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JCP CEO, Canfield native receives prestigious award
By Kalea Hall
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.
“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 participated in the White House Fellows Program, which 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 hadn’t received 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 Friday. The award is presented to leaders who are alumni of the White House Fellows Program. It is named after Gardner, a past president of the Carnegie Corp. Other award recipients include Retired Gen. Wesley Clark and Retired Gen. Colin Powell. There have been nearly 20 recipients of this award over the years.
“I am very surprised to be selected,” he said.
Ullman was recommended by the other fellows in his program because of his career accomplishments, lifelong dedication to public service and his continuing support of the fellows program.
“Mike Ullman is an incredible individual who received the Legacy of Leadership award because he reflects the enduring qualities of character, determination, insight and responsibility,” said Jennifer Kaplan, director of the president’s commission on White House Fellowships. “He is a selfless leader in the public, private and humanitarian sectors who focuses on the people, companies and causes he champions. In the 32 years since his White House Fellowship, Mike has had an extraordinary career of service to our nation, and it has been an honor to work with him.”
Ullman is considered a veteran of the retail industry. He was CEO of J.C. Penney Co. from 2004 until 2011. In April 2013, the company’s board of directors announced Ullman would rejoin the company as the CEO after former CEO Ron Johnson stepped down.
In 2013, Ullman said although the company had faced a difficult period, “its legacy as a leader in American retailing is an asset that can be built upon and leveraged.”
One of the nation’s largest retailers of apparel and home furnishings, with about 1,020 stores, is now doing “much better,” he said.
Next week, the company will release its first-quarter 2015 earnings.
Ullman has led five global enterprises in the U.S., France and Hong Kong.
He also has served for 13 years as the chairman for Mercy Ships International, a global medical and human-services charity, and is the director of F.I.R.S.T., a nonprofit organization that sponsors high-school robotics competitions.
In addition to serving on the Starbucks board, Ullman is a member of the National Retail Federation board and the Retail Industry Leaders Association.
The University of Cincinnati awarded Ullman the William Howard Taft Medal and the Carl Lindner Medal for outstanding business achievement.
Through all his accomplishments he is reminded what his upbringing in the Valley gave him: Midwestern values.
Although it has taken awhile for the area to see a resurgence, it is “pretty encouraging,” Ullman said.