2008 U.S.-Baltic Gala Award Honorees

Baltic Statesmanship Award
President Toomas Hendrik Ilves

President Ilves, 54, was born in Sweden and educated in the United States.  He began his public service career in 1984  as an analyst with Radio Free Europe, and nine years later  returned stateside as ambassador to the United States for a newly independent Estonia. He was leader of Estonia’s Social Democratic Party in the 1990s, and as a member of the European Parliament from April 2004 to 2006, he was tireless in working to bridge the transatlantic rift after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

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U.S.-Baltic Excellence in Innovation Award
Steve Jurvetson

Son of Estonian exiles, Steve Jurvetson is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher, a leading venture capital firm with affiliate offices around the world. He was the founding VC investor in Hotmail, Interwoven, and Kana. He also led the firm's investments in Tradex and Cyras, acquired for $8 billion. Current Board positions include Synthetic Genomics, IMMI, NeoPhotonics, and ZARS.

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Baltic Image Enhancement Award
Ms. Carmen Kass

After a start in her native Estonia, Carmen Kass moved to Paris at the age of 18. She received exposure on the cover of magazines such as L'Officiel and Vogue (France), Image (UK), Madame Figaro, Vogue (France), and Vogue (US). Kass has posed for Calvin Klein, Chanel, Donna Karan, General Motors, Guy Laroche, Krizia, Gap, and Versace, among others. In 2004, she joined Estonia's ruling Res Publica party and ran for the European Parliament.

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Baltic Cultural Achievement Award
Jonas Mekas

One of America’s leading figures in avant-garde filmmaking, Mekas was born in Semeniskiai, Lithuania, in 1922. During World War II he and his brother, Adolfas, were imprisoned in a forced labor camp in Nazi Germany. After the War, he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz and in 1949 emigrated to the U.S. In 1954, he became editor in chief of Film Culture; in 1958 he began writing his "Movie Journal" column for the Village Voice; in 1962 he co-founded the Film- Makers' Cooperative (FMC) and in 1964 the Filmmakers' Cinematheque, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world's largest and most important repositories of avant-garde films.

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Baltic Corporate Citizen Award
Eesti Energia

Eesti Energia (Estonian Energy) is a state-owned company engaged in the production, sale and transmission of electric and thermal power. It is the largest energy company in the Baltics, and through the imaginative leadership of Sandor Liive, 38, chairman of the company’s Management Board, has emerged as one of the best managed and productive energy enterprises in the region. The main raw material for energy production – oil shale – is extracted from mines owned by the company, a resource that the Soviet Union had used to provide electric power for the former Leningrad and much of the Soviet northwest. Eesti Energia is also involved in the construction and maintenance of other energy systems, and has called on Estonian Research and Development institutes and technology intensive companies, possibly with partners abroad, to find better and alternative ways for power generation that save energy, and thus the environmental resources of the Baltic area. The company has announced that it will give grants of up to one-million-dollars to finance such partnerships. With its strength and flexibility Estonian Energy stands up well to the possibility of the Russian big-oil industry attempting to turn the Baltic nations into energy dependencies. The company projects that they will serve energy to two million customers in the region by 2015.

 

 

Distinguished USBF Exchange Program Alumnus Award
Mr. Eriks Zunda, Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

 

 

 

 

Introduction of President Ilves to be given by former U.S. Ambassador to Estonia  Aldona Z.  Wos, M.D. (2004-2006)

U.S. ambassador to Estonia from 2004 to 2006, Aldona Wos personally visited all 15 Estonian counties, 80 high schools and countless other Estonian institutions. For her service and dedication, Wos was given the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class, by President  Aldona Wos was born in Warsaw, Poland. She earned her medical degree at the Warsaw Medical Academy, and completed her internship and residency in pulmonary medicine in New York.