Saratoga News

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Pat and Jim Compton enjoy the quiet of the back yard of their Saratoga home.

Dynamic Duo

Duveneck Humanitarian Award recognizes Pat and Jim Compton, doers extraordinaire

By Mary Ann Cook

Movers and shakers, meet the Comptons. If the word multifaceted needs an embodiment, they're it. Jim is a developer (he put Courtside tennis club and condominiums together) and runs his family foundation, the Compton Foundation.

Pat has a new job, since May: executive director of the Silicon Valley Forum of the Commonwealth Club, the nation's leading nonprofit public affairs forum.

They will receive the Josephine and Frank Duveneck Humanitarian Award at a dinner on Sept. 19 at Hidden Villa Ranch in Los Altos Hills. The award commemorates the Duvenecks, who were committed to environmental and educational issues.

Upon their death, the Duvenecks willed their 1,600 acres to become a nonprofit educational farm and wilderness preserve. Hidden Villa offers experiential programs to further environmental preservation and multicultural understanding.

The Comptons exemplify the same principles that guided the Duvenecks. Frank Duveneck was an artist as well as environmentalist, and the Comptons, too, reflect this artistic bent, being painters themselves, as well as nurturers of other artists.

On the wall of the Compton's Saratoga home are two drawings that capture their multi-directional lives in cartoon form and neatly sum up their work, achievements and goals. And the tongue-firmly-in-cheek approach is appropriate because not taking themselves and each other overly seriously is part of the Compton style.

The drawing of Jim is in four panels. The first one shows him on a mountain top reaching for the stars, his eyes popping out. This panel symbolizes his idealism, his striving, his risk-taking. In the second panel he is in Italy, presumably on vacation, but with briefcase in hand it's a given he won't leave work behind. He's wearing a beanie to mark his playfulness.

In the third panel he's on the phone with dollar signs floating around his head, directing his family foundation and raising money for environmental, artistic and peace causes. The last panel has his tie caught on a clock.

There isn't time to do all he has mapped out for himself and his vision of what he can accomplish. He's a firm believer that an individual can make a difference, leave the world a better place than he found it.

This cartoon biography was given him by artist Betty Bates in appreciation of his work on the board of the San Jose Museum of Art, 1987-92, three of those years as president. Bates is no stranger to Pat, either, having shared a studio with her.

The cartoon of Pat shows her with six arms, surrounded by symbols of her different directions--the griffin for Montalvo; the monkey for her children's book; a palette and brush for her design and art ventures; a computer and keyboard for her business and freelance writing assignments; and a star for the San Jose Museum of Art.

Too bad she doesn't have six arms in real life because she could use them to tackle all the things she is involved in. "I want to simplify my life," she says, but in May she accepted a new position, executive director of the Silicon Valley Forum of the Commonwealth Club.

It's a half-time post. "I find it hard to say no to opportunity and challenge."

This arm of the public debate forum promises to become the biggest in the state. "We're expecting to surpass San Francisco in membership," she says. As of today membership is at 3,000 for Silicon Valley and 12,000 for San Francisco.

When the governor of New Jersey, Christine Todd Whitman, rumored to be the next Republican vice presidential candidate, was scheduled to speak in the Bay Area Sept. 11, she picked San Jose. Silicon Valley obviously has a national, indeed an international reputation, Pat says.

"I like the fact that I'm meeting new people, as well as working with people I've worked with before, now in a different context and with a common goal," she says. This job finds her operating from a broader base, since the Commonwealth's scope is international.

It's a California-based debate forum--speakers, plus questions and answers--founded in San Francisco in 1903 by a retired Chronicle editorial writer. Earlier this year Pat assisted financial guru Joan Perry of Los Gatos, author of A Girl Needs Cash, while Perry was on a national book tour.

From 1979 to 1982, Pat served as executive director of Villa Montalvo. Jim was president of the Montalvo board, and that's how they met.

"We thought alike about solving Montalvo's problems," Jim says. Since Pat was from Walnut Creek, Jim and his wife introduced Pat around.

Later, after Jim's wife died, he and Pat got together and eventually married in 1980.

As a former teacher, most of Pat's work has a strong educational slant. But she's also a consultant to the Compton Foundation, helping decide what nonprofits the foundation will fund; she's also a textile designer, the author of an award-winning book based on a Japanese fairy tale, The Terrible Eek; and a member of the Peerless Poets, a group that meets weekly.

Education, art and business all intertwine in her résumé, her life and her most recent directorship. She's on the Hidden Villa Sustainable Building Committee and a member of the board of the Open Space Trust and has served on dozens of art and music organization boards.

And she's married to high-energy Jim Compton, who, while on Princeton's track team, received a trophy for that seemingly inexhaustible energy. After working out daily with the cross-country track team, he would run the Marine Reserves combat course. He was a Marine platoon leader on Iwo Jima during World War II.

And his list of board credits runs for two pages; he served as president of many of those boards.

With the phone constantly ringing, how do they keep their sanity? "We don't," they laugh, almost together.

At 76, Jim Compton's favors risky physical pursuits--downhill skiing, kayaking, river rafting, hang-gliding and wind surfing. He also likes tennis and camping.

Environmental concerns are at the forefront of his passions and his philanthropy. He is president of the family nonprofit, the Compton Foundation, which was created by his parents in 1946 after their younger son was killed in the war. The foundation is dedicated to finding solutions to world peace, the preservation of the environment and combating population issues.

Jim is also chairman of the board of River Network, a support group to clean up and protect rivers. "When I go to board meetings a water trip either begins or ends the trip," he says, eyes agleam. "We went on a trip down the White Salmon River recently."

He doesn't do as much wind surfing as he'd like, since he lost his wind-surfing partner. "I'm looking for a wind-surfing buddy," he says. He has a rafting cohort and a skiing crony. Pat, on the other hand, avoids anything that might bring broken bones or injury in its wake.

Jim Compton is a board member of World Learning, formerly known as Experiment in International Living, which is stationed in Brattleboro, Vt., and means periodic trips to the East Coast. World Learning, as its name suggests, is dedicated to the proposition "that people of different cultures and countries can learn to live together by living together." Programs are centered on international exchange and educational programs for primarily the college-aged, but also include partnerships with Elderhostel and the Peace Corps.

One of the things he's proudest of is working with Fund for Peace, an organization his father founded. He is chairman of the board, and has been on the board since 1973. The Fund for Peace, according to its annual report, promotes public policy analysis that leads to action. The fund supports scholars and entrepreneurs who work with counterpart civic organizations worldwide in regions recovering from war or authoritative rule.

Jim, a hard-working philanthropist most of his life, is also a developer, president of his own company, James Compton Inc. dba Computer Centrum. He's worked for several other companies, including FