The National Association of Corporate Directors announced the winners of the 2009 NACD “Director of the Year” awards in four categories, honoring Marilyn Carlson Nelson, director of ExxonMobil Corporation, for public company director; Keith L. Alm, director of Follett Corporation, for private company director; J. Shan Mullin, partner with Perkins Coie LLP for nonprofit director; and Norman R. Augustine, retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, with the B. Kenneth West Lifetime Achievement Award.

“It is my honor to recognize four illustrious directors for their immense achievements, guidance and leadership in corporate governance,” said Kenneth Daly, President and CEO of NACD. “Augustine, Carlson Nelson, Alm, and Mullin have all demonstrated an extraordinary ability to provide boardroom leadership in challenging and complex times and are respected by their peers as personal models of courage, candor and integrity, to which all corporate directors can aspire.”

Marilyn Carlson Nelson, NACD’s 2009 Public Company Director of the Year honoree, is the longestserving director of the ExxonMobil Corporation. Carlson Nelson has demonstrated strength and leadership throughout her career on public company boards, taking positions in the name of good governance when necessary and pioneering service by women on boards of top American corporations when female leadership was extremely rare.

Carlson Nelson also serves as chairwoman of one of the largest privately-held companies in America, Carlson, as well as a member of the board of directors for the Mayo Clinic, Foreign Policy Association, Harvard Women Leaders Board, Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, Newman’s Own Foundation, and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Keith L. Alm, NACD’s Private Company Director of the Year honoree, is recognized for his service on the board of the Follett Corporation. As director, he has been a driving force for ensuring that the best of public company governance rigor is implemented in this private company’s board processes, including fostering more rigorous internal reporting and committee process. He balanced the development of a professional, accountable and highly valuable structure that is also sensitive to the needs of a family-run organization.

Alm also serves on the board of the McKee Foods Corporation and International Relations Council and chairs the board of directors of the O-Sage Power Equipment, LLC.

J. Shan Mullin, partner with Perkins Coie LLP, was selected for the 2009 Nonprofit Director of the Year for his decades of dedicated leadership of major nonprofit organizations in the Pacific Northwest. During the past 10 years, he has focused on biomedical research and health care by serving on the planning committee for the formation of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) and was the SCCA’s board chair for three years. He was also co-chair of the state-wide committee that planned for the formation of the Life Science Discovery Fund for the State of Washington. During this time, he has also served as board chair for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and as a board member and Chair of Compliance for UW Medicine (the University of Washington health system).

Mullin has also served as the board chair for other nonprofits, including United Way of King County, Leadership Tomorrow, Alliance for Education, Municipal League of King County and the Norman Archibald Charitable Foundation. Earlier this year he was awarded the regional Nonprofit Director of the Year award by the NACD Seattle-Northwest Chapter.

Norman R. Augustine, retired Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, is the 2009 winner of the B. Kenneth West Lifetime Achievement Award. Established in 2006, the B. Kenneth West Lifetime Achievement Award was created in the name of a former NACD chairman who was instrumental in bringing management, boards and investors together to find common ground on issues of transparency, director independence and corporate responsibility.

Augustine’s career in the aerospace industry represents a lifetime of leadership and commitment to ethical business conduct in both his service to the industry and the public. He has demonstrated these qualities in the boardroom both as a CEO and independent director, serving as an inspiration to peers and colleagues alike. He received the National Medal of Technology by the President of the United States, the Joint Chief of Staff Distinguished Public Service Award and has five times received the Department of Defense’s highest civilian decoration – the Distinguished Service Medal.

NACD Director of the Year winners are nominated by NACD members and chapters and are selected based upon stringent criteria reviewed by a NACD independent selection committee. Each of the four awards honors an individual board member who has demonstrated exceptional leadership in promoting the principles and best practices of good corporate governance.

Roger Ailes, Fox News

Sharon Allen, Deloitte & Touche

Herbert M. Allison Jr., Director

Gavin Anderson, GMI

Philip A. Armstrong, GCGF

Norman R. Augustine, Director

Stephen Bainbridge, UCLA

Maria Bartiromo, CNBC

David Batchelder, Relational Investors

Lucian A. Bebchuk, Harvard Law

Irv Becker, Hay Group

Beverly Behan, Hay Group

Richard Bennett, The Corporate Library

Robert S. Bennett, Skadden Arps

Dennis R. Beresford, U. of Georgia

Ethan Berman, RiskMetrics Group

Ben Bernanke, The Federal Reserve

John Biggs, Director

Leon Black, Apollo

Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman Sachs

Richard Blumenthal, State of Conn.

Magnus Bocker, Nasdaq OMX

John C. Bogle, Hall of Fame

Richard Breeden, Breeden Partners

Catherine L. Bromilow, PwC

Beth A. Brooke, E&Y

Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway

Peter Butler, Governance for Owners

Marshall Carter, NYSE Euronext

Martha Carter, RiskMetrics Group

John J. Castellani, Business Roundtable

William B. Chandler III, Chancery Court

Ram Charan, Charan Associates

Peter Clapman, Governance for Owners

John C. Coffee, Columbia Law School

Frederic W. Cook, Frederic W. Cook & Co.

J. Michael Cook, Director

Christopher Cox, SEC

Jim Cramer, TheStreet.com

Andrew Cuomo, State of New York

Kenneth Daly, NACD

Julie Hembrock Daum, Spencer Stuart

George L. Davis, Egon Zehnder Intl.

Stephen M. Davis, Millstein Center

James L. Dimon, JPMorgan

Samuel A. DiPiazza, Jr., PwC

Christopher Dodd, U.S. Senate

Amy Domini, Domini Social Investments

William H. Donaldson, Hall of Fame

Thomas J. Donohue, Chamber of Commerce

Ed Durkin, United Brotherhood of Carpenters

Theodore L. Dysart, Heidrick & Struggles

Jay Eisenhofer, Grant & Eisenhofer

Charles Elson, U. of Delaware

John Engler, NAM

Richard Ferlauto, AFSCME

Timothy Flynn, KPMG

Margaret “Peggy” Foran, Sara Lee

Cynthia M. Fornelli, CAQ

Barney Frank, U.S. Congress

William F. Galvin, State of Mass.

William W. George, Harvard Business School

Kayla Gillan, RiskMetrics Group

Robert J. Giuffra, Jr., Sullivan & Cromwell

Scott Goebel, Fidelity

Holly Gregory, Weil, Gotshal & Manges

Robert Greifeld, Nasdaq OMX

Joseph Grundfest, Stanford Law School

Steven Hall, Steven Hall & Partners

Robert Hallagan, Korn/Ferry Intl.

Laurence P. Hazell, Standard & Poor’s

Edward Herlihy, Wachtell Lipton

Robert Herz, FASB

John A. Hill, Putnam

Paul Hodgson, The Corporate Library

Christopher Hohn, TCI

Michele J. Hooper, Director

Anthony J. Horan, JP Morgan

Carl Icahn, Icahn Investments

Ray R. Irani, Occidental Petroleum

Edward Kangas, Director

Adam Kanzer, Domini Social Investments

Henry Keizer, KPMG

Donald Keough, Director

Joe Kernen, CNBC

Richard Ketchum, FINRA

Charles King, Korn/Ferry Intl.

Catherine Kinney, NYSE Euronext

Jannice L. Koors, Pearl Meyer & Partners

Richard H. Koppes, Jones Day

Henry Kravis, KKR

Frederick J. Krebs, ACC

John A. Krol, Director

Robert Kueppers, Deloitte & Touche

Arthur Levitt, Hall of Fame

Martin Lipton, Wachtell Lipton

Jay W. Lorsch, Harvard Business School

Joann Lublin, Wall Street Journal

Steve Mader, Korn/Ferry Intl.

Ken Marzion, CalPERS

Mary Pat McCarthy, KPMG

Bill McCollum, State of Florida

Robert McCormick, Glass Lewis

Blythe J. McGarvie, Director

William McGuinness, Fried Frank

Patrick McGurn, RiskMetrics Group

W. James McNerney, Jr. Boeing

James P. Melican, PGI

Pearl Meyer, Steven Hall & Partners

Bill Miller, Legg Mason

Ira Millstein, Hall of Fame

Nell Minow, The Corporate Library

Robert A.G. Monks, author, Corpocracy

Peter Montagnon, ABI

Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times

Anne Mulcahy, Xerox

Anne Mule, Sunoco

Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.

Alan Murray, Wall Street Journal

Jim Naughton, Corporate Governance Blog

Thomas Neff, Spencer Stuart

Duncan Niederauer, NYSE Euronext

Joseph Nocera, New York Times

Floyd Norris, New York Times

Mark Olson, PCAOB

James Owens, Caterpillar

Michael Oxley, Hall of Fame

William Patterson, CtW

Henry M. Paulson, Jr. U.S. Treasury

Harry Pearce, Director

Harvey L. Pitt, Kalorama Partners

Becky Quick, CNBC

Carl Quintanilla, CNBC

David Rubenstein, Carlyle Group

Paul Sarbanes, Hall of Fame

Charles E. Schumer, U.S. Senate

Stephen A. Schwarzman, Blackstone

Mary Shapiro, FINRA

Damon Silvers, AFL-CIO

David W. Smith, SCSGP

Michael Smith, AIG

Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, Yale School of Management

Larry W. Sonsini, Wilson Sonsini

Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times

Myron T. Steele, Delaware Supreme Court

Leo E. Strine, Chancery Court

David N. Swinford, Pearl Meyer & Partners

John Thain, Merrill Lynch

Andrew Tuch, Corporate Governance Blog

James S. Turley, E&Y

E. Norman Veasey, Weil Gotshal & Manges

Stephen Wagner, Deloitte & Touche

Carol Ward, Kraft Foods

Henry Waxman, U.S. Congress

Ralph Whitworth, Relational Investors

John Wilcox, TIAA-CREF

Note: More than 100 individuals are named because some listings contain more than one person at the same company or in the same industry.

For the complete 2008 Directorship 100 article, click HERE.