Leonard Aube started out parking cars at a local Dodge dealership in Torrance. It was just after high school and he was still living at home with his parents. Later he went to work doing the same thing at Marineland of the Pacific, a Palos Verdes Peninsula amusement park. He made his way up to an executive position before its 1987 closing. Aube then did a stint as a freelance marine wildlife photographer before signing on with the California Museum of Science and Industry – now called the California Science Center – where he helped raise funds to revamp the institution and met Wallis Annenberg. Aube, now 50, directs the $1.7 billion Annenberg Foundation, which last year moved its headquarters from Radnor, Pa., to Century City. The foundation – created by Walter H. Annenberg, the former ambassador to England and publisher of TV Guide – dispenses about $150 million in grants per year, a level maintained even after a recent reduction in its endowment resulted in a downsizing of staff. The foundation has funded everything from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the Annenberg Space for Photography in Century City to a public center called the Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica and a tree house accessible to wheelchair-bound kids in Torrance. The Business Journal caught up with Aube at the foundation’s Torrance office, from where he was helping to plan the Annenberg Project at Lower Point Vicente, an education center and family destination in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Question: How did a guy like you end up directing a foundation worth nearly $2 billion?
Answer: It all ties to Exposition Park. Wallis Annenberg became a trustee of the California Science Center Foundation; she was on lots of boards then, and had a particular interest in Exposition Park. I met Wallis, essentially, because as senior vice president of marketing and communications, I was staffing the board and Wallis was a trustee. For quite a number of years we had strictly a trustee-staffer relationship; I didn’t know her well.
How did it go to the next level?
When her father, Walter Annenberg, began slowing down and it was clear that Wallis was going to be a successor, she started looking for somebody to establish a presence for the Annenberg Foundation in Los Angeles. They went through a search process and, when Walter passed away in 2002, Wallis and I had a focused conversation on what she wanted to do philanthropically. We both took a leap of faith and it was, certainly for me, one of the most important and satisfying decisions I’ve ever made. That was almost seven years ago.
Do you have a background in science?
I don’t have a formal or technical degree. I grew up right here in West Torrance, probably about two miles from the beach as the crow flies. As kids we used to ride our bikes all the way to San Pedro with our wet suits tied to our handlebars, take the Catalina Express over to Catalina and disappear for the day. I got the bug early to grab a mask and snorkel. Then, for my 16th birthday, my parents did the most remarkable thing: signed me up for scuba classes at Dive N’ Surf in Redondo Beach. That opened up a whole new world; I grew up with “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.”
Why didn’t you go to college?
Not long after high school, I was on my own and that was it – it was like, hey, I’m going to have to fend for myself here. College just wasn’t in the cards for me. I was very young, of course. I’m very focused on wanting my kids to go to college. I’ve always been someone with a good work ethic and very curious about the things around me.
How did you land the gig at Marineland?
I was already working at the Dodge dealership and heard of this cool job at Marineland as an aquarist – the guy who went into the giant 500,000-gallon tank in a Navy hard hat and dry suit to feed the fish. That’s the job I wanted. It turned out that it was a union job with a waiting list. But they hired me to park cars, and eventually I worked my way up to a position in the marketing department.
Were you there when the park closed?
Yes, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich – the owner of Sea World – bought Marineland and ultimately decided to close it. We were told, point blank, that the park would be absorbed and continue operating and then, literally the next day, Orky and Corky – the two famous whales – were put in trailers and whisked down the 405 Freeway in the middle of the night. There was a lot of anger in the community over that.
Then you went to work for the California Science Center?
Not right away. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do and had always dabbled in photography, so I shot off an unsolicited query to the editor of Sea Frontiers Magazine because I owned a small runabout boat and had been out photographing sea life. I sent them an article – with pretty pictures – called the Dolphins of San Pedro Channel and they published it and it won an award. Then it just kind of snowballed; editors of other science-related magazines started contacting me. I wasn’t really making a living at it, but it was interesting and I got to travel a bit, got a bigger boat and better gear. Then a buddy from Marineland who had gone to the California Science Center called me out of the blue and said, “Len, we could sure use your help.”
How long did you stay?
A little over 15 years. The museum was in the preliminary stages of developing a master plan that would span some 25 years. Part of it was something called the World of Ecology, an exhibit about ecosystems on the planet that would be a very contemporary aquariumlike element. It was going to be about developing a quality family destination related to lifelong learning. So I did my assignment, and then the museum’s foundation offered me a full-time job to try and figure out how to raise public and private funds to make this giant master plan happen. Flash-forward 20 years and the thing that brought me to the Science Center in 1988 is finally opening in March.
What is the mission at Annenberg?
In effect, it’s a reflection of Walter Annenberg. Remember how he made his money; in communications and media. He always felt that access to information was an important element of making decisions. So the mission is about access to information and effective communications to improve and advance the common good. That doesn’t mean that all of our grants are tied to formal communications, but that does exist in the background.
What do you do to make it happen?
