The 1997 Awardees

William Baker Jr.
(1932-2023)

AB 1954
Chappaqua, NY
William Baker, Jr., chairman of the board of the Baker Companies, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Ihilani Resort, Honolulu, HI on April 19, 1997.

Baker grew up in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, and received his degree from Georgetown in 1954. He earned an MBA from Harvard in 1959 and entered the real estate industry. Following executive positions with the Lusk Corporation and Westchester Hills Properties, he founded, founding the Baker Companies, specializing in residential properties, in 1966. The company has built over 14,000 homes in 106 communities in the intervening years.

Baker was an active member of the Alumni Admissions Program and the fundraising efforts for the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. He served as a member of the Board of Regents in the 1990's.

Eric Hotung CBE
(1926-2017)

BSS 1951, Honorary degree 1986
Hong Kong, HK

Eric Hotung, a Hong Kong industrialist, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Ihilani Resort, Honolulu, HI on April 19, 1997.

Born in 1926 in Hong Kong and raised in Shanghai, Hotung was the grandson of Hong Kong's most prominent family, but lived his early life in relative modesty. In a 2007 Forbes magazine profile, it noted that " After a semi-reconciliation between his father and grandfather around the time he finished high school, Hotung was sent to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Finding himself surrounded by wealthy classmates, he asked his father for a car. The public transportation system should be enough for all of his "legitimate requirements," admonished his father. He graduated in 1951 with a bachelor's degree in social sciences. He then earned his own way into adulthood, working an astonishing variety of jobs from Bible salesman to waiter to construction worker to truck driver, from collecting $300 a week as an administrative assistant at General Motors to putting in time on Wall Street as a securities analyst."

He returned to Hong Kong in 1956 to claim the inheritance of his father and then began to develop a large number of companies in real estate and securities. In the intervening years he has pursued a number of philanthropic ventures, with a careful balance among various cultures and nations. As a result of his efforts for the people of the east Timor, that nation named him an ambassador at large.

Hotung served on the Board of Directors at Georgetown in the 1980's and received an honorary degree in 1986. Amidst a long list of titles and awards listed on his personal web site, the John Carroll Award of 1997 is prominently cited.

In 2000, Hotung made a gift to establish an international law program at the Law Center. In 2004, at the dedication of the Eric Hotung International Law Center, he remarked that "This education of the young must be based on the rule of law on which democracy rests, and without which no civilization can exist... I feel privileged to be a part of this effort where Georgetown is taking a leading role to bring about the rule of law to those whose paths will take them to this University, and from which I hope will shine -- a beacon of light and hope to the children of darkness."

James M. Morita
(1914-1998)

LLB 1940
Honolulu, HI

James Morita, former chairman of Honolulu-based CB Bancshares, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Ihilani Resort, Honolulu, HI on April 19, 1997.

Morita was born in Kealakekua-Kona, HI in 1904. . Following studies at the Mid-Pacific Institute and the University of Hawaii, he received his law degree from Georgetown in 1940. Returning to Hawaii, he served in private practice for 10 years before serving in a number of positions with the City of Honolulu, including city attorney, from 1951 to 1957.

In 1958, he was one of the founders of City Bank, founded to serve Honolulu's working class population. He became president in 1969 and later served as chairman.

In 1995, the Law Center established the James M. Morita Professor of Asian Legal Studies.

James Morita died in 1998 at the age of 84.

Roger W. O'Neill
(1937-2016)

AB 1959
North Palm Beach, FL

Roger O'Neill, former chief executive officer of the Clark-O'Neill Corporation, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Ihilani Resort, Honolulu, HI on April 19, 1997.

O'Neill joined the family business, which provided technology services to the pharmaceutical industry, following his graduation from the College in 1959 and military service thereafter. After starting as a salesman, he moved steadily through the organization and was chairman and CEO when the company was sold to IMS Health in 1988.

A long time member of the Board of Regents, O'Neill chaired the Athletics Committee of the Board of Regents and was closely involved with the development of men's and women's lacrosse into nationally competitive programs at Georgetown.

Roger O'Neill died in 2016 at the age of 79.

Susan K. Rogers
(1941-2018)

BSN 1963 MS 1999
North Palm Beach, FL

Susan Kreutz Rogers, a Washington area health care director, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Ihilani Resort, Honolulu, HI on April 19, 1997.

Following her graduation from Georgetown in 1963, Rogers served as a nurse at Georgetown Hospital for ten years before going into clinical research for Westat, a Rockville based research company. After a number of years in various roles within the regional hospice community, Rogers is the executive director of the District of Columbia Pediatric Palliative Care Collaboration (DCPPCC). Its mission statement reads that DCPPCC "is to create an environment supportive of a health care delivery system that provides optimal care to children with life-threatening illnesses and their families in the District of Columbia metropolitan area across the spectrum of care settings."

The first woman elected president of the Georgetown Club of Metropolitan Washington, Rogers has an extensive record of service to her alumni community. A former member of the Board of Governors of the Alumni Association, she received its William Gaston Award in 1995 for outstanding service by undergraduate alumni.

Susan Rogers died in 2018 at the age of 76.