LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kathy Gornik, Newton’s Attic chair, will be honored in New York City Nov. 7 with a Consumer Technology Association Hall of Fame award.
Gornik was co-founder and president of THIEL Audio, a privately-held, engineering-driven organization that performed research, design and manufacturing of high performance loudspeakers.
Gornik was responsible for THIEL’s company vision, direction, policies and marketing strategy.
Gornik’s leadership role in the consumer electronics industry was long and illustrious, including service on the Consumer Electronics Association (now called CTA) board of industry leaders and executive board from 1995-2007.
Her role on the executive board began with her Audio Board chairmanship followed by her vice-chairmanship of the Executive Committee, chairmanship of CEA from 2003-05, and official role as immediate past chairman. As executive board member of CEA, Gornik also served as a member of the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA)-board of governors from 1995-2000 as well as a member of the National Science and Technology Education Partnership (NSTEP) board of trustees and its predecessor, the Electronics Industry Foundation, from 1995-2006.
Additionally, Gornik served as chairman of the Small Business Council, which she helped create.
From approximately 1998-2001, Gornik served as the chair of the Lexington Partnership for Workforce Development and the regional chair of Economics America-Kentucky, two private sector, non-profit organizations whose mission is to foster collaboration between industry and education to improve workforce training.
In Kentucky, Gornik served as chairman of the board of the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions (www.bipps.org) a state-based free market think tank that is committed to increasing liberty, prosperity and governmental accountability and transparency in Kentucky as well as reducing regulations and taxes and other hindrances to liberty and prosperity.
Gornik is also the first-ever recipient of the Bastiat in Business Award presented in April of 2008. The Bastiat Society (www.bastiatsociety.com) is a non-profit foundation for spreading free market ideas among business people and has honored Gornik with this award in recognition of her distinguished effort to promote free market ideas in the course of her professional life.
Gornik has also been honored as a Kentucky/Southern Indiana Entrepreneur of the Year, an award sponsored by Ernst and Young Inc. magazine and Merrill Lynch. She was also named one of the Top 40 Women in Business by the Central Kentucky magazine, The Lane Report, who also named THIEL Audio as the Small Business of the Year in 1994.
Gornik currently serves on the Kentucky State Board of Education and Work Ready Skills Initiative Committee and has recently served on the Education Professional Standards Board. She serves as chairman of the board of Newton’s Attic (www.NewtonsAttic.org), a privately funded non-profit educational organization focused on inspiring young people to pursue engineering, robotics and physics through unusual and exciting educational methods.
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