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The Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law will honor five alumni during its annual Evening of Celebration on May 6. Robert T. Grand, Lacy M. Johnson, and E. Thomas Sullivan will received the Distinguished Alumni Award. Cynthia V. Carrasco will receive the Early Career Achievement Award. In addition, the award for Early Career Achievement will be presented to the family of Eric T. Thieme, who died in February 2016.

Robert T. Grand, ’82, is firm managing partner of Barnes & Thornburg LLP, having previously served as the managing partner of the Indianapolis office. He is a member of the firm’s Governmental Services and Finance Department. He has a history of political service, working as administrative assistant to Lieutenant Governor Robert Orr from 1979 to 1981, and then in the same capacity to Governor Orr from 1981 to 1982. He served as treasurer of Friends of Dick Lugar from 1987 to 2007, served as the Bush-Cheney finance chairman for Indiana, and was a member of the 2000 Bush-Cheney recount team in Palm Beach County, Florida. He currently serves on the executive committee of the Mike Pence for Indiana Committee. From 2008 to 2010, he was president of the Marion County Capital Improvement Board. Grand is a member of the law school’s Board of Visitors.

For Lacy M. Johnson, ’81, his civic engagements are as vibrant as his law practice. A member of the law school’s Board of Visitors, Johnson also is a member of the IUPUI Advisory Board, and on the board of the Indiana University Foundation. Johnson is also a board member of the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute; Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County Board of Trustees; Skyline Club; Indianapolis Downtown, Inc.; Oaks Academy, American Pianists Association, and the American Red Cross National Diversity Advisory Council, among a host of other commitments. In addition, Johnson is a member of the United States Democratic Black Caucus PAC Board, and is an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee.

E. Thomas Sullivan is a magna cum laude 1973 graduate of IU McKinney. He has served as president of the University of Vermont since 2012. Immediately after law school, Sullivan clerked for a federal judge in Florida, and then moved on to become a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice in the Attorney General’s Honors Program. Prior to joining the legal academy in 1979, he was an antitrust litigator with the New York and Washington D.C., firm Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine. Sullivan was Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at the University of Minnesota from 2004 to 2012, and was dean of the University of Minnesota Law School from 1995 to 2002. In 2003, he received the J. William Elwin, Jr., Award from the American Bar Association for leadership and contributions to law school development. He has chaired the ABA Section on Legal Education, and chaired the Association of American Law Schools Section on Antitrust and Economic Regulation. In 2015, he received the Robert J. Kutak Award from the ABA for his contributions to the legal academy, the judiciary, and the bar.

Cynthia V. Carrasco, ’06, was named Indiana Inspector General in 2015. She is the second person to hold the post, which was created in 2005 to address fraud, waste, and wrongdoing in state government. Previously, she served as executive director of the Office of the Inspector General and the Indiana State Ethics Commission since 2007. In these roles, she was responsible for managing all staff including legal, investigative and administrative employees as well as directing and coordinating activities of the State Ethics Commission. Active within her community, Carrasco has served as a member of Board of Overseers for Indiana University’s Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence, treasurer of the Indiana University Latino Alumni Association, and a board member of the IU Health Patient and Family Advisory Council.

Eric T. Thieme was a summa cum laude graduate of IU McKinney in 2007. He quickly built a national reputation by making important contributions in the area of health information technology, demonstrating his experience and expertise through his work at the intersection of the fields of health care, privacy, security, and information technology. For nearly five and a half years, Thieme served the citizens of Indiana by working first as general counsel and compliance officer, and then as general counsel and vice president of administration for the Indiana Health Information Exchange. He went from there to the law firm Fagre Baker Daniels, where he served as leader of the firm’s health technology practice.

IU McKinney’s Evening of Celebration will be held at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and begin at 6 p.m. on May 6. The festivities are also for all 2016 IU McKinney graduates and their families. To learn more, visit the law school’s website.