(Davis, CA)—Daniel Kennedy, publisher and president of the Sacramento Business Journal, has been honored as the first recipient of the Dean’s Distinguished Service Award given by the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis.

“It is my great pleasure to recognize Dan Kennedy in appreciation of his nearly 20 years of outstanding dedication to and support of the Graduate School of Management,” said Dean Nicole Woolsey Biggart, who presented the service award to Kennedy at the management school’s commencement ceremony on Saturday, June 18.

“Dan has been instrumental in linking the school to the region’s business community,” Biggart added. “He has been one of our greatest advocates and a champion for management education.”

“The students keep me fired up,” said Kennedy, who has been adjunct professor at the management school since 1986, teaching a popular course in marketing communications. “I enjoy seeing their passion as well as the strong relationships they build with the faculty in the small program. That collaboration adds a distinct dimension to their MBA experience.”

Kennedy also is one of the longest serving members of the Graduate School of Management’s Dean’s Advisory Council, a board of more than 35 California business leaders who act as key advisors to the dean, sharing their ideas and making recommendations on the future growth and development of the school.

About the UC Davis Graduate School of Management

Established in 1981, the UC Davis Graduate School of Management provides management education to nearly 400 students enrolled in Daytime MBA and Working Professional MBA programs on the UC Davis campus, in Sacramento, and beginning this fall in the San Francisco Bay Area. It also offers a technology management minor program for undergraduates and a business development program in which doctoral students in the sciences and engineering work with MBA students to develop skills to commercialize research.