On June 19, 2004, an awards ceremony was held by the IEEE at a Marriott Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, the United States, where the IEEE Medal of Honor, the highest of its commendations, was awarded to Mr. Tadahiro Sekimoto, Chairman of IISE. He was the second Japanese to receive the award following Dr. Leona Esaki, a Nobelist physicist. Chairman Sekimoto won this award for "his invaluable contribution to digital communications satellites and IT research and development as well as his leadership in both technology development for and management of C&C (harmony between computers and communications) activities." This was the fourth award he received from the IEEE: he had been awarded the Armstrong Achievement Award (1982), the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal (1996), and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal (2000).