eter Carpenter knows fires first-hand. He drove a fire truck in Florida before he was allowed to drive a car. While attending Harvard, he spent three summers smoke-jumping -- parachuting from planes -- to fight forest fires all over the West.
Now, after a 30-year career managing high-technology organizations in the federal government, Stanford University, and the ALZA Corp., Mr. Carpenter is returning to the fire service.
The Board of Directors of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District selected Mr. Carpenter on March 20 to replace Peg Gunn on the district board. Mrs. Gunn, a longtime civic leader in Menlo Park, retired in February to a retirement home in Mountain View.
Three members of the board supported Mr. Carpenter, a resident of Atherton, for the seat after publicly interviewing five applicants for the vacancy. Director Robert Boeddiker abstained.
Mr. Carpenter will fill the remaining months of Mrs. Gunn's term, which ends in November, when directors Boeddiker and Del Krause are also up for re-election.
Other candidates were: Oliver Brown of Menlo Park, a 39-year veteran of the district who rose from firefighter to acting fire chief; former Menlo Park councilman and mayor Gerry Andeen; former Menlo School administrator Bill Moser; and vulcanologist Manuel Nathenson, all of Menlo Park. Veterinarian Orland Soave of Menlo Park, and educator M.R. "Maisha" Mouton of East Palo Alto withdrew their applications.
The Menlo Park Fire District provides fire protection and paramedic services to some 85,000 people in Menlo Park, Atherton, East Palo Alto, and adjacent unincorporated communities.
Besides extensive management experience, Mr. Carpenter brings a passion for public service to his new position. He retired from ALZA in 1990 to pursue pro-bono work on a wide range of boards and organizations.
"We are blessed with a fire district with a wonderful reputation in the Bay Area, California, and the country," Mr. Carpenter said. "It performs a very important function in the community, and I want to help it be even better."
Interview
"I know what it's like to confront an out-of-control fire," Mr. Carpenter says in an interview in his Atherton living room. "I've seen people put their lives at risk to save others. I understand the importance of teamwork.
"No firefighter does his job alone. It's like the military. You put your life in someone else's hands," he reflects. "It takes commitment and trust."
Mr. Carpenter's resume also includes several years in the Air Force in the mid-1960s. After earning a degree in chemistry at Harvard, he had assignments in the Middle East and Albuquerque, and earned an MBA at the University of Chicago.
He says he burned out after two intense years as a program manager for Southeast Asia at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). "I went around the world 17 times in two years," he says.
Mr. Carpenter came to Stanford in 1968 for some reflection. Soon he was embarking on a doctoral program in organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Business, and was assistant director of Stanford's Center for Materials Research. "I'm somebody who has to be busy," he says.
After a couple of years, he quit his studies and went back to Washington for a job in the federal Office of Management and Budget. "I was more interested in doing things than (in) teaching," he says.
Mr. Carpenter says he burned out again from another huge challenge in the early days of the Nixon Administration. Working for George Shultz, he was asked to set up a new federal agency and hire 600 people -- in 16 days. Then he spent the next two years as deputy executive director of the U.S. Price Commission.
In 1973, Mr. Carpenter came back to Palo Alto and Stanford. By 1975 he was executive director of the Stanford Medical Center. His job there was to try to bring the hospital, the clinic, and the medical school more closely together.
"That was probably the least successful job of my entire career," Mr. Carpenter says. Their cultures were too different, and "culture makes all the difference in the world."
More successful were Mr. Carpenter's efforts to redesign the parking system on campus. After policy meetings, surveys and questionnaires, he and his team came up with a plan for parking fees, the Marguerite Shuttle, bike paths, and parking structures paid for by parking fees. He says he's proud that Stanford is a leader in promoting the culture of shuttles, carpooling and bicycles.
Mr. Carpenter also became more involved in community activities. He served on the Palo Alto Planning Commission from 1974 to 1978.
In 1976, Mr. Carpenter moved to the private sector and joined ALZA Corp., which designs and manufactures medical patches and drug-delivery systems. He climbed the corporate ladder until he retired in 1990 as president of ALZA Development Corp.
Also at ALZA, he met and eventually married Jane Shaw of Atherton, an English research scientist who invented the motion-sickness patch, and also moved up the corporate ladder.
In 1990, Mr. Carpenter retired to devote himself to public service. "I like working with a small number of people on issues that are important," he says.
One of his favorite fields is helping organizations and companies clarify their missions and values. He has founded a Missions and Values Institute, and advises numerous companies. At ALZA, he says, every employee carries a card listing corporate values; for example, everyone should be treated with respect.
"We tend to take values for granted, and assume that everyone has the same values," Mr. Carpenter reflects. "That's not true. We all come to the table with dramatically different values."
Asked about his goals for the fire district, Mr. Carpenter says it's too early to tell, although he likes the board and admires the caliber of the staff. "The fire district ought to be the best in the U.S.," he says. "It's well on the way there."
