Legendary Lawyer, Leading Educator, and Emmy-Award-Winning Newswoman To Address Leadership 100 Conference
Plato Cacheris
Plato Cacheris, one of the nation’s preeminent criminal defense lawyers, Dr. Constantine Papadakis, leading educator and president of Drexel University, both members of Leadership 100, will be joined by Deborah Norville, the Emmy Award winning broadcast journalist and host of Inside Edition, in addressing the 25th Anniversary Celebration Conference at The Ritz-Carlton San Juan Hotel, Carolina, Puerto Rico, February 5 to 8, 2009.
The Conference will commemorate the historic founding of the Archbishop Iakovos Leadership 100 Endowment Fund, Incorporated by giving special recognition to Leadership 100 Founders Members who have contributed to the success of the organization by presenting them with the Archbishop Iakovos Leadership 100 Award for Excellence. The Life-Time Founding Members are Arthur C. Anton, Andrew A. Athens, George K. Chimples, Peter M. Dion and Michael Jarharis. George P. Kokalis, also a Founding Member, passed away June 24, 2008. Another Founding Member, Thomas A. Athens, died in June of 2002. The latter two will be awarded posthumously.
A 1956 graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, Cacheris served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps from 1951 to 1953, and began his legal career at the U.S. Department of Justice. Subsequently, he established himself as an outstanding criminal defense lawyers, representing clients in some of the nation’s most heavily publicized cases, including Watergate and Iran-contra. He also represented Monica Lewinsky during the investigation and impeachment trial of President Clinton.
Constantine Papadakis
An innovator in higher education with extensive experience in both academe and the corporate world, he has been President of Drexel since 1995. Since then, Dr. Papadakis has used the historic strengths of the University (cooperative education, Drexel's focus on technology and the rich resources of its Philadelphia location) to increase full-time undergraduate enrollment from 4,500 in 1996 to more than 11,000 today. Drexel now educates a headcount of 21,000 students, is the sixth largest employer in Philadelphia, employing 8,100 people, and has an annual budget of more than $650 million.
Dr. Papadakis received his diploma in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in Greece. He holds a master's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a doctorate from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is author or coauthor of 80 articles and technical publications.
Deborah Norville
A two-time Emmy Award winner, Deborah Norville has hosted Inside Edition for more than a decade. The veteran newswoman joined the nation’s longest running syndicated newsmagazine in 1995, and is credited with bringing respect and increasing ratings. Inside Edition is now the nation’s top-rated syndicated newsmagazine. Since joining Inside Edition, Norville has handled a variety of assignments, including reporting from Cali, Colombia, the scene of a devastating crash of an American Airlines jet.
Norville was also the host of Deborah Norville Tonight on the MSNBC Cable network, a nightly interview program with the people and issues making the day’s headlines. Norville joined Inside Edition, from CBS News, where she anchored America Tonight and reported for 48 Hours, Street Stories and CBS Evening News. She was earlier the co-anchor for The Today Show, having joined NBC as anchor of NBC News at Sunrise. Norville’s journalism career began at the University of Georgia, as a reporter, and later, as an anchor in Atlanta.
