2011 Award Recipients

Honorary Degrees

David CoteCommencement Speaker
David Cote '76
Doctor of Humane Letters
Chairman and CEO, Honeywell International, Inc.

David Cote ’76 is the chairman and chief executive officer of Honeywell. The New Jersey-based company has approximately 130,000 employees in more than 100 countries. Under Cote’s leadership, Honeywell has experienced strong performances in sales, earnings per share, segment profit, and cash flow. In 2010, Cote was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. He was also named by Obama to co-chair the U.S.-India CEO forum in 2009. Cote was one of several CEOs from major global corporations to join the U.S. Agency for International Development in providing relief to the Sichuan Province of Western China following a devastating earthquake in 2008. In 2007, Cote received the Corporate Social Responsibility Award from the Foreign Policy Association for Honeywell’s Hometown Solutions program, which focuses on four areas of social need: science and math education; family safety and security; housing and shelter; and humanitarian relief. Through this program, Honeywell provided aid to Haiti, helped to rebuild in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and established “Got 2B Safe,” a partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Cote, a 1976 graduate of the University of New Hampshire, earned a bachelor's of science degree in business administration.

Nancie Atwell Head shotNancie Atwell
Doctor of Humane Letters
Teacher and author

For almost 30 years, Nancie Atwell has been a national leader and visionary in the area of literacy instruction. Her book, In the Middle, was honored by the National Council of Teachers of English and the Modern Language Association for opening the door for a new kind of expert—the teacher-practitioner who investigates and documents her teaching practice. As a result, major publishers, such as Heinemann and Stenhouse, sought out teacher-writers who have become national leaders. Atwell is the founder and the leader of, and a teacher at the Center for Teaching and Learning in Edgecomb, Maine, a nonprofit K-8 school that also serves as a center for the development of teachers from across the country.

Nancie Atwell Head shotFlorence Reed
Doctor of Humane Letters
President and Founder of Sustainable Harvest

After serving for two years in the Peace Corps in Panama, Florence Reed ’90 founded Sustainable Harvest International (SHI) in 1997. Reed envisioned an organization that would work alongside farmers by helping them learn to coexist with the rainforest instead of destroying it. Today, SHI has programs in Honduras, Panama, Belize, and Nicaragua and an annual operating budget of $1.7 million, of which 90 percent goes to SHI projects. SHI has worked with 2,139 families in 155 communities, converting 13,871 acres into sustainable, diversified, and reforested land use. Reed, a 1990 graduate of the University of New Hampshire, earned a bachelor of science in environmental conservation and international affairs along with a minor in Spanish.

Granite State Awards

James and Donna-Belle Garvin Head ShotDonna-Belle Garvin and James Garvin '67
Granite State Award

The Garvins are renowned for their dedication to the preservation and interpretation of New Hampshire history.

Donna-Belle Garvin is the director of publications for the New Hampshire Historical Society and editor of the society’s journal Historical New Hampshire. Under her guidance, the society has ventured into fields such as environmental history, immigration history, and black history. These fields are portrayed in the society’s permanent exhibition New Hampshire History, Through Many Eyes. In 1988, she and her husband James Garvin co-wrote On the Road North of Boston, a book on the historic taverns and tavern society of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century New England.

James Garvin ’67 is the state architectural historian for the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources, charged with, among other duties, documenting buildings for the National Register of Historic Places. He began his career in 1963 at the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, N.H., where he eventually became the museum’s first curator. In 2001, he wrote A Building History of Northern New England. Garvin, a 1967 graduate of the University of New Hampshire, earned his bachelor of arts in art history and English.

Nancie Atwell Head shotPatricia Rainboth
Granite State Award
Cofounder and executive director of the Joan Ellis Victim Assistance Network, Victims Inc.

Patricia Rainboth is cofounder and executive director of the Joan Ellis Victim Assistance Network, Victims Inc., a nonprofit agency that offers immediate help to trauma victims affected by a car crash, a homicide, or another sudden death. The agency works with courts, law enforcement, media, schools, and other agencies. Since 1991, they have helped more than 32,800 people throughout New Hampshire. Rainboth has been instrumental in the passage of legislation that lowered the drunk driving blood alcohol content to .08, increased homicide penalties, increased license suspensions related to fatal car crashes, and implemented a graduated licensing program for first-time drivers. She is a member of the National Organization for Victim Assistance, American Academy of Bereavement Association, National Alliance for Grieving Children, and many state and local organizations.