| Hartford N. Gunn Jr. | |
| Birth Date: | 1927 |
| Birth Place: | Port Washington, New York, US |
| Death Date: | January 2, 1986 (aged 59) |
| Death Place: | Boston, Massachusetts, US |
| Education: | Harvard Business School (MBA) |
| Years Active: | 1969 - 1986 |
| Known For: | Founding president of PBS |
Hartford N. Gunn Jr. (1927 - January 2, 1986) was the founding President of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).[1]
Gunn was born in 1927 in Port Washington, New York.[1] He studied at Harvard Business School and received his MBA in 1951.[1]
He served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and was voted one of the outstanding men of the year in 1962 by the Boston Junior Chamber of Commerce.[2]
After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1951, Gunn started working at Boston's WGBH-TV.At the time he started, WGBH was an FM radio station and he expanded it to include a television station.[3] [4]
Over the next five years, he had the role of director of operations before assuming the position of general manager in 1957.[3]
In 1969 as manager of WGBH-TV, Gunn invited Fred Rogers to accompany him and testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications in support of the full funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.[5]
In 1970 he was chosen as the first president of the Public Broadcasting Service, at least in part due to his "widely acknowledged success in the 1960s at the Boston television station WGBH".
Gunn became vice-chairman of PBS in 1976. He was senior vice president and general manager of KCET, (at the time it was the public TV station in Los Angeles) from 1979 until 1983. Before his death he worked as a public television consultant in Annapolis, Maryland where he had lived.[1]
In 1964, he was the recipient of the Lamp of Knowledge Award for his contribution to educational television and radio. Gunn also received the third annual Ralph Lowell Medal for creative public broadcasting in 1973.[6]
On January 2, 1986, Gunn died of multi-focal leukoencephalopathy, a rare, cancer-related illness at Massachusetts General Hospital at the age of 59.[1] [2]