This is about Bruce. No last name needed. Southern California has more than its fair share of celebrity one-name-wonders: Kobe, Barbra, Leonardo, Arnold. And Our Valley has Bruce. Notice the use of the present tense. Even if Bruce is gone, we still have Bruce. We still have the memory of his ability to laugh louder at his own jokes than did anyone else, his unshakable commitment to the future of the San Fernando Valley, and his ability to forge consensus out of disarray. A fitting birthday Bruce was born on December 4, 1945. How fitting it is that on that exact date the U.S. Senate voted 65 to 7 to participate in the fledgling United Nations. In a way, an organization and a man dedicated to improving our world were born on the same day. If you stick a pin in a map just about right in the middle of the nation, you’ll land on Kearney, Nebraska; that’s where Bruce was born. How appropriate for someone who espoused all the Midwestern virtues of hard work, dedication, and commitment to family and community. He was definitely a homeboy, graduating from Kearney Catholic High School and from the University of Nebraska-Kearney. Not surprisingly, he majored in psychology. Cindi Richter, Director of Development of the Kearney Catholic Foundation, points out that since the school opened in 1961, Bruce was a member “of the first graduating class in 1964. Bruce – since his name started with an A – is actually the first graduate of Kearney Catholic.” Leave it to Bruce to be first…again. Mike Sims remembers… Mike Sims is now Executive Officer for Corporate and External Relations at Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business and Management. I first knew Mike in the late 1970s, when he was at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and I was Senior VP at Playboy Enterprises – small world. He was Bruce’s close fiend at Kearney Catholic a few eons ago, and here’s what he says about him: “Bruce was the first person we all knew who actually carried a leather-bound organizer…he carried it everywhere. We called it a purse, but he said “Oh no, it was a personal organizer. “Bruce was the ‘alpha male’ at school, a three-star athlete: quarterback of our eight-man football team, point guard on our winless basketball team, and the 100 yard and 220 specialist on our track team. Bruce was fast. “Bruce had an adventurous side to him. At the east end of Kearney was a six-story concrete grain storage tower, the tallest building in south-central Nebraska. It was huge and just sitting there waiting to be conquered. So late on a Saturday night we climbed up the rickety iron rungs on the outside of the tower and surveyed the world from on top.” Thrifty – a euphemism One of Bruce’s basic attributes was his thriftiness (that’s a euphemism; plug in any word you’d like). One Valley executive tells the story of how she was sitting across the desk from Bruce while he was leafing through nearly a dozen printing bids for Alliance envelopes. Not just two or three bids for our man Bruce; he had to find the very best deal possible…and had to do it himself. My friend Bruce knew himself well. On his self-penned high school alumni association page he summed himself up as: “Obsessive compulsive type; perfectionist; dedicated to family and community.” Bruce enjoyed the material things in life, as well. He owned a motorcycle and a 50-foot cabin cruiser that he kept at the Oxnard Marina. Truly, a perfectionist A lot of people consider themselves perfectionists, but Bruce really was. He loved to correct people’s punctuation and edit others’ words. Earlier this year, I invited him to tour New Horizons, to see the wonderful work they are doing with adults with developmental disabilities, and to have breakfast. As he left, he was given a dozen of their delicious cookies. Being a gracious sort, I dashed off an email thanking him and summarizing our discussion, but with what proved to be an unfortunate typo: “Thanks for joining Cynthia and me for breakfast at New Horizons. I’m pleased that your staff devoured the cooks so expeditiously!” OK, OK, so I typed “cooks” instead of “cookies,” but you’d think he’d let it go…no, not Bruce. He responded within minutes: “Marty, “25 plus years and I finally caught you with a typo! I have it pasted on my wall as a souvenir and will savor this day! (My staff actually devoured the ‘cookies’!)…If there is anything left of the ‘cooks’ after being devoured, please give them my compliments! Bruce” Of course, as is usually the case with friends, Bruce and I didn’t always agree on everything. At our last dinner together, at Delmonico’s in Encino, we tackled the best approach to economic development for the Valley…again. I took the position that his much-loved concept of the Valley of the Stars might have been good branding, but that it was a waste of resources, and that I doubted that the slogan kept one job here, or convinced a single company to relocate North of Mulholland. Of course, he disagreed with me. But one thing is sure, in the Valley of the Stars, one of the brightest stars has dimmed. My last e-mail Although it wasn’t the final time I saw him, the last e-mail I sent Bruce was right after the Valley of the Stars Gala at CBS Studios. I wrote him: “The most wonderful thing about last night’s event is that you were there! The dessert was second.” There are a few other noted Bruces around: tragicomedian Lenny Bruce; my political junkie friend Bruce Bialosky; famed rock ‘n’ roll DJ “Cousin Brucie” Morrow; Australian film director Bruce Beresford; and the Scottish hero, Robert the Bruce. With apologies to the accomplishments of these other Bruces, this month the only Bruce who matters around here is…Bruce Ackerman. “The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.” – Walter Lippmann Martin Cooper is President of Cooper Communications, Inc. He is Immediate Past President of the Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission; Founding President of The Executives; Vice Chairman of the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley; and a member of the Boards of the Valley Economic Alliance and of the LAPD’s West Valley Jeopardy Program. He is Past Chairman of VICA; and Past President of the Public Relations Society of America-Los Angeles Chapter and of the Encino Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at [email protected].
