Michael G. Gartner

From dKosopedia

Category: Iowa people

Michael G. Gartner of Des Moines is chairman and principal owner of the Iowa Cubs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. He is a native Iowan who has been a lifelong journalist. Over the years, he has been Page One Editor of The Wall Street Journal, editor and president of The Des Moines Register, editor of the Courier-Journal of Louisville, general news executive of Gannett Co. and USA TODAY, and president of NBC News.

In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorials he wrote for the Ames Tribune, of which he was editor and co-owner.

From 2000 to 2005, Mr. Gartner was chairman of Vision Iowa, the state board charged with helping to fund the building of recreation, education, cultural and entertainment facilities in the state. Vision Iowa and the state’s Community Attraction and Tourism (CAT) program, which was created with the same legislation, have funded 170 projects throughout the state and leveraged more than $2.5 billion in construction of community projects as of January 2005.

Mr. Gartner is a native of Des Moines. He is a 1960 graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and has a law degree from New York University. He is a member of the bar in New York and Iowa. In 1994, he was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

He was appointed to the Iowa Board of Regents in 2005.

(This entry was copied verbatim from the Iowa Board of Regents website.)

Iowa Board of Regents

As teh president of the Iowa Board of Regents, he forced the departure of University of Iowa President, David Skorton, by giving him a much lower pay raise than the state's other university presidents. Gartner is reportedly a friend of former Regent's President and Wellmark CEO John D. Forsyth.