Four Outstanding Alumni Honored

Alumni Awards 2007The outstanding accomplishments of Charles P. Carey '75 and James M. Clary '79 were recognized May 12 when they were presented the WIU Distinguished Alumni Award at Spring commencement exercises. In addition, Dan Webb received the 2007 Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. At the end of Spring semester, Charalambos “Pambos” Vrasidas '94 MS '95, an instructional technology and telecommunication graduate, received the inaugural WIU College of Education and Human Services (COEHS) Distinguished Alumni Award.

The WIU Distinguished Alumni Award, given since 1973, recognizes alumni who have reached the pinnacle of their careers and have brought credit to the University and themselves through their professional accomplishments or community service at local, state, or national levels and have extended meritorious service for the advancement and continued excellence of WIU.

Carey, a 1975 finance graduate and 2005 College of Business and Technology Distinguished Alumnus, is currently serving his second consecutive two-year term as chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), a leading global futures exchange. Previously, Carey served on the CBOT Board of Directors for 11 years, including terms as vice chairman, first vice chairman and full member director.

An independent futures trader, he also is a partner in the firm Henning and Carey. Carey has been a member of the Chicago Board of Trade since 1978, and began his career in futures trading as a member of the MidAmerica Commodity Exchange from 1976 to 1978.

The CBOT has achieved consecutive annual volume records during each year Carey has served as chairman. He also spearheaded the move of the CBOT from a non-profit, member-owned organization to a for-profit, NYSE-listed public company. Carey is a third-generation CBOT member. His grandfather was chairman in 1933 and his uncle also served in that same position in 1963.

Carey, who has been featured in Chicago area newspapers, radio and television and the Wall Street Journal, has consistently supported Western with gifts to athletics, alumni programs and the College of Business and Technology (CBT).

He has been a member of the College of Business and Technology Advisory Board and is a charter member of President Goldfarb's National Advisory Board.

Clary, a 1979 finance graduate and Macomb native, is the president of MullinTBG, the nation's largest firm specializing in all aspects of executive benefits, retirement income and compensation planning. Clary and a staff of 300 professionals counsel major corporations on state-of-the-art executive benefit plan design, funding and benefit security options, communications strategy and ongoing plan record keeping and management. He has more than 25 years of experience in this specialized field.

In 1981, Clary entered the industry with Northwestern Mutual Life, and two years later joined industry pioneer John Todd in the Chicago office of The Todd Organization. When Todd retired in 1986, Clary was named his successor. In 1993, he merged The Todd Organization of Chicago with Management Compensation Group-Chicago, and was named president and CEO.

In 2001, Clary merged MCG/Chicago with Mullin Consulting, and continued as president and CEO of the combined firm. Mullin Consulting joined forces with TBG Financial in 2006 to form MullinTBG, creating the nation's largest independent executive benefits firm. MullinTBG has headquarters in Los Angeles with regional offices in Chicago; Baltimore; Dallas; Minneapolis; New York; Newport Beach, Calif.; Pittsburgh; and Washington, D.C.

Clary serves on the board of directors of the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU) and is chairman of the Nonqualified Plan Issues Committee. He is also a member of World at Work, the Society for Human Resource Management and the Chicago Compensation Association.

He has written and lectured extensively on executive compensation and nonqualified benefits plans. Clary has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, CFO Magazine, Compensation and Benefits Review, Corporate Board and Journal of Compensation and Benefits. He has also appeared on national television programs to discuss the subject of executive compensation and benefit planning.

Clary has established the James M. Clary Scholarship Endowment, which awards scholarships annually to CBT students. Along with his wife, Sheila, Clary contributed $100,000 to purchase equipment for the new student-athlete weight room. Clary has been a consistent supporter of the Western Athletic Club.

He has been a member of the CBT Advisory Board and is a charter member of President Goldfarb's National Advisory Board. In 2000, he was named the College of Business and Technology's Outstanding Alumnus.

Webb Receives Honorary Doctorate

Webb, a Bushnell (Ill.) native and partner in the litigation department, firm chairman and member of the executive committee for Winston & Strawn, LLC in Chicago, received Western's Distinguished Alumni Award in 1992. Webb, who studied history at Western, is a former member of the WIU Board of Trustees. He has also established the Keith Webb Memorial Scholarship at Western in memory of his father.

During his career, Webb has tried more than 100 jury cases, including numerous successful commercial and white-collar criminal trials. Webb joined Winston & Strawn in 1985 as a partner, after serving as the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Webb, who has spent his entire professional life as a courtroom trial attorney and litigator, received international attention for his successful prosecution of retired Admiral John Poindexter in the Iran-Contra affair. As the U.S. attorney in Chicago, he spearheaded the “Operation Greylord” investigations into judicial corruption in Cook County. Webb received national attention for his work as lead trial counsel for General Electric, successfully defending it against criminal price-fixing allegations, as well as for his representations of Microsoft Corporation in its antitrust litigation and Philip Morris in its tobacco-related litigation. In addition, Webb represented the New York Stock Exchange in connection with an internal investigation over compensation to the former Chairman Richard Grasso, and currently represents the NYSE in subsequent litigation. Most recently, Webb served as lead defense counsel in the six-month jury trial of former Gov. George Ryan on public corruption charges, including racketeering, mail fraud and income tax fraud.

Webb has been ranked as the number one litigator in the United States in Euromoney's Guide to the World's Leading Litigation Lawyers and as the number one white-collar criminal defense attorney by Corporate Crime Reporter. In 2006 he was ranked as one of the top 25 litigation experts in the world by the Guide to the World's Leading Lawyers and has been selected as one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America” by the National Law Journal.

Vrasidas Receives COEHS Award Charalambos "Pambos" Vrasidas

Vrasidas is the founder and executive director of the Centre for the Advancement of Research and Development in Educational Technology (CARDET), a nonprofit international organization based in the island of Cyprus. He is also an associate professor of learning technologies at Intercollege in Cyprus and is the editor-in-chief of Educational Media International Journal.

“Dr. Vrasidas came to our college on a Fulbright Scholarship as a third grade teacher in Cyprus. We have been pleased to track his many accomplishments since his graduation from Western,” said COEHS Dean Bonnie Smith-Skripps '73 MA '74 ED SP '89.

Through CARDET, Vrasidas has worked on more than 15 research and development grants during the last five years, which have received more than 10 million Euro. Vrasidas has also published five books and more than 60 articles in professional journals, and presented papers at more than 100 conferences.

 

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