2011-2012 Early Career Achievement Award Winners

The Early Career Achievement Awards celebrate outstanding young alumni who have demonstrated innovative and responsible professional leadership and the potential for future distinction. Nominations are accepted each spring through the College of Business website. Congratulations to this year’s honorees, who will be recognized at Homecoming 2011.

Trevor Chapman ’05 is a business teacher and cooperative education coordinator at Normal West High School, where he teaches introduction to business, business management, personal finance, and computer applications. Chapman also serves as an instructional assistant professor for pre-service teachers at Illinois State. Chapman earned his master’s degree in curriculum and instruction at ISU and will complete his master’s in educational administration in December.

Eric Cook MBA ’00 is the online program manager at State Farm Insurance, providing leadership for 35 website and mobile application projects with a combined budget of $43 million. He has completed Charter Financial Consultant and Project Management Professional designations and is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Peoria Air National Guard. Cook received the Red Cross Heroes Award for bringing supplies to refugee camps, schools, and hospitals and the Department of Defense Seven Seals Award for supporting soldiers transitioning to civilian jobs.

Jefferson Gilkeson MS ’05 is an information technology audit manager with the NASA Office of Inspector General. He and his team conduct cyber-security audits of NASA’s information technology security program. Gilkeson has won numerous awards during his federal service for his skill in leading people, managing projects, and producing high-quality audit reports including an EPA Bronze Medal (2008), a NASA Superior Service Award (2010), and a NASA Honor Award (2011). Gilkerson is a licensed public accountant and certified information systems auditor.

Todd Gordon ’00 is an associate managing director/portfolio manager at The PrivateBank where he is involved in underwriting and the development of a new business banking group. Previously, he worked for Bank of America/Merrill Lynch in a variety of roles, most recently as a senior approval officer/vice president underwriting, structuring, and approving commercial loans with $5 million of single signing authority.

Aaron Harmon ’02 is an assistant vice president within ACE USA’s management liability division focusing on directors and officers (D&O) liability insurance for publicly traded companies. He manages the publicly traded D&O group for the Midwest and Southwest regions. Employed by ACE since 2003, Harmon has held leadership assignments in both national and regional account segments, including two years with ACE’s Atlanta office as the Southwest Regional Manager for the management liability division. He earned his M.B.A. in finance from DePaul University in 2007.

Lucas Hellmer ’03, M.B.A. ’05, is a human resource specialist leading benefits, compensation, performance management, and safety training for Farnsworth Group, Inc., a nationwide full-service engineering and architecture firm. He received his professional in human resource certification in 2009, and has served as an executive board member for the Bloomington-Normal Human Resource Council for several years.

Michael P. Heneghan ’99 is an assistant portfolio manager to Richard Driehaus at Driehaus Capital Management in Chicago. Before joining the firm in August 2009, he was an equity analyst on the special situations team at Goldman Sachs and worked at Merrill Lynch for four years. Heneghan earned his M.B.A. from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He joined the Illinois State Finance Department’s Educational Investment Fund Board of Directors in 2009.

Tim Holbrook ’03 is the production accountant for the Lyric Opera of Chicago where he oversees budgeting and contracting for all technical elements (scenery, costumes, wigs, swords, etc.) of Lyric’s eight-production season. Holbrook earned a master’s degree in performing arts administration from New York University and worked for the producer and general manager of the Broadway productions of The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables and as the business manager for the off-Broadway theatre company Primary Stages.

Ken Kayser ’04 is the founder and president of Ken’s Landscaping & Supply Inc., an Illinois Landscape Contractors Association award-winning landscape construction company in the Chicagoland area. Kayser started his business at 16 and has grown to more than 15 employees and more than $2 million in annual sales. The company now focuses on large-scale projects involving outdoor living spaces, drainage solutions, and landscape installation. The company also owns and operates its own plant nursery in southern Wisconsin.

Anthony Knierim ’06 is a thought leader in the use of Web 2.0 technologies, emerging online social media, and mobile strategies in the HR outsourcing realm. He leads global digital strategy for the Outsourcing business at Aon Hewitt, the largest human capital consulting and outsourcing provider in the world. Knierim founded and serves as senior strategic advisor for RadMatter, where students tackle real-world challenges and build life experience to advance their position in the marketplace. He lives in San Francisco and is active in organizations focused on HR innovation including HRMAC, SHRM, and AMA.

Scott Kording ’02 is managing attorney of Kording & Hall, LLP, an active general practice law firm representing individuals and small businesses in all manner of cases in state and federal court, including criminal defense, civil litigation, and appeals. He also teaches courses in trial advocacy and family law and coaches the Mock Trial Team as an instructional assistant professor with Illinois State’s Department of Politics and Government. Kording received his law degree from the University of Illinois in 2005 and then served four years there as an adjunct professor of law teaching trial skills.

Alicia Londos ’04 is a senior systems analyst consultant for Accenture where she has managed and participated in internal international consulting projects concerning the SAP platform. These have focused on release management, cutover/deployment management, customization of SAP to meet multicountry, international, and local tax requirements, detailed data conversions for fixed assets and financial data, and implementation and customization of new SAP products within the existing SAP application platform. Londos previously worked as a financial analyst for Cohen Financial and as a marketing analyst for Motorola.

Sarah Loomis ’05 is a mining industry field representative for Caterpillar Inc., and is responsible for roughly $150 million annually in mining machine sales. Loomis spends most days in the field with coal mining dealerships and companies in the eastern United States, where the majority of the nation’s coal used to generate electricity is extracted with Caterpillar equipment. A member of the Illinois State Golf Team, Loomis was a member of the Illinois State Athletic Board after graduation and serves on the Central Indiana Executive Women’s Golf Association Board.

Jonathan Nikols ’99 is a region vice-president of sales for NCR Corporation, where he oversees all services sales planning, strategy, and sales execution activities for North America. He leads and develops sales talent within the IT services industry providing customers with creative solutions to their business opportunities. Nikols has earned many industry certifications in executive sales leadership and development and has achieved President Club sales awards.

Matthew Schell ’03 is a senior manager for Crowe Horwath LLP where he provides audit and consulting services to private and publicly traded financial institutions from less than $100 million to in excess of $100 billion in assets. Schell has assisted his firm in developing the New York City metropolitan market from a new de novo office to presently in excess of a one-third market share in his target industry.

Matt Senger ’04 is a research director with Affinnova, which is revolutionizing how the world innovates via a patented IDDEA evolutionary algorithm that identifies top innovation priorities. Prior to that, he spent five years with Nielsen BASES. Senger earned a master’s in marketing research in 2006 from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, where he received the Frank Stagger’s Award for Excellence in marketing research. He serves as adjunct professor of marketing at St. Xavier University.

Jake Thompson ’07 is an audit and tax senior for Sikich LLP. The company has more than 350 employees in 10 Midwest offices. As an auditor, Thompson services clients in a wide variety of industries including manufacturing, construction, and not-for-profit. He is involved in the preparation and review of many individual and corporate tax returns. Thompson received the Excel Award from the Illinois CPA Society for outstanding performance on the 2007 Uniform CPA Examination.