CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., June 10, 2016 — Jim Lehrer, the legendary journalist and PBS broadcaster who has covered every president since John F. Kennedy, is one of three new members joining the Governing Council of the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, following formal approval Friday by the UVA Board of Visitors.
As new members of the governing board, Lehrer, financier Steve Burns, and attorney Joseph Erdman will provide guidance and fundraising support for the Miller Center, a nonpartisan national research institution specializing in presidential studies and public policy.
Lehrer, known to millions of Americans as cohost of the PBS NewsHour and the moderator of dozens of presidential and vice-presidential debates, began his career as a newspaper reporter at the Dallas Morning News and theDallas Times-Herald. In 1963, he reported from the fateful motorcade route where Kennedy was assassinated.
Lehrer’s newspaper career led him to public television, first in Dallas, as KERA-TV’s executive director of public affairs, and then in Washington, D.C., where he served as the public affairs coordinator for PBS. He was a member of PBS’s Journalism Advisory Board and a fellow at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Lehrer went on to join the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT) as a correspondent.
Over the next seven years, The MacNeil/Lehrer Report (as it was renamed in 1976) won more than 30 awards for journalistic excellence. In 1983, Lehrer and co-host Robert MacNeil launched their most ambitious undertaking, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. In 2009, the title changed toPBS NewsHour to reflect the program’s expanded role as the hub of news and public affairs programming on PBS both online and on the air.
Steve Burns is a senior partner at Quad-C Management, a middle-market private equity firm headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia. Since joining Quad-C in 1994, Burns has invested in the building products, business services, specialty chemicals, packaging, transportation/logistics, and food sectors.
Prior to joining Quad-C, Burns worked in the Risk Arbitrage Group and Leveraged Capital Group at Paribas and the Corporate Development Group at W.R. Grace. He graduated from Boston College with a bachelor of science degree and earned his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Joseph Erdman is the owner and president of Albemarle Asset Management Ltd., which is based in both Florida and Virginia. Albemarle Asset Management provides investment and estate planning services exclusively for private clients.
Previously, Erdman was both the partner and chair of the Personal Planning Department for Proskauer Rose LLP, where he was an estate-planning lawyer for 20 years.
Erdman also serves as co-trustee for The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, the primary contributor to arts programs at the University of Virginia as well as a major contributor to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, James Madison’s Montpelier, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. Erdman is also co-chair of the Arts Trust Board, which encourages arts projects and lifts the arts at UVA to a higher level.
He graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor of arts degree and earned his JD from Fordham University.
