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Kase L. Lawal is a pillar of the American business community.
His corporate success and personal generosity have opened
doors for countless other individuals and businesses. He embodies
the ideals of the Nation Builder Award.
Ask people to describe the leadership of Kase L. Lawal and
you will hear a litany of praise. Exemplary. Dedicated. Instrumental.
Pioneering. Tireless. But if words somehow don't convey enough,
consider some hard numbers. With over 1000 employees
and approximately one billion dollars in annual revenue, Lawal's
company, CAMAC Holdings, Inc. was recently named by Black
Enterprise as being America's largest African-American owned
business.
As chairman and chief executive officer
of CAMAC, Lawal has guided this oil exploration, refining
and trading company to international prominence. His expertise
in the field of international energy has led to appointments
by both the Clinton and Bush Administrations to the United
States Trade Advisory Committee on Africa, where he is responsible
for crafting African trade policy.
Kase L. Lawal also serves as Vice Chairman
of the Port of Houston Authority Commission. The Port of Houston
Authority owns and operates the public facilities located
along the 25-mile Port of Houston. Each year more than 6,600
vessels call at the port, which ranks it first in the U.S.
in foreign waterborne tonnage, second in overall total tonnage,
and sixth largest in the world. The Port Authority plays a
vital role in ensuring navigational safety along the Houston
Ship Channel, which has been instrumental in Houston's development
as a center of international trade.
Lawal has spearheaded multiple initiatives to secure and expand
the port's economic vitality. He has negotiated friendship
agreements with over twenty global ports, including several
in Africa and South America. These relationships strengthen
Houston's status as a world-class port and bring vital import
and export business to Houston. In connection with this, he
worked with the Texas state legislature in 2001 to create
the Port of Houston Authority International Corporation. This
corporation provides management consulting and technical assistance
to foreign ports. Lawal also helped to establish PHA's Small
Business Development Program, which distributed $6 million
in grants last year and provides Houston-area small businesses
with contracts at the port and practical assistance in accessing
new markets.
You might assume that a businessman of such
stature and international prominence would long have forgotten
his beginnings. Not so. The single largest alumni gift ever
received by Texas Southern University, where Lawal studied
Chemical Engineering, bore the signature of this man. The
million dollar gift will establish the Kase and Eileen Lawal
Center for International Business Development in the Jesse
H. Jones School of Business.
Tonight we recognize Kase L. Lawal for his
exceptional corporate success and his diligent service to
the port and city of Houston. We recognize him for the productive
financial accords he has forged abroad, and the philanthropic
legacy he is building at home. He is truly deserving of the
Nation Builder Award.
WHETHER IN THE
PUBLIC OR PRIVATE SPHERE, WHETHER AT THE STATE, NATIONAL OR
INTERNATIONAL LEVEL, KASE LAWAL’S NAME IS SYNONYMOUS
WITH SUCCESS.
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Kase
L. Lawal