NEWS

Rita Allen Foundation Announces Appointment of Landon Jones to Board of Directors

January 22, 2010

Well-known author and editor Landon Y. (Lanny) Jones has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Rita Allen Foundation. Mr. Jones executed pivotal roles in the growth of People and Money magazines, serving as head editor for each of the iconic publications.

"As the Rita Allen Foundation expands its vision and reach, we will benefit greatly from Lanny’s expertise in communications and his life experiences,” said Rita Allen Foundation Board of Directors Chairman Aristides Georgantas. “His accomplishments as an editor, author and teacher have earned him recognition as one of the most respected individuals in publishing today.”

Mr. Jones enjoyed a distinguished 30-year career with Time Inc. where he served as managing editor of Money, the leading personal-finance magazine, and People, the most successful weekly publication in the world. In addition, Jones directed the editorial planning and launching of four new magazines within the People division: Who Weekly (1992), the magazine’s first international edition in Australia; In Style (1994), the successful celebrity lifestyle monthly; People en Espanol (1996), the first general-interest magazine published for the U.S. Hispanic market; and Teen People (1998), now the leading title in the teenage market.

As a member of the Rita Allen Foundation Board, Mr. Jones will collaborate with other directors and staff to build on the organization’s strategic vision and oversee its policies.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to work with Lanny Jones and to learn from him,” said Elizabeth Christopherson, President, CEO and Director of the Rita Allen Foundation. “Two areas we want to emphasize are enhanced outreach to the community and increasing our visibility, and no one knows the formulas for achieving those goals better than Lanny Jones. The Foundation will grow and, more importantly, the scholars receiving our grants will benefit from our plans to improve exposure to their work.”

In addition to his successes as a journalist and editor, Mr. Jones is the author of several acclaimed books, including William Clark and the Shaping of the West (Hill and Wang, 2004), The Essential Lewis and Clark (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2000) and Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation (Putnam, 1980). The latter coined the phrase “baby boomer” and was nominated for the American Book Award in Nonfiction.

A native of St. Louis, Mo., Mr. Jones wrote for Time and People before becoming the head editor of Money. His many magazine articles have included cover stories for Time and The Atlantic Monthly. In 1967 he was a member of a special Life magazine investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy that received the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service.

Mr. Jones has taught courses in advanced nonfiction writing as a visiting McGraw Professor at Princeton University (1995), Writer in Residence at Northwestern University (2006), and adjunct professor in the honors program at Montana State University (2008).

Before joining the Rita Allen Foundation, he served on the boards of two national nonprofits, the Alzheimer’s Association and American Rivers, and Princeton Project 55, a civic-engagement advocacy group. He is a member of the Graduate Advisory Council of the Princeton University Department of English.

He and his wife Sarah live in Princeton, NJ and Bozeman, MT.