Leadership Series Discussion Leaders

Brown is the founder and president of Banks Brown, a San Francisco-based management-consulting firm that specializes in the development and implementation of comprehensive, strategic diversity plans. He assists executives, senior managers and planning groups in developing strategies to manage changing organizational cultures. He has provided leadership and management training seminars for more than 25,000 managers. Brown serves as a consultant to major corporations, including The Proctor & Gamble Co., Avon Products, Inc., McDonald's Corp., General Electric Plastic, Eastman Kodak Co., Exxon, U.S.A., Arthur Anderson and Reebok International Ltd.

Jennie Buckner, currently the top news executive at the Charlotte, North Carolina newsapaper, was a vice president/news for parent Knight Ridder, where she was responsible for the news/editorial content of Knight Ridder's larger papers and the operations of the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. She came to the corporate office from the San Jose Mercury News, where she had worked for 10 years. Her last position in San Jose was managing editor/PM. Before joining the Mercury News she was with the Detroit Free Press for nine years in a number of editing positions, including photo editor, assistant women's editor and assistant city editor.

Pam Luecke is a professor of business journalism at Washington and Lee University. She was formerly editor and senior vice president at the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald Leader. She has worked as an editorial page editor and writer and business editor in her more than 25 years in newspapers. As an editor at the Hartford Courant, she shared in the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1993 for work uncovering construction and design flaws with the Hubble Telescope.

RICH OPPEL, editor, Austin American-Statesman, past
president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors

Rich Oppel has been editor in Austin since 1995. He is in charge of the news
and editorial content of the newspaper, which has a daily circulation of 187,000
(244,000 on Sunday). Oppel was president of ASNE last year. He has worked as a
reporter for the Tampa Tribune, a bureau chief for The Associated Press, and
associate editor of The Detroit Free Press. He became executive editor of The
Tallahassee Democrat in 1977, and editor of The Charlotte Observer in 1978.
During his 15 years in Charlott, The Observer won two Pulitzer prizes. Oppel was
named the Editor of the Year by the National Press Club in
1988.

In addition to his job duties, Quarles is chairman of the Newspaper Association of America. In his NAA role, he serves as a spokesperson for the newspaper industry. He started from some humble beginnings, rising from apprentice compositor to director of advertising at the San Bernardino Sun. In 1987, he was named assistant to the regional president for Gannett's western region and later publisher of the Fort Collins Coloradoan. In 1990 he was named publisher of the Stockton (California) Record. In February, 1993, McClatchy Newspapers named him president and publisher of the Herald in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and director of Carolina Operations to oversee the company's interests in that region of the country. In 1996 he became publisher of the Modesto (California) Bee.