Dawn Bonker
The PBS SoCaL Board of Trustees, meeting at the City Club on Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles, unanimously elected Robert G. Magnuson, a Distinguished Fellow and adjunct faculty member at Chapman University, as the new chair of the board. Also at the meeting, held on Tuesday, July 23, Chapman University Trustee S. Paul Musco was chosen vice chair of the trustees group.
Magnuson is the founder of the Orange County-based strategic communications firm Magnuson & Company and teaches media and communications at Chapman. He has served on the PBS SoCaL Board of Trustees since 2009 and also sits on the board of several non-profit companies. Magnuson previously has served on numerous additional boards, including the executive board of the University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science and the corporate advisory board of the Pacific Council on International Policy.
A native of Los Angeles, Magnuson graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in political science and earned master’s degrees in economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and in journalism from Columbia University. He has worked in the media business for more than three decades, as a former business editor of the Los Angeles Times, president of the Los Angeles Times Orange County, senior news executive, CEO and consultant.
“I have always been a big believer in public television and a big supporter of PBS SoCaL, so it is a great privilege to take on the role as the new board chair,” says Magnuson. “Since PBS SoCaL is now the PBS station for the entire Los Angeles area, there are big challenges and opportunities for us to grow, and I am excited to be a part of it.”
Trustee Musco, along with his wife, Marybelle, are longtime friends of the university and led the successful fundraising drive to build Chapman’s new arts facility. The 1,050-seat Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Center for the Arts is now under construction and expected to be completed in 2015.
Add comment