As executive director, it’s mostly grunt work. I don’t have any authority to bind Annenberg assets, only our trustees can do that. I steward the board and try to provide a level of mentorship. We have thousands and thousands of parties coming to us for support; my job is to do enough research so that the board can make decisions about approving a grant here and declining a proposal there. Part of the importance of my position is to ensure that accessibility to the Annenberg Foundation is genuine.
Who’s on the board?
Wallis Annenberg is its chairwoman. The other trustees are her three adult children: Lauren Bon, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten and Charles Annenberg Weingarten.
What’s it like working with them?
It’s incredibly complicated because the underlying personalities are different and we don’t try and treat them all the same. It’s a tailored situation, but because they avail themselves to us, I have weekly meetings with each member of the board. On Mondays, Wallis comes into the office; on Tuesday afternoons we set aside time for Charlie; we see Lauren on Thursdays; and, because Greg lives in Paris, we’re on the teleconference with him every other Friday. The family comes together once a month to focus on their trusteeship, visions and grant-making policy.
What can you tell us about them as people?
Lauren is very interested in art; one of her pet projects is Not a Cornfield, a living sculpture in the form of a 32-acre field of corn just north of Chinatown and south of Lincoln Heights. Charlie’s main work is in expanding the potentials of social networking. Greg lives in Paris and is very involved in issues there. As for Wallis she’s the antithesis of a micromanager, she gives you a framework, says she trusts you and then lets you go. Because of that, people deliver and overdeliver like crazy.
Why did the foundation move to Los Angeles?
The main reason is that most of the family lives here. We established Los Angeles as a branch office after Walter Annenberg died and I came on in 2003. Then when his wife, Lenore, passed away in 2009 we moved our headquarters here. We still have branch offices in Radnor, Pa., and Washington, D.C.
What’s your typical day like?
I back out of my driveway at 6:45 a.m. and jump on my East Coast calls, rolling along in my Prius talking on the phone. During the day there are meetings galore; sometimes I feel like my life is one big meeting. Once I get to Century City, it’s rare for me to leave before 6:30 or 7 p.m. So, right out of the gate, my day is structured as a minimum 12-hour day. Because of the nature of what we do, we’re often asked to attend public events and represent the foundation in the community. In the last week alone, I did literally three events that kept me out until 9:30 or 10 p.m. So when I sign out late on a Friday night, it’s family time. I don’t keep my BlackBerry on during the weekend.
What’s the hardest part of your job?
Probably the most challenging aspect is time management, the ability to have contemplative, focused time to think about complex issues. Three or four days a week I get up superearly to do a four- or five-mile run; it clears my head and allows me to think.
What else do you do for fun?
I own several cars. I never got over my motorhead days; I have a big motorcycle, the Prius and a truck to pull my boat. Right now my house looks like a car lot. I also have a 1968 Mustang GT convertible, which I found in a barn in Oklahoma and brought back to life. My son and I converted it. Mechanically, it’s a great car; aesthetically it still needs some work. We tool around in it on the weekends – it’s loud and it’s smelly.
What about family life?
My wife, Robin, used to work at Long Beach Memorial; she has a degree in nuclear medicine and an M.B.A. She worked in the radiology department until our daughter was born. She left work and it was a real struggle on one income. She’s still home with the kids, who are very involved in community service and sports. My daughter is on a soccer team, and my son plays high school baseball. We are also outdoor enthusiasts; boating, camping, skiing. Both kids have had blue whales breathe on them – we’ve been out and had those encounters, and those are the things they remember.
Do you have any favorite Annenberg projects?
A $25,000 grant to a community-based organization collecting coats and shoes for homeless people on Skid Row can be a very impactful experience. On the other hand, investing $27.5 million to help the city of Santa Monica create an entirely new family destination like the Annenberg Community Beach House is also really interesting. I enjoy them all.
What about the tree house in Torrance?
It started when Wallis, who’s a voracious reader, saw an article in the Wall Street Journal about this wonderful man who was building a universally accessible tree house at a private camp in Connecticut. She thought it was a marvelous idea, but that it should be in a public place. So we flew him out and ended up spending nearly half-a-million dollars. Bottom line is that the universally accessible tree house opened at Wilson Park in Torrance. It’s basically a tree house with ramps; from the ground up, kids in wheelchairs can snake themselves up into the canopy of the tree.
Has the foundation had to downsize?
Our endowment has been reduced by about 20 percent due to the recession. It’s come back a little bit, but it’s always very volatile. As a result we unfortunately had to say goodbye to some good people; about 13 individuals, including some whose jobs were eliminated as part of the consolidation when we moved to Los Angeles. We have about 65 employees now.
What’s next for you?
This job is the Mount Everest of personal career development. That said, of course, Wallis Annenberg could replace me with a phone call. But it’s been an amazing ride so far.
Leonard Aube
TITLE: Executive Director
ORGANIZATION: Annenberg Foundation
BORN: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; 1959
EDUCATION: West High School, Torrance
CAREER TURNING POINT: Answering a phone call from Wallis Annenberg
MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE: His parents and Wallis Annenberg
PERSONAL: Lives in Rolling Hills Estates with his wife and two children, 14 and 17
ACTIVITIES: Riding motorcycles, boating, restoring old cars, skin diving, photography, jogging and attending his kids’ sporting events
