ARLINGTON, VA, September 28, 2009 - Paula Kerger, PBS President and Chief Executive Officer, announced the results of the 2009-2010 elections for six Professional Directors to serve on the PBS Board of Directors. Voting by member stations across the nation concluded earlier this month. Each of the elected directors will serve a three-year term that begins on October 20, at the Organization Meeting of the PBS Board.
Elected to three-year terms are:
- Jon Abbott, President and CEO, WGBH/Boston, MA
- Jack Galmiche, President and CEO, KETC/St. Louis, MO
- Peter Morrill, General Manager, Idaho Public Television, Boise, ID
- Jim Pagliarini, President and CEO, tpt/St. Paul, MN
- Sharon Rockefeller, President and CEO, WETA/Washington, DC
- Lloyd Wright, President and CEO, WFYI/Indianapolis, IN
- Mr. Morrill, Mr. Pagliarini and Ms. Rockefeller are current members of the Board. Directors can serve for two consecutive terms.
"PBS is fortunate that such exceptional individuals have chosen to serve on our Board of Directors," said Ms. Kerger. "The Professional Directors bring to the Board their broad experience as system leaders and informed perspectives on the complex issues facing public service media. I highly value their candor, judgment and dedication and look forward to working closely with each of them."
The PBS Board includes both Professional Directors, who are station leaders, and General Directors, who represent the general public. The membership of PBS elects the Professional Directors. The General Directors are elected by the Board, which also appoints the PBS President and Chief Executive Officer.
The Directors are responsible for governing and setting policy for PBS. In total, the Board comprises 27 members: 14 Professional Members; 12 General Directors; and the PBS President. All PBS Board members serve three-year terms, without pay.
Biographical Information
Jon Abbott
President and CEO of WGBH/Boston, Abbott is a leading advocate for public service media nationwide. He joined WGBH in 1998, became Executive Vice President and COO in 2004 and was named President and CEO in October 2007. Abbott oversees 11 public TV services and three public radio services serving southern New England, as well as WGBH's national television, radio and Web production activities, media access services and educational technologies. Abbott has worked closely with PBS to extend public service media's reach; he helped spearhead the launch of two new national digital program services: Create (a syndicated lifestyle channel co-created with WNET.org made its national debut in 2005; PBS World (a syndicated non-fiction service co-created with WNET.org showcasing science, history, nature, and news programming) followed in 2007. During his tenure as president, Abbott has expanded WGBH's new media and educational efforts and partnerships, from Teachers' Domain (a multimedia online service for teachers and students) to the experimental WGBH Lab (using the Web and rights-cleared "open content" to open doors to the next generation of media makers) to We Shall Remain from American Experience, an ambitious multimedia and outreach project about Native history. These efforts build on Abbott's early and longstanding interest in re-tooling legacy productions, distribution and fundraising systems to provide public service media's distinctive content across an expanding array of digital devices - making it easier for the public as well as educators and students to access public media's rich library of programming and information when and where they choose. Before going to WGBH, Abbott served as Senior Vice President for Development and Corporate Relations at PBS (1992-1998). Prior to that, he spent five years in senior management with KQED/San Francisco. He serves on numerous public media boards, including American Public Television (APT), American Documentary/P.O.V. and Public Television Major Market Group (PTMMG). He is a trustee of the Boston Children's Museum and Arts Boston and a board member of Project Healthy Children. Abbott holds a BA from Columbia University and an MBA from Stanford University.
Jack Galmiche
Jack Galmiche became the President and CEO of KETC/St. Louis in November 2006. KETC is among the most-watched public television stations in the PBS system, with one of the most highly rated audiences for full-day viewing. Mr. Galmiche has focused the station's efforts around new forms of community engagement and expanded the reach of the station's content through new forms of digital distribution. KETC's community engagement now includes over 70 public television and radio stations through the Facing the Mortgage Crisis initiative. A new 5,000-square-foot digital media center is currently under construction at KETC. Known as the Nine Network of Public Media, the facility will include a daily online news service in cooperation with former award-winning journalists from the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Prior to joining KETC, Mr. Galmiche was the Executive Vice President and COO of Oregon Public Broadcasting. He joined OPB in 1997 to lead the statewide network's efforts in the emerging capabilities of digital television. Under his leadership, OPB's National Television Production unit posted substantial gains - increasing national productions for pubic television from 30 hours to more than 200 hours, including the current PBS series History Detectives. Galmiche has served on several public broadcasting boards and committees. He is a current member and Treasurer of the Board of American Public Television and immediate past member and Treasurer of the Board of the Integrated Media Association. He is the past Board Chair of the Northwest Public Affairs Network, a former member of the NAB Data Broadcasting Committee and a contributing member of several DTV standards organizations, including the ATSC Committee on Interactive Services. He also served as a director of the International Electronic Cinema Festival. Galmiche holds a BS in Finance and Business Management from St. Louis University.
Peter Morrill Peter W. Morrill has been General Manager for Idaho Public Television since 1996. During his 30-plus year career in the media, Morrill has actively supported and defended the role of public broadcasting: to enlighten, to entertain and to serve those not otherwise served by mainstream media. Morrill serves on several boards of directors. He is currently serving a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). In addition, he is serving on the Board of Directors of the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA), of which he is the Chairman (August 2009) of the Executive Committee. Also, Morrill is serving on the Board of Directors of the Idaho State Broadcasters Association and is serving as Chairman (August 2009). Morrill was born and raised in Connecticut and attended Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. He has worked in various production and management capacities for WBGU/Bowling Green, Ohio (1978-1979); Idaho Public Television (1979-1986); WUFT/Gainesville, Florida (1986-1989); and Idaho Public Television (1989-Present). Morrill has been honored with awards of distinction including: the Silver Circle Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Northwest Chapter (2008); Intellectual Freedom Award, American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho (2002); National Advocacy Award, America's Public Television Stations (2002); Grass Roots Award, America's Public Television Stations (1999); the first annual Idaho Tax Turkey Award, Idahoans for Tax Reform (1999); and the United Nations Human Rights Day Award, Idaho Voices of Faith (1999). Peter and his wife, Linda Olson, have a 14-year-old daughter, Sadie. On most weekends, they can be found skiing, rafting, road biking or running in the Idaho outdoors.
Jim Pagliarini
Jim Pagliarini joined Twin Cities Public Television (tpt) as its fifth President and CEO in September l997. He began his career in public broadcasting immediately after graduate school, in 1976, at KTEH/San Jose, CA. Prior to joining tpt, he helped found public television station KNPB/Reno, NV, and served as CEO and General Manager from 1982-1997. He currently serves on the PBS Board of Directors and is the Chair of the Public Television Major Market Group (PTMMG). Over the past three decades, Pagliarini has been active as a system leader. Today, he is leading a national planning initiative on how public television might better serve an aging population. In 2005, he took a part-time leave of absence to work with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the Affinity Group Coalition (AGC) in leading a system-wide strategic planning project on the future of the local public television station. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of PBS from 1992-1998 holding positions on the Board's Executive Committee, Nominating Committee and as Vice Chair of the Board's Finance Committee. He has also served on numerous national task forces that explored, refined and redefined the business of public television. Bookending his work today as Chair of the PTMMG, he served as the National Coordinator for the Small Station Association in the mid 1980s. Outside public television, he served over a decade as a member of the Board of Directors of the Agency for Instructional Technology (AIT), a non-profit, Canadian-U.S. corporation devoted to the production and development of educational media. Pagliarini received his undergraduate degree in biology from Princeton University and his master's degree in Education from Temple University.
Sharon Percy Rockefeller
Sharon Percy Rockefeller has served the public broadcasting community for more than 30 years as a leader, innovator and advocate. As President and CEO of WETA/Washington, DC, since 1989, Ms. Rockefeller heads a vibrant civic and cultural institution in the nation's capital and a major national and local television production center. WETA serves a diverse population in Greater Washington that also includes the Congress, White House, OMB and the FCC. WETA is a community licensee operating radio and television stations, HDTV and multicast digital channels, extensive Web services, podcasts and a Learning Media unit. The third-largest producing station for the system, WETA creates more than 350 hours of national programming annually, including The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, history series by Ken Burns, including The National Parks: America's Best Idea, Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal, A Capitol Fourth, In Performance at the White House, The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor and major public affairs series such as America at a Crossroads. In addition to previous service on the PBS Board, she served on the Board of West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority for 10 years; as a member of the CPB Board for 12 years, including four years as chairman; and as chairman of the WETA Board of Trustees for three years. Ms. Rockefeller is active in a number of areas, including education, fine arts, government and women's issues. She has received many awards for her work, including the Charles Frankel Prize from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the CINE Lifetime Achievement Award and the Women of Vision Award. She serves on national boards including the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and is the Presiding Director of PepsiCo, Inc. She is married to Senator John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV of West Virginia. They have four grown children - all raised on Sesame Street.
Lloyd Wright
Lloyd Wright has more than three decades of experience in public service media. In his current role as President and CEO of WFYI/ Indianapolis, IN, Wright oversees Central Indiana's PBS and NPR stations; WFYI Productions; WFYI's Learning Services; Indiana Reading and Information Services (IRIS) - a free service for Indiana's print impaired and the WFYI Foundation. Wright joined WFYI in 1988 as Director of? Program Production and was appointed WFYI's President and Chief Executive Officer the following year. Under his direction, WFYI relocated to a state-of-the-art telecommunications complex in downtown Indianapolis; completed the first phase of its $20.2 million capital campaign; and was awarded a $900,000 Kresge Foundation Capital Grant. In recognition of its innovative fundraising practices and overall growth in membership and donor relations, WFYI was honored with three 2008 PBS Development Awards, including the "Award of Excellence for Overall Membership." Wright has been recognized with an Emmy Award for Technical Achievement, as well as the Sagamore of the Wabash, the highest award given by the Governor to recognize distinguished service to the state of Indiana. In addition to his service at WFYI, Wright served for six years as Broadcast Operations Manager of WTTW/Chicago, IL, was Producer/Director/Writer for the Indiana University News Bureau and Director of Instructional Broadcasting for the Indiana Department of Education. A former two-term PBS board member (1999-2004), Wright served on the Member Services Committee, the initial Task Force that established the PBS Foundation and as Vice Chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. He's currently on the board of the Public Television Major Market Group (PTMMG), chairs the Joint Licensee Group, is past President of Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations, Inc., and a director of the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication System. He also serves on the Indiana Broadcasters Association's Pioneers Executive Committee, Martin University Board of Trustees, the Confucius Institute and as a director of the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee. Wright received a BA in Telecommunications from Indiana University. He's completed numerous leadership development programs, including CPB's Executive Management Institute from the University of California, Long Beach.
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