Chancellor
to Deliver Address at GHC Graduation
Chancellor of the University
System of Georgia, Erroll B. Davis, Jr., will deliver the keynote address
to graduates at the Georgia Highlands College commencement ceremonies
scheduled for Friday, May 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Forum in Rome.
Davis came to the USG in 2006
from Wisconsin, where he served as chairman of the board of Alliant
Energy. He had taken the role of chairman after serving as president
and chief executive officer for seven years. Before his tenure
at Alliant, he worked for many years at Wisconsin Power and Light, where
he rose through the ranks. When he left for Alliant in 1998, he
was serving as president and CEO of WPL Holdings.
The chancellor can also claim
solid experience in higher education. From 1987 to 1994 he was
a member of the University of Wisconsin's Board of Regents.
He has served as a chairman of the board of trustees at Carnegie Mellon
University, of which he is a lifetime member. Presently, he serves
on the board of trustees of the University of Chicago and as a member
of the Southern Regional Education Board. He and his wife Elaine
created the Davis Family Foundation to provide annual grants to needy
students.
Davis has been the recipient
of numerous honors and awards, including recognition as one of Georgia
Trend magazine's "100 Most Influential Georgians" in 2007, the
Atlanta Business Chronicle's "100 Most Influential Atlantans"
in 2006 and 2007, one of the "75 Most Powerful Blacks in Corporate
America" in 2005 by Black Enterprise magazine, one of the "Top 50
Blacks in Technology" at the Black Engineer of the Year 2005 Awards
Conference and the Carnegie-Mellon Alumni Distinguished Service Award
in 2004. Davis also was named one of the "50 Most Powerful Black Executives
in America" by Fortune magazine in 2002 and received the Distinguished
Alumnus Award from the University of Chicago's Graduate School of
Business in 1993, the same year he received a Bronze Medal in Financial
World's "CEO of the Year" competition. In addition, Davis was
honored by the magazine U.S. Black Engineer as the "Black Engineer
of the Year" in 1988.
Davis holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Chicago.
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Georgia Highlands College is a two-year unit of the University System of Georgia, serving more than 4,700 students at five sites in Rome, Cartersville, Marietta and Carrollton.