The Ernest A. Kehr Award is presented annually by the APS “for enduring contributions that help guarantee the future of the hobby.”
The award is named for Life Member Ernest A. Kehr. Established in 1991, the Kehr Award recognizes one living philatelist each year who, for a period of at least five years, has demonstrated one or more of the following:
- Making philately attractive as a hobby to newcomers.
- Working directly with newcomers, especially young people.
- Developing and administering programs aimed at recruiting newcomers.
2025 - Alex Haimann
A stamp collector since the age of 7 and an APS member since the age of 10, Alex Haimann has never met a stamp or cover he didn’t like. His passion for philately came from the encouragement and support of the West Suburban Stamp Club in Plymouth, Michigan. This extremely positive welcome to the hobby has inspired Alex to seek out collectors in the younger generations and make them feel welcome, along with helping them connect with others.
In January 2008, during his Tiffany Dinner speech, Alex presented the original proposal for what would become the American Philatelic Society’s Young Philatelic Leaders Fellowship program, now in its 15th year. Between 2005 and 2010, Alex worked for the Smithsonian National Postal Museum as a collections specialist and web projects developer. In a volunteer capacity, Alex served the APS as the chair of the Board of Vice Presidents (2013-2016) and as the chair of the Campaign for Philately Committee (2016-2022). Alex also served on the World Stamp Show–NY 2016 and the Stockholmia 2019 committees.
Since 2008, Alex has given dozens of talks in person and online across the U.S. to philatelic and non-philatelic audiences. Continuing a passion to bring philately and postal history to new audiences, Haimann exhibited his Anglo-Zulu War collection during a summer exhibition (“Clash of Empires: The 1879 Anglo-Zulu War”) (www.clashofempires.org), at the Royal Philatelic Society London in 2023 with more than 2,000 people from 29 countries attending. Since the exhibition, videos created around the content of the exhibition have generated more than 1 million views on YouTube. Alex currently serves as an ex officio member of the society's council (board of trustees).
In 2025, Alex began writing a regular column for The American Philatelist, “On Location,” where he chronicles a personal challenge to visit and present to a stamp club in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. He is on course to check eight states and two additional countries off the list before the end of 2025.
Alex is very proud to have sponsored 772 new APS members to date, the second most of any living APS member, behind Don Sundman.
Professionally, Alex is the executive vice president of Cherrystone Auctions. In this role, he focuses on a range of marketing and consignor relations initiatives alongside preparing philatelic material for auction. In his non-philatelic life, Alex is married to his saint-like wife, Sarah, and they live with his three children, Karinne (age 9), Winston (6) and Georgie (3) in St. Louis, Missouri. Earlier this year, Karinne and Winston became APS members. Alex’s family will join him this year at GASS.