Academy of Achievement

Academy of Achievement

Formation	1961
Type	Non-profit organization
Headquarters	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Chairman & CEO	Wayne R. Reynolds
Vice Chairman	Catherine B. Reynolds
Website	www.achievement.org

The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a nonprofit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest-achieving people in diverse fields^[1] and gives them the opportunity to meet one another.^[2] The academy also brings together the leaders with promising graduate students for mentorship.^[3][4] It hosts an International Achievement Summit, which ends with an awards ceremony, during which new members are inducted into the academy.^[1][5][6]

History

Chuck Berry presenting Golden Plate Award to Bob Dylan - 2003 Academy of Achievement Summit - DC

Founded in 1961 by Sports Illustrated and LIFE magazine photographer Brian Reynolds, the Academy of Achievement recognizes high achievers in public service, business, science and exploration, sports, and the arts.^[4][7] Reynolds established the academy after realizing that the famous people he photographed from different fields did not usually get to meet one another. A 1989 San Francisco Chronicle article called the organization "little-publicized but immensely powerful". According to William DeVries, who helped develop the first artificial heart, "It is a social network. Like a club. Now I can call Chuck Yeager up, or Philip 'Bo' Knight, and they'll return my calls, ask me out places. I promised myself I would never ask the people here for money, but I know a lot of scientists who do."^[2] Reynolds also wanted to bring together highly accomplished leaders with promising students, to inspire them.^[8][9] At the 1990 summit in Chicago, for example, student delegates "rubbed shoulders" with Ronald Reagan, Maya Angelou and Michael Jordan,^[10] and in 1995, students met with inductees including George H. W. Bush, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Lady Bird Johnson, Robin Williams, Mike Krzyzewski and Rosa Parks.^[11]

Academy members and summit attendees have also included Jimmy Carter, Colin Powell, Maya Lin, Barbra Streisand, Mikhail Gorbachev, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas.^[12] In 2005, The Washington Post called the summit "one of the world's most dazzling gatherings of international celebrities - Nobel Prize winners, heads of state, star athletes, titans of industry, scientists and entertainers."^[13]

In 1985, Reynolds's son, Wayne Reynolds, took over the leadership, becoming the executive director of the academy.^[2] In 1999, he was selected as the board chairman.^[1][7][14] In the 1990s, Reynolds moved the organization's headquarters from Malibu, California, to Washington, D.C.^[15]

In 2007, the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation donated $9 million to the academy.^{[15][14][16][17]}

Oprah Winfrey presents Sidney Poitier with the Gold Medal of the Academy of Achievement in Los Angeles in 2014.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Steven Tyler at dinner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the American Academy of Achievement's 2019 International Achievement Summit

Achievement Summit

2006 Summit Hosts Steven Spielberg and George Lucas welcome the academy delegates and members to the International Achievement Summit in Los Angeles

2012 Aretha Franklin is joined onstage by Academy Awards Council member General Colin Powell during her performance to close the evening of the 50th annual Banquet of the Golden Plate ceremonies in Washington, D.C.

The annual summit is attended by graduate students and young innovators from the U.S. and overseas, like Sergey Brin and Larry Page, computer science graduate students who later founded Google.^[18][19] The summits were originally attended by high school students chosen for their academic achievement and extracurricular activities.^[1] Preceding the awards dinner are three days of panels, presentations and informal dialogues between the students and inductees. Many inductees return multiple years to participate in the panels, programming and networking.^[20]

On September 9, 1961, the academy hosted its first International Achievement Summit.^[2] Held in Monterey, California,^[21] it included a "Banquet of the Golden Plate" award ceremony, named for the gold-plate service used for special occasions by the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, which provided the service for the ceremony. Physicist Edward Teller was the keynote speaker, and warned of the United States' poor performance in the atomic arms race. Awardees at the inaugural ceremony included engineers Charles Stark Draper and Kelly Johnson, General Douglas MacArthur and film director William Wyler.^[2][22] Other attendees included Nobel laureate Willard Libby (Chemistry, 1960) and future Nobel laureate Luis Walter Alvarez (Physics, 1968).^[23] The first honorees were chosen by a national board of governors, but subsequent honorees have been selected by the Golden Plate Awards Council, which consists of Academy awardees.^[21][22][24]

At the 13th annual summit, held in June 1974 in Salt Lake City, Academy member Leon Jaworski, the Special Prosecutor overseeing the Watergate investigations at the time, said in his keynote address that he expected to win a Supreme Court case to get subpoenaed tapes from President Richard Nixon.^[25] Among the awardees at the summit were actor James Stewart, professional athlete John Havlicek,^[26] and Nobel Laureate chemist Paul Flory.^[27]

The 25th annual American Academy of Achievement Summit took place in 1986 in Washington, D.C.^[28] The ceremony was addressed by former inductees Chuck Yeager and Erma Bombeck, and was attended by a group of 390 high school graduates assembled from across the U.S.^[28] New members admitted to the academy at the event included boxer Muhammad Ali,^[28] filmmaker Steven Spielberg, Nobel Prize laureate Isidor Isaac Rabi,^[28] opera singer Leontyne Price,^[28] and country singer Loretta Lynn,^[28][29] the first country music artist ever admitted into the academy.^[29]

The 2002 summit was held in Dublin, and was hosted by then-Taoiseach (prime minister) and inductee Bertie Ahern. Former President Bill Clinton held private talks during the summit with Irish nationalist politician John Hume that reportedly concerned the conflict in Northern Ireland as well as other international conflicts.^[30] New inductees into the academy in 2002 included Clinton, U2 lead singer Bono,^[31] and Afghan president Hamid Karzai.^[30]

The 50th-anniversary American Academy of Achievement Summit was held in Washington D.C., in October 2012, and was attended by delegates from 29 countries.^[32] The five-day event included a dinner at the Supreme Court of the United States, which four of the justices attended.^[32] Newly inducted academy members who spoke at the meeting included then-United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Nobel laureates Roger Tsien and Adam Riess.^[32][33] In 2012, Ray Dalio received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, during the International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C.^[34][33][35]

Ray Dalio at the International Achievement Summit's 2012 Banquet of the Golden Plate reception in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Barbara, and two Academy of Achievement student delegates, Philip Thigo of Kenya and Julia Fan Li of Canada.

The 2021 awards ceremony took place in Los Angeles on December 23. Among the awardees was Katalin Karikó,^[36] a biochemist whose research with Drew Weissman underpins the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.^[37]

Notable recipients of the Golden Plate Award

Recipient	Category	Year inducted	Notes
Hank Aaron	Sports	1977	[38][39]
Muhammad Ali	Sports	1986	[5][40]
Neil Armstrong	Science & Exploration	1973	[41][39]
Stephen D. Bechtel Sr.	Business	1976	[42]
Jeff Bezos	Business	2001	[43][40]
Simone Biles	Sports	2017	[44][40]
Sergey Brin	Business	2004	[5][45][40]
Bear Bryant	Sports	1979	[46]
Jimmy Carter	Public Service	1984	[47]
Ray Charles	The Arts	1975	[48][39]
Bill Clinton	U.S. President	2002	[49][50]
Francis Crick	Science	1987	[6][40]
Joan Didion	The Arts	2006	[51]
Bob Dylan	The Arts	2003	[1][40]
Clint Eastwood	Cinema and the Performing Arts	1980	[52][50]
Larry Ellison	Business	1997	[53]
Henry Fonda	Cinema and the Performing Arts	1979	[54][50]
Gerald Ford	Public Service	1971	[55][40]
Aretha Franklin	The Arts	1999	[1][40]
Bill Gates	Business	1992	[56][40][57]
Ruth Bader Ginsburg	Public Service	1995	[11][1][40]
Jane Goodall	Explorer	1987	[58][50][59]
Mikhail Gorbachev	Public Service	2000	[12][40]
Wayne Gretzky	Sports	1982	[60][40]
Alex Haley	Author	1977	[48][50]
Jim Henson	The Arts	1987	[61][39]
Audrey Hepburn	The Arts	1991	[62][40]
Sir Edmund Hillary	Science & Exploration	1973	[30]
Grace Murray Hopper	Science & Exploration	1983	[63]
Kazuo Ishiguro	The Arts	2017	[64]
Steve Jobs	Business	1982	[65][66][40]
Michael Jordan	Sports	1990	[67][50]
Jack Kilby	Business	1970	[68]
Coretta Scott King	Public Service	1997	[1][6][40]
Phil Knight	Business	1989	[69]
Ralph Lauren	Business	1989	[44][40]
Richard Leakey	Science & Exploration	2007	[70]
John Lewis	Public Service	2004	[71][72]
George Lucas	The Arts	1989	[2][1][73][40]
John D. MacArthur	Business	1977	[48][39]
Mickey Mantle	Sports	1969	[5][40]
Willie Mays	Sports	1975	[48][50]
Toni Morrison	The Arts	2005	[74]
Tenzing Norgay	Science & Exploration	1973	[75][39][76]
Barack Obama	Public Service	2007	[77][78]
Sandra Day O’Connor	Public Service	1987	[79]
Larry Page	Business	2004	[5][40]
Rosa Parks	Public Service	1995	[73][11][40]
Dolly Parton	Cinema and the Performing Arts	1992	[80][67]
Linus Pauling	Science & Exploration	1979	[41][39]
Walter Payton	Sports	1988	[81]
Shimon Peres	Public Service	2003	[1][40]
Wendell Phillips (archaeologist)	Oil Concessionaire and Archaeologist	1972	[82]
Ronald Reagan	U.S. President	1990	[83][50]
Bill Russell	Sports	2008	[84][85]
Carl Sagan	Science & Exploration	1975	[86]
Jonas Salk	Medicine	1976	[48][50]
Martin Scorsese	Cinema and the Performing Arts	1991	[87][50]
Stephen Sondheim	The Arts	2005	[74]
Steven Spielberg	The Arts	1986	[88][66][6][40]
Elizabeth Taylor	The Arts	1985	[89][90][39]
Wayne Thiebaud	The Arts	1987	[91]
Desmond Tutu	Champion of Human Rights	2003	[32][50]
John Wayne	The Arts	1970	[92][65][40]
Elie Wiesel	Public Service	1996	[43][40]
Oprah Winfrey	Business	1989	[2][40]
Henry Winkler	The Arts	1980	[93]
John Wooden	Sports	1976	[42][94]
Stevie Wonder	The Arts	1977	[48][39]
Vladimir K. Zworykin	Science & Exploration	1967	[95]

References

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External links

• Official website
• Charity Navigator ranking