment with hard labor. Kathrada spent more than 26 years in prison, until he was released in 1989. Kathrada has held various roles in the new South African government, including Parliament and President Mandela's Parliamentary Counselor. He also served as chairperson of the Robben Island Museum Council.
Hogan is the Minister of Public Enterprise and former Minister of Health of South Africa. The former political activist in the anti-apartheid movement is most well-known for leading South African efforts to fight AIDS and advocate for HIV/AIDS prevention. In 2009, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.