Please join the Northern Palm Beach County Chamber of Commerce in congratulating President John Kelly of Florida Atlantic University on being selected as the 2016 Gaeta Chairman’s Award of Excellence recipient. This prestigious award, established in 2004, honors individuals and organizations that have provided the framework for the Northern Palm Beach County community. Since it’s creation, twelve deserving leaders have been recipients of this award, including last year’s recipients Barbara & Jack Nicklaus.
We invite you to join us in honoring President Kelly at the Annual Leadership Awards Dinner, widely known as Northern Palm Beach County’s premier business event, on Thursday, June 2nd at PGA National Resort & Spa. Throughout the evening we will also be honoring other outstanding and exemplary exemplary organizations and individuals within our community. Click here for more information about this exciting event.
About President John Kelly
John Kelly was named president of Florida Atlantic University in January 2014, becoming the seventh president in the University’s 50-year history. Upon his arrival at FAU, President Kelly declared his intention to make FAU the fastest-improving university in America, and within two years it became clear that goal was within reach. In 2016, the Florida Board of Governors ranked FAU the top-performing public university in the state based on the Board’s performance-based funding metrics across 11 participating universities. That ranking was up from second-to-last in 2014. The University’s meteoric rise in the rankings, based on a set of 10 key metrics, makes FAU eligible to receive a large share of performance-based funding from the Florida Legislature.
President Kelly oversees an institution that currently serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students on six campuses and sites along more than 100 miles of Florida’s east coast. One of the largest employers in South Florida, FAU has more than 3,000 employees, including 1,000 dedicated faculty members, and an operating budget in excess of $700 million. The University has an annual economic impact of $6.3 billion and is conducting millions of dollars’ worth of funded research in such critically important fields as drug discovery, biotechnology, ocean engineering and marine science.
A highlights of President Kelly’s first two years in office is the announcement of an agreement with Scripps Florida and the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience to establish a unique partnership on the Jupiter campus. The program offers FAU students the rare and valuable opportunity to work side by side with some of the world’s most distinguished biomedical researchers, including Nobel Laureates.