Mahoning Valley native, JC Penney CEO, gets prestigious Gardner leadership award

CANFIELD

Myron E. Ullman III is not just the chief executive officer of J.C. Penney or the chairman of Mercy Ships International or a member of the Starbucks board and several others.

He also is a recipient of the prestigious John Gardner Legacy of Leadership Award.

And Ullman, 68, who goes by Mike, also is a Mahoning Valley native.

He was born in South Side Hospital and grew up in Canfield, where his education started in one schoolhouse.

“I struggled with reading, and I focused on a lot of activities and organizational [work],” he said.

Ullman, the oldest of seven children, focused his efforts on children’s theater and the Boy Scouts.

Ullman would go on to be an accomplished businessman after graduating from the University of Cincinnati. In his early 30s, he took on the White House Fellows Program that was founded in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson and John W. Gardner. It is considered by many to be America’s most-prestigious program for leadership and public service.

Ullman served one year in the program as the executive assistant to U.S. Trade Representative William E. Brock III.

The experience, he says, opened his eyes and took him down a different path than he would have gone. He imagines he would have stayed in Cincinnati if he didn’t receive the fellowship, but it took him to Washington, D.C.

“By the end of the year, you felt like you had three years of activity,” he said of the fellowship.

The announcement of Ullman as the latest winner of the John Gardner Legacy of Leadership Award came today.

Read more about the award and this Mahoning Valley native in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.