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WILLIAM R. "TIM" TIMKEN, JR. to be Honored as the 2009 Distinguished German-American of the Year™

WASHINGTON, DC (July 15, 2009) — W.R. "Tim" Timken, Jr. will be honored by the German-American Heritage Foundation of the USA® as the Distinguished German-American of the Year™ for 2009. The Awards and Fundraising Gala will be held on Saturday evening, October 3, 2009 at the Top of the Hill Banquet Facilities in Washington, DC.

The "Distinguished German-American of the Year™ Award" provides recognition for outstanding leadership by Americans of German-speaking ancestry in business, the arts, education, science, politics and society.

Tim Timken is the former Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany. He was nominated as Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary by President George W. Bush in 2005 and was confirmed by the Senate. Mr. Timken assumed his post in Germany in August 2005 and completed his tour December 2008.

In 2003, President Bush nominated and the Senate confirmed Mr. Timken as a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investors Protection Corporation (SPIC). The President chose him as chairman. The SPIC was established by Congress in 1970 to serve an insurance function for equity investors in the case of brokerage fraud. It functions somewhat like the FDIC. He left the SPIC post in 2005 to assume his ambassadorship. Mr. Timken ended 43 years in the private sector with the Timken Company where he served as Chairman of the Board for 30 years. He also served as President and CEO during his career. The Timken Company is a global Fortune 500 Manufacturing company listed on the New York Stock Exchange with sales of $5.8 billion. It has over 25,000 employees operating in more than 24 countries.

From 1999 to 2002, Mr. Timken served as Vice Chairman and Chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers, an organization of over 14,000 member companies. Additionally, during his private sector career he served on the board of the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company, Trinova Corporation, Diebold, Inc. and Texas Energy.

Mr. Timken has also been involved with education at all levels. He served as trustee of Stanford University, the Hoover Institution and Chairman of the Ohio Foundation for Independent Colleges. He served on the Advisory Boards of the Stanford School of Business and the Institution European D'Administration des Affairs (INSEAD). He also co-founded the Stark County Education Partnership and the Canton Country Day School.

Mr. Timken is a native of Canton, Ohio. He is a graduate of the Phillips Andover Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He earned a bachelor's degree from Stanford in 1960 and an MBA from the Harvard School of Business in 1962. Mr. Timken and his wife, Sue, live in Canton, Ohio. They have six children.

The German-American Heritage Foundation of the USA® (GAHF) was founded in 1977 and chartered in 1978 as the United German-American Committee of the USA, Inc. (UGAC), an independent, tax-exempt educational not-for-profit organization. The GAHF is an umbrella organization dedicated to promoting and preserving the heritage of all Americans of German-speaking ancestry, Germans, Austrians and Swiss. For more information, please contact our national headquarters or visit our website at www.gahfusa.org

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