May 19, 2005

WILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY HONORS JOHNSONS

WITH LEADERSHIP AWARD

SALEM – Senator Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) and Becky Johnson, her mother, are this year’s winners of the Glen L. Jackson Leadership Award from the Atkinson School of Business Management at Willamette University for their entrepreneurial and community accomplishments.

The award was presented to Senator Johnson and Mrs. Johnson at the school’s graduation ceremony last weekend. Gerry Frank, head of the selection committee, called Senator and Mrs. Johnson models of how business people can positively help Oregon.

“They each have an exceptional record of working with small businesses and charitable groups on both sides of the Cascades,” said Frank.  “In addition to her legislative work on the Joint Ways and Means Committee, Senator Johnson was the coordinating director and the chairman of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration and continues to be a strong advocate in Salem for her constituents.”

The Johnsons, Frank said, “are just great ladies.”

Senator Johnson said she “was deeply honored” by the prestigious award, and said that she “could not think of a higher honor than sharing this award with my mother, Becky Johnson, in the presence of this distinguished graduating class.”

The Glenn L. Jackson Leadership Award was created by Willamette University and its Atkinson Graduate School of Management in 1984 to recognize extraordinary entrepreneurial leadership on behalf of the State of Oregon.  The award recognizes public and private leadership in the tradition of the late Glenn L. Jackson, an Oregonian who served as Chairman of Pacific Power and Light (now, PacifiCorp), Chairman of the Oregon Transportation Commission and owner of several enterprises, including Air Oregon and a chain of newspapers. 

This is first time in the history of the award that a mother and daughter have received it.  Past recipients have been such business leaders as Frank, Oran Robertson of Fred Meyer, Michael Powell of Powell’s Books, and George Passadore of Wells Fargo Bank.