Alumni Achievement Awards

Knox College will honor four of its alumni -- diplomat Charles Kartman, business school dean Christopher Earley, Galesburg High School graduate and computer engineer Carol Craig, and actor Bree Elrod Novak -- with 2009 Alumni Achievement Awards.

The awards will be presented, and each recipient will speak, at the College's Founders Day Convocation at 5 p.m., Friday, February 13, in the Muelder Reading Room, Seymour Library. The convocation is free and open to the public.

Kartman is a retired foreign service officer whose career has included multi-national negotiations over North Korea's nuclear program. Earley is dean of the University of Connecticut School of Business and an expert in group dynamics. Craig is founder and CEO of a cutting-edge technology firm. Novak, recipient of this year's Young Alumni Achievement Award, is an award-winning actor.

Knox College presents Alumni Achievement Awards annually, as part of its Founders Day celebration. A national liberal arts college with students from 47 states and 48 countries, Knox was established in 1837 by a group of anti-slavery activists who also founded the City of Galesburg. Knox's 'Old Main' is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.

About the 2009 Alumni Achievement Award Recipients:

Charles Kartman has had a long and distinguished career in diplomacy and international security, first with the U.S. Department of State, and then with the multi-national effort to resolve North Korea's nuclear program -- one of today's most sensitive strategic issues.

Kartman earned his bachelor's degree at Knox in history in 1970 and a graduate degree at Georgetown University in 1974, then joined the Department of State in 1975. In his 26 years with the department, his service included U.S. special envoy for the Korean peace talks, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.

After retiring from the Department of State in 2001, Kartman served as executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization. Known as KEDO, the multi-national effort sought to freeze and ultimately dismantle North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for alternate energy sources, including a multi-billion dollar supply of crude oil. Kartman left KEDO in 2005, when North Korea terminated its negotiations with the organization. Most recently, Kartman has been an adjunct senior research associate at Columbia University and a co-leader of the KEDO Oral History Project, a joint program of Columbia University and The Stanley Foundation.

P. Christopher Earley, dean of the University of Connecticut School of Business, is internationally renowned for his cross-cultural research on group dynamics in business. Previously, he served as dean of the Business School at the National University of Singapore and was chair and professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School.

Earley received his bachelor's degree in psychology at Knox in 1980, then completed master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Illinois-Urbana. He has held academic chairs at Nanyang Business School in Singapore and Indiana University; teaching positions at University of California-Irvine, University of Minnesota and University of Arizona; and visiting appointments at the Israel Institute of Technology, Hong Kong University and the Institute of Foreign Trade in Guanghzou, China. He has taught executives and consulted for companies around the world, including Nestle, Cisco Systems, Samsung, General Motors, Unilever, British Aerospace, Mercury Asset Management, and Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals.

Earley's research includes the dynamics of multinational teams, negotiation and conflict, and motivation across cultures. He is the co-author of 10 books, including "Handbook of Organizational Culture," "Multinational Work Teams," "Face, Harmony and Social Structure: An Analysis of Organizational Behavior Across Cultures," and "CQ: Developing Cultural Intelligence at Work." He also has written more than 100 articles and book chapters.

Carol M. Craig is founder, president, and CEO of Craig Technologies, which has grown in less than ten years from one employee to a national engineering and technical services company with more than 170 employees.

Craig enrolled in Knox's 3-2 Dual-Degree Engineering Program, earning a B.A. in computer science from Knox and a B.S. in computer science engineering from the University of Illinois-Urbana in 1989. She also holds a master's in electrical computer engineering from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and has completed Ph.D. coursework in electrical computer engineering at Florida Institute of Technology.

Craig worked as a computer engineer for the Naval Air Warfare Center in Indianapolis, where she helped integrate global positioning and cockpit display systems. Craig then served in the U.S. Navy, specializing in anti-submarine warfare, and was the first woman aviator in her P-3 Orion squadron. After a knee injury ended her naval career, she founded Craig Technologies in 2003. The firm provides high-end custom technical, engineering and IT services solutions to defense and government agencies. Primary service offerings include systems / software engineering, IT support services, web-based application development, data migration, modeling and simulation, courseware development and instructional training. In 2008 Craig was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the Society of Women Engineers, and Outstanding Woman Engineer of the Year by the group's Space Coast Chapter.

Bree Elrod Novak, Young Alumni Achievement Award winner, graduated from Knox in 2000 with a bachelor's degree in political science and College Honors in theatre. She also has a master of fine arts from New York University's Graduate Acting Program. Novak has performed in more than 20 plays in New York and around the country.

Novak has been directed by noted actor Alan Rickman in an Off-Broadway one-woman play, and had roles in several productions with New York City's 52nd Street Project. Critical acclaim includes a San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Award for her work in "The Two Noble Kinsmen" at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre. She recently completed work on the Martin Scorsese movie "Shutter Island."