The Outstanding Professional Contributions Award was presented to Mark Salamasick from the University of Texas System. This Award recognizes a member who has made outstanding and noteworthy contributions to the profession of internal auditing in higher education by creating a wider recognition of internal auditing in higher education, promoting cooperative relationships with other governance-related organizations, promoting high professional standards, and sustained service to higher education and
internal auditing professional organizations.

Salamasick has a unique background of over 40 years of service to the internal audit profession and has been involved with ACUA for over 10 years. He has served not only as a successful audit practitioner, but also as an innovative leader in educating future internal auditors and promoting the profession of internal auditing.

His long list of accomplishments include:

• Building one of the world’s largest and most successful internal audit education
programs, with many of his students highlighted as rising stars and future leaders by
the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), as well as serving in audit departments andleadership positions within higher education.
• Co-authoring a textbook on internal auditing used at colleges and universities around
the world, which is considered to be the primary textbook on internal audit, as well as
writing many other internal audit books and materials.
• Establishing an Internal Audit endowment that is now valued at over $1 million. Also,
his dedication to internal audit students was recognized through the establishment of
an IT audit endowment in his name (now valued at over $100K) to fund scholarships
to future IT auditors.
• Serving on numerous IIA boards and committees, including the Academic Relations
Committee, that focus on building the internal audit profession and elevating all
university internal audit programs, including defining research and writing priorities
for the industry. In the past few months he worked with a team from a university in
Bulgaria to help them establish an internal audit program.
• Speaking at numerous ACUA, IIA, ISACA, and other audit conferences and on
webinars. In fact, at the 2008 ACUA Annual Conference, the planned general session
speaker had a last minute emergency and conference planners asked Salamasick, sitting
in the crowd, to speak. In true fashion he immediately got up, went and changed into
a suit and tie, and did an outstanding job speaking at the session on a very timely topic:
the Future of our Profession!

 

The Member Excellence in Service Award was presented to Gail Klatt from the
University of Minnesota. This Award recognizes a member who has made outstanding
contributions to the mission of ACUA through exceptional service.
Klatt served ACUA and its members in many roles over her 24+ year audit career! Her long
list of accomplishments includes:
• Chairing the ACUA Awards Committee from 2011–2015. During this time, she led the
creation of the Rising Star Award.
• Speaking at ACUA and other conferences, including the Society for Corporate
Compliance and Ethics and the IIA.
• Serving on ACUA’s nominating committee, the Host Committee for the Annual
Conference held in Minneapolis, and many times as a proctor.
• Mentoring many ACUA members. For example, she served as the co-champion/
executive sponsor for the “ACUA Leads!” program cohorts. She also has served on QAR
teams for many ACUA institutions. One colleague shared that Gail coached her on
developing an audit plan and enterprise risk management program, and that she taught
her more than any training session, especially on how to run an effective and wellrespected
audit function.
• It is not just ACUA she serves--Gail is also very active in the Twin Cities Chapter of
the IIA as well as the Big Ten Audit Director’s group.
• She received ACUA’s Outstanding Professional Contributions Award in 2010.

The Rising Star Award was presented to Kara Kearney-Saylor from Buffalo University.
This Award recognizes an “up-and-coming” member who has made significant individual
contributions in the areas of internal audit, compliance, or risk management that furthers
the mission of ACUA. This award is intended to spotlight, cultivate, and recognize those
committed to positively impacting higher education auditing, which is essential to ACUA’s
continued success.

Kearney-Saylor has been an outstanding contributor to ACUA initiatives. A member since
2006, she participated in the 2nd Cohort of the “ACUA Leads!” program. She served on
the membership committee, has been an annual conference speaker, and now chairs the
Standards and Best Practices Committee. She also assisted ACUA with helping “Kick Start
the Kick Start” program! Besides being one of the program’s initial authors, writing the
International Activities program, she was also a valuable member of the task force that
imagined and brought to fruition this new member service.
The Awards Committee members had the privilege of reviewing many outstanding
nominations and the difficult job of selecting those to be honored this year. The committee
would like to thank all of the ACUA members who took the time to recognize the
contributions and service of their colleagues and encourages participation next summer
during the annual awards nomination process.

For a list of previous award recipients, see the ACUA Awards website at http://acua.org/
Membership/Awards.asp.