The first Benjamin Rush Award was presented in 1985 to the board chairman and chief executive officer of CBS. Recipients have included three other corporate executives; the minister of trade, industry and energy of the Republic of Korea; the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget; the deputy secretary general of the United Nations; and the chairman of the Board of Mutual Life Insurance of America.
- Donald Graham, chairman of The Graham Group and founder of Graham Engineering (2010)
- William F. Greenlee, president and CEO of The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences and chairman and CEO of the Health Research & Education Foundation (2009)
- Derek Hathaway (2008)
- Stephen Adler (2007) Editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek Magazine.
- Roger W. Sant (2006) Co-founder and former chairman of AES Corporation
- Lawrence Bossidy (2005) Former CEO of Allied Signal Corporation
- Edward Gramlich (2004) Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Arthur Levitt (2003) Former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
- William Flynn (2002) Board chairman of Mutual of America
- Louise Fréchette (2001) United Nations Deputy Secretary-General
- Curt Weldon (2000) U.S. Congressman
Published June 7, 2013