Dick Marriott began his career in the hospitality industry working as a teenager in his parents’ Hot Shoppes restaurants. He officially joined the Marriott company as a manager in 1965 after graduating from Harvard Business School. A U alum (B.S. ’63, finance), Marriott has been actively engaged with charitable and nonprofit organizations.

Bill Higuchi is a longtime U professor of pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry, where his tenure spanned from 1982 to 2007. His research focused on optimizing drug transport efficiency through the skin, mucosal membranes and within the gastrointestinal tract, and improving drug residence time inside target sites of the body.

For more than four decades, Frances P. Battle has dedicated her life to educating Salt Lake City’s youth. She started her career as an English teacher at Jordan Intermediate School in 1975, taught at Glendale Middle School, served as principal of Northwest Middle School and Bryant Middle School and as the principal at Nibley Park Middle School.

Longtime philanthropist and supporter of education, Camilla Smith is a trustee of many national and community boards, including the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, the PBS Foundation, the NPR Foundation, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the University of California—Berkeley Library and the Science Friday Initiative. She worked in publishing, including for G.P. Putnam’s Sons Publishers and Columbia University Teacher’s College Press and at the New York City Board of Education.

Karen Haight Huntsman, philanthropist and businesswoman, has led her family’s health care and education initiatives since the death of her husband Jon M. Huntsman in 2018. Together they created the Huntsman Foundation, which supports cancer research; mental health treatment and research; public and higher education; and the under-served. Huntsman’s impact has transformed cancer and mental health care at the University of Utah.

Ruth V. Watkins was the 16th and first woman president to lead the University of Utah in its 168-year history. Watkins came to the university in 2013 as senior vice president for Academic Affairs. During her eight years in leadership at the university, she pushed for a focus on student access, success and completion. At the same time, she unified the university’s two campuses and boosted interdisciplinary research efforts.

Jacqueline Thompson is drawing on a lifetime of experience and service as a public school teacher and civil rights advocate in her role as assistant superintendent of the Davis School District. During her career, Thompson has received numerous awards and recognitions, for her civil rights and gender equity work including the Spirit of the American Woman Award for Public Education and the Utah Woman’s Achievement Award from the Governor’s Commission for Women and Families.

Hope Eccles has a passionate commitment to education and educational reform. Her long-standing advocacy for higher education, in particular, arises from her recognition of a college degree’s transformative power to shape career and life success. Eccles has filled many roles in her efforts to improve education in Utah. She served as the co-chair of former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman’s Transition Committee on Education and as his Deputy for Higher Education from 2004-05. She is also the co-chair of Envision Utah’s “My Education, Our Future” committee.

William J. Rutter is often referred to as the “father of biotechnology”—and for good reason. Rutter, an alum of the U, was instrumental in developing the University of California, San Francisco into a major scientific institution and facilitating the growth of a vibrant biotechnology industry in the Bay Area. His lab made key contributions to developing recombinant DNA technology to produce insulin and other hormones from yeast.

Before dedicating himself full time to ecclesiastical service, Russell M. Nelson was a world-renowned surgeon. He helped pioneer open heart surgery at a time when many believed that touching a human heart would cause it to stop beating. He was set apart as the 17th president and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in January 2018. Nelson had served as a member of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles since 1984.

Kristen Ries is a professor emerita of internal medicine and retired infectious diseases physician who was at the forefront of treating patients in Utah at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Ries fearlessly provided loving, compassionate care at a time when the disease was highly stigmatized. Ries was president of the medical staff for the University of Utah Hospital & Clinics and served as the clinical director of infectious diseases/HIV at U of U Health.

May Farr has been a stalwart advocate for mental health services and policies, motivated by her own experiences into making meaningful improvements for other families facing similar challenges. Farr pushed for California’s Mental Health Services Act, which realigned tax dollars to provide behavioral and mental health services.

Gary L. Crocker has reached the pinnacle of medical innovation while keeping grounded in efforts to better the community, support science students and help children in need of therapeutic foster care. Crocker also currently serves as chairman of the board of both Nexus Orthopedics and publicly traded Merrimack Pharmaceutical, which he joined as a board member in 2005.

Robert “Archie” Archuleta, a U alum, was a retired elementary school teacher and principal, former administrative assistant for minority affairs for Salt Lake City, and Latino activist and civil rights advocate. At the time of his death, he was past president of the Board of Trustees for Utah Coalition of La Raza. Archuleta served as president of the coalition for nine years, retiring from that position in 2010.

Raymond Sonji Uno is a trailblazer, civil rights advocate and the first ethnic minority judge in Utah’s history. Uno spent his early life attending a racially segregated school, and in 1942, he was among 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were forced into U.S. government camps during World War II.

Barbara Lindquist Tanner is a community leader, humanitarian, human rights activist, philanthropist and elementary education alumna of the University of Utah. Together with her husband Norman, she established the Barbara L. and Norman C. Tanner Center for Nonviolent Human Rights Advocacy in the College of Social and Behavioral Science at the University of Utah.