L.A.Times Publisher John P. Puerner Elected to Caltech Board of Trustees

PASADENA—California Institute of Technology president David Baltimore has announced the election of Los Angeles Times publisher, president, and CEO John P. Puerner to the Institute's board of trustees.

Puerner has been at the helm of the Los Angeles Times since April 2000. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, he held several positions at the Tribune Company, first at the Chicago Tribune and later at the Orlando Sentinel. Joining the Tribune in 1979 as financial analyst, he also held positions as manager of financial planning and assistant treasurer, director of strategic planning and assistant planning, controller and director of planning, and vice president and director of marketing and development. He was president of Orlando Sentinel Communications and chief executive officer and publisher of the Orlando Sentinel from 1993 until 2000.

Puerner is on the boards of the Los Angeles Business Advisors, the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Music Center, the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Pasadena Art Center College of Design, the California Community Foundation, and the International Women's Media Foundation.

He also serves on the advisory council of the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business. He earned his bachelor of arts and MBA degrees from the University of Colorado.

Founded in 1891, Caltech is located on a 124-acre campus in Pasadena. The Institute also manages the nearby Jet Propulsion Laboratory and operates eight other off-campus astronomical, seismological, and marine biology facilities. Caltech has an enrollment of some 2,000 students, more than half of whom are in graduate studies, and a faculty of about 280 professorial members and 65 research members, and some 560 postdoctoral scholars. Caltech employs a staff of more than 2,600 on campus and 5,100 at JPL.

U.S. News &World Report consistently ranks Caltech's undergraduate and graduate programs as being among the nation's best. The average SAT score of members of recent incoming freshman classes has consistently been at 1500.