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FOR RELEASE: May 10, 2005

CONTACT: Jean McHale
  ISM Public Relations
  800/888-6276 ext. 3143
  jmchale@ism.ws

ISM Honors Robert A. Kemp, Ph.D., C.P.M., With J. Shipman Gold Medal Award

TEMPE, Ariz., May 10, 2005 — The Institute for Supply Management™ (ISM) today presented the J. Shipman Gold Medal Award to Robert A. Kemp, Ph.D., C.P.M., at ISM's 90th Annual International Supply Management Conference and Educational Exhibit in San Antonio. Each year, the profession's highest honor is presented to an individual who typifies modest, unselfish, sincere and persistent efforts for the advancement of purchasing and supply management. The J. Shipman Gold Medal Award was created by the Purchasing Management Association of New York in 1931 to honor Johnson Shipman, a pioneer in the profession.

Dr. Kemp is president of Kemp Enterprises in Des Moines, Iowa. A nationally recognized author, lecturer and consultant, his supply management career spans nearly four decades. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers named Kemp chief of the Industrial Preparedness Section on the U.S. Army staff in the Pentagon from 1969 to 1971. The section developed and supervised plans concerning mobilization operations, maintenance, and preparedness for U.S. Army arsenals as well as government owned and operated ammunition and equipment plants.

Kemp was drafted into military service in 1950 and served two tours of duty with the elite U.S. Army airborne divisions as a paratrooper and airborne engineer. He is a rated senior parachutist. Without hesitation, Kemp says the early assignments of his military career yielded lessons in operations management and responsible supply management that have never lost their relevance. "One quickly learns to appreciate and assess risk and component quality when jumping from the door of an airplane in flight or watching heavy equipment coming down on two to five canopies."

Like other J. Shipman Gold Medal Award winners Dr. Kemp has provided able assistance and guidance to purchasing professionals in their endeavors. After his retirement as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Army in 1973, Kemp embarked on a variety of research, consulting and academic pursuits — often simultaneously. He earned his doctorate and MBA degrees from Arizona State University. Dr. Kemp taught university courses on international management, world trade, international business, production management and business strategies in the College of Business at Drake University from 1982 to 1995. He became professor emeritus and retired from Drake in 1995. He has delivered seminars to national and global audiences on topics including: purchasing procedures in international business; supply management; maintenance, repair and operations (MRO); small business; and ethics. In addition, he led a team of professionals from the National Association of Purchasing Management (now ISM) and the National Contract Management Association to develop and write a training course in the use of commercial business practices to train more than 5,000 Department of Defense personnel.

In 1982, Kemp joined NAPM—Central Iowa, Inc. (now ISM—Central Iowa, Inc.) where he served in volunteer positions including professional development chair, education chair, and international committee chair. He earned certification as a Certified Purchasing Manager (C.P.M.) in 1985 and was granted lifetime certification in 1990. In 1988, Dr. Kemp was appointed to NAPM's Academic Planning Committee and served for the next seven years, chairing the committee from 1993 to 1995. He organized and chaired the NAPM Volunteer Training Committee from 1995 to 1996. In 1997, Kemp was elected NAPM national president.

The 2005 J. Shipman Gold Medal Award recipient has been both a witness and a catalyst to progress of the supply management profession. "We have developed rapidly from a back room order-taking cost center and tactical business function to a strategic business process," Kemp states. "Now, our strategic leadership role concentrating on lean thinking and operations with agility, adaptability and alignment, long-term supplier development, total cost management, and rapid development of our own human resources puts us center stage in many organizations. Equally important, all of this is now an exciting global business process."

ISM joins the members of the 2004-2005 J. Shipman Gold Medal Award Committee — Richard L. Jackson, C.P.M., A.P.P., chair; Ralph G. Kauffman, Ph.D., C.P.M.; H. Ervin Lewis, C.P.M.; Alan R. Raedels, Ph.D., C.P.M.; and Elaine N. Whittington, C.P.M., A.P.P., CPCM — in congratulating Robert A. Kemp, Ph.D., C.P.M., on this prestigious award.


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