John William Carlin
2007 Citation for Distinguished Statesmanship

John W. Carlin, the state's youngest 20th-century governor, was born in Salina on August 3, 1940. He grew up on the family dairy farm which had been homesteaded four generations earlier by his mother's family. He graduated from Lindsborg Rural High School and Kansas State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in dairy science. Upon graduation he returned to Saline County to successfully manage the family farm.

Carlin was elected to the state legislature in 1970 as a Democrat in the primarily Republican state. He served 4 terms in the Kansas House of Representatives from 1971 to 1979. In 1975 Carlin was elected assistant minority leader. Carlin was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1977, only the second Democrat to serve in that position at that point in Kansas History.

In 1979, he moved from the House of Representatives to the Governor's office after defeating the Republican incumbent. Four years later, Governor Carlin became the first person to win a second four-year term. A constitutional change in 1974 created a four-year term for the governor but it also limited service to two consecutive four-year terms. This prevented Carlin from running for a third term as Governor in 1986. In perhaps his greatest achievement as Governor, Carlin led an exploratory Trade Mission to China in August 1979. Thanks to this visionary expedition, our state now exports over $200 million worth of products to China each year.

In 1987 Carlin served as a visiting professor of public administration and international trade at Wichita State University. He later served as president of Midwest Superconductivity, Inc. in Lawrence.

In 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed Carlin as the 8th Archivist of the United States and administrator of the National Archives and Records Administration, and agency that is essential in our democracy for protecting citizens' rights, holding government officials accountable, and documenting the national experience -- a position he held until 2005. Surrounded by criticism from professional archivists, Carlin took a moribund agency and essentially transformed it into a modern on through reorganization and the adoption of a ten-year plan envisioning the use of electronic archives. At the close of his term in 2004, he was awarded the Council Exemplary Service Award by the Society of American Archivists some of whom criticized his appointment in 1995.

He is now a Visiting Professor, Executive-in-Residence, in the Political Science Department at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas.