Jean McCown named Stanford's community rep Jean McCown named Stanford's community rep (May 12, 2004)

Longtime Palo Alto attorney, environmentalist and former Palo Alto Mayor Jean McCown has been named to succeed Andy Coe as Stanford University's director of community relations.

Mr. Coe is leaving Stanford May 14 for a job on the East Coast, where his wife was raised and has family.

Larry Horton, Stanford associate vice president/public affairs, said Ms. McCown's "strengths in the community" will make her a valuable member of the university's leadership team in the Office of Government and Community Relations, which he heads. "It's going to be fun to have her aboard."

Ms. McCown, who has consulted independently on Stanford land-use and policy issues for the past five years, will officially join Stanford May 17.

She has been with the Ritchey Fisher Whitman & Klein law firm since 1977, first as an associate attorney and as a partner since 1984. She said she will resign from the firm to take the Stanford post.

She also independently consulted with the Carnegie Foundation when it was in its final approval stages for its new headquarters in the Stanford Foothills, adjacent to the Stanford Golf Course above Junipero Serra Boulevard.

She has a deep background in community affairs, including serving on both the Palo Alto Planning Commission (1979-1987) and on the City Council (1990-1998). She chaired the Planning Commission from 1981 to 1983 and served as Palo Alto mayor in 1993.

She also has a long background as an environmentalist, serving briefly on the board of the Committee for Green Foothills and for many years on the board of the Green Foothills Foundation. She is a current board member of the Greenbelt Alliance. She was articles editor for the Ecology Law Quarterly in 1977 when she was completed her law studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

She received a bachelor's degree in history, with honors and high distinction and a Phi Beta Kappa membership from the University of Michigan in 1971, and received a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin, with an emphasis on the history of modern China, in 1973.

In 1994 she received the John Gardner Leadership Award from the American Leadership Forum.

-- Palo Alto Weekly

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