{"id":1108,"date":"2014-09-23T09:20:12","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T14:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/?page_id=1108"},"modified":"2020-06-12T13:20:51","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T18:20:51","slug":"erroll-b-davis-jr","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/erroll-b-davis-awards\/erroll-b-davis-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"Biography of Erroll B. Davis, Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t\t
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\"ErrollThe Erroll B. Davis, Jr. Achievement Award, given by the UW System Administration and funded by an endowment contributed by Alliant Energy Foundation in 2006, was established in honor of Erroll B. Davis, Jr.\u2019s leadership in both the corporate world and in the realm of public education.\u00a0 Davis is the first black leader of a \u201cBusiness Week 1,000\u201d company and has a special connection to the University of Wisconsin System as a member of UW System Board of Regents from 1987 to 1994.<\/p>\n

Erroll B. Davis, Jr. joined Alliant Energy in 1998 as president and chief executive officer, and began serving as chairman of the board of Alliant Energy Cooperation- an energy holding company with $8.3 billion in total assets and annual operating revenues of $3 billion at that time- in 2000.\u00a0 Prior to the creation of Alliant Energy, Davis served as president and CEO of WPL Holdings from 1990 to 1998. From 1978 to 1990, he rose through the senior management ranks at Wisconsin Power and Light Company, starting as vice president of finance and ending as CEO and president.<\/p>\n

Davis retired from his dual roles as president and CEO of Alliant in July 2005 and retained the chairman\u2019s post until his move to the University System of Georgia in 2006.\u00a0 Serving as Chancellor to the University System of Georgia, Davis was responsible for the state\u2019s 35 public colleges and universities, approximately 302,000 students, 40,200 faculty and staff, and an annual budget of approximately $6.3 billion.\u00a0 In July 2011, Erroll B. Davis, Jr. was appointed interim superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, a system of 50,000 students and 6,000 employees with an annual operating budget of $578 million.\u00a0 He served in this capacity until 2014.<\/p>\n

Davis\u2019 higher education experiences includes the previously mentioned service as a member of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents and as a former chairman of the board of trustees of Carnegie Mellon University, of which he is a life member. A native of Pittsburgh, Davis earned a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1965, and an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Chicago in 1967. He is a member of the board of directors of General Motors and Union Pacific Corp., and serves on the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) board and on the advisory board of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) along with numerous professional associations and civic organizations. He is a former member of the U.S. Olympic Committee Board (2004-2008) and the University of Chicago Board of Trustees.<\/p>\n

Davis and his wife, Elaine, established the Davis Family Foundation, which makes annual grants to numerous students. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including recognition as one of Georgia Trend magazine\u2019s \u201c100 Most Influential Georgians,\u201d the Atlanta Business Chronicle\u2019s \u201c100 Most Influential Atlantans,\u201d one of the \u201c75 Most Powerful Blacks in Corporate America\u201d by Black Enterprise magazine, one of the \u201cTop 50 Blacks in Technology\u201d at the Black Engineer of the Year 2005 Awards Conference and the Carnegie Mellon Alumni Distinguished Service Award in 2004. Davis also was named one of the \u201c50 Most Powerful Black Executives in America\u201d by Fortune magazine in 2002 and received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Chicago\u2019s Graduate School of Business in 1993, the same year he received a Bronze Medal in Financial World\u2019s \u201cCEO of the Year\u201d competition. In addition, Davis was honored by the magazine U.S. Black Engineer as the \u201cBlack Engineer of the Year\u201d in 1988.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"parent":495,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1108","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","cfct-can-haz-build"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6489,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1108\/revisions\/6489"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/grants-awards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}