Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier
Richard Schlosberg III, the new chief executive officer of the Packard Foundation in Los Altos, poses with portraits of the foundation's founders, Lucile and David Packard. Schlosberg becomes only the second foundation director, succeeding Colburn Wilbur. Wilbur, now a member of the board of trustees, said Schlosberg is an "excellent selection."
Town Crier Staff Writer
Richard Schlosberg, former LA Times publisher, energizes foundation with fresh approach
As publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Richard T. Schlosberg III was used to covering the world. As the new head of the Packard Foundation, he'll be trying to save it.
Schlosberg, 55, appointed president and chief executive officer in March, leads a foundation expected to grant $400 million in 1999. He arrives as the Los Altos-based institution undertakes an ambitious five-year plan tackling such challenging global issues as population growth and threats to the environment.
Blessed with strong business acumen and a down-home, friendly personality, Schlosberg was recruited and chosen for a position that requires deft handling of budget and management issues while reflecting the high-minded principles espoused by founders David and Lucile Packard.
"In Dick, we found someone with extraordinary energy and leadership experience who will help guide us in implementing our recently-completed five-year plan for the foundation," said Susan Packard Orr, chairwoman of the foundation's board of trustees.
Schlosberg, who left the Times in 1997 after more than 20 years in the communications business, said he is "thrilled to be joining the Packard Foundation."
Since coming on board in May, Schlosberg has set a goal of meeting one-on-one with each of the 110-120 foundation staff members to receive briefings on what they do and how he can work with them. He also has reached out to community leaders, such as Los Altos Mayor Lou Becker.
"(He's) a very positive person with strong community interests," Becker said after meeting Schlosberg.
"He's really terrific," said Carol Larson, director of foundation programs. "It's been a very, very good beginning. He's a really hands-on leader and manager."
Larson said Schlosberg will have foundation employees approaching work "with a fresh perspective," and she expects his business and communications experience to help in such areas as building partnerships between the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.
"You don't learn much sitting in your office," Schlosberg said last week from his new Los Altos Hills home. "I'm spending time getting to know the people of the foundation, building one-to-one connections, and getting to know the nonprofit community - not unlike any publisher of a newspaper."
The challenges Schlosberg and the foundation are taking on are broad and ambitious. The five-year plan, approved by the board of trustees in 1998, takes on such goals as slowing the world's population rate, conserving the Earth's resources, expanding scientific knowledge and ensuring healthy development of children.
"If we can identify one or two of the really huge issues confronting the imbalance of the world and help lead the effort to solve that problem and address that issue, we'll achieve our highest expectation," Schlosberg said.
In addition to overseeing the foundation's five-year plan, Schlosberg will also lead expansion efforts to accommodate approximately 200 employees. The foundation currently rents or owns five facilities spread all over Los Altos, including its Second Street headquarters. Schlosberg said the foundation hopes to complete expansion efforts before 2003.
"We want to be and choose to be in Los Altos," he said. "This is our heritage, where we started, where David and Lucile Packard started. ... We passionately want to stay here."
Schlosberg and his wife, Kathy, are already both enamored with this area, following a whirlwind move from southern California.
Born in Ardmore, Okla., he grew up on the East Coast and met Kathy when they were both 9. "By the time we married, at 21, we had already known each other for 12 years," he said.
The Schlosbergs, who have two grown children, have just celebrated 34 years of marriage. "I've learned through the years to be completely supportive," she said, even when Dick bought their Los Altos Hills house and told her about it afterward.
"Life's an adventure," she said. "We've always seen it that way."
The son of a World War II pilot, Schlosberg graduated from high school in Seville, Spain, and went on to study in the U. S. Air Force Academy. He graduated from the academy in 1965, in the middle of the Vietnam War. He spent five years with the U.S. Air Force and did two tours of duty as a pilot in Vietnam. He went back to school in 1970 and earned a master's degree from the Harvard Business School.
"My gravitation toward newspapers in the mid-1970s was a natural one for me," Schlosberg said. He saw newspapers as a way to get involved in communities.
After starting with Harte-Hanks Communications in 1975, Schlosberg joined Times Mirror as publisher and chief executive officer of the Denver Post. He joined the Los Angeles Times in 1988 as president and chief operating officer before becoming the seventh publisher of the Los Angeles Times in 1994.
He left the Times and the newspaper industry altogether three years later, saying at the time, "It's fortunate to be able to leave one phase of your life when it's at its peak." Schlosberg was praised by Times Mirror executives for putting "aggressive pricing and marketing programs in place" that led the Times to its most profitable year to that point. During his reign, the Times earned a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Though leaving the Times "to devote much more time with my family," Schlosberg continued to remain active in a volunteer role. In southern California, he was on the boards of Pomona College; KCET, a Los Angeles PBS station; and the National Air and Space Museum at the Dulles Center.
Despite his newspaper background, Schlosberg said he will not try to make headlines with foundation efforts - merely carry on the low-key approach the Packard institution has always employed with its public announcements.
"If you don't care who gets the credit, you can get a lot done," Schlosberg said. Still, he added, "If the larger world has an idea of what the Packard Foundation does, we'll be more attractive to more worthy groups."
"I think he'll be great in his new role at the foundation," said Janis Heaphy, publisher of the Sacramento Bee, and a former colleague of Schlosberg's at the Times. "One of his greatest strengths is focus, and he really understands how to achieve objectives. ... He will do what is required to be successful, and he'll do it in a way that is consistent with the values of the Packard Foundation."
Heaphy also praised Schlosberg for his loyalty, "strong character," "strong work ethics" and "very high expectations for performance."
"I never ask anybody to do anything I wouldn't do myself," Schlosberg said. But this runner of three New York City marathons asks a lot of himself.
Though the "adrenaline rush" of a heavy news day is no longer part of Schlosberg's life, the excitement of making a difference in the world, through the foundation, keeps this high-energy worker charged.
"These goals (of the foundation board) are extraordinarily high and extremely broad," he said.
For instance, the foundation committed $75 million alone this year to battling overpopulation, lending help to massive family planning efforts in eight needy countries. Over the next five years, the program will provide more than $333 million to fight population growth globally.
The foundation also plans to spend $375 million for land, marine and energy conservation, in areas such as protecting critical habitats and advancing science for conservation. A big focus is a $175 million program to protect threatened California environments, such as the central coast and the Sierra Nevada.
Schlosberg also touted a foundation program aimed at helping nonprofits manage themselves better, a welcome idea in the wake of the $10 million shortfall recently experienced by the United Way of Santa Clara County.
The strong children's component of the foundation, which promotes quality health care for all children and promotes child development, also is something sure not to be lost on Schlosberg. He was frequently spotted playing with employees' kids at a recent foundation picnic. "Every time you turned around, he was with some new child," Larson said.
Such instances don't surprise Kathy, who praised her husband for "his friendliness and his generous spirit." Kathy, a self-described "lifelong teacher," also loves kids, having taught high school math and worked as director of studies at Westridge School in Pasadena, an all-girls school.
"One of the things that's great (about Schlosberg) is that he respects everything (about the foundation) that's gone before," Larson said. "He's sees his goals as reaching those (foundation) goals. It's a real revitalization for all of us."
Schlosberg said, "I'm still looking for the typical day," when asked to describe what one might be like for him at the foundation. But considering the motivated, driving nature of the man, that typical day might never come. And the foundation may be all the better for it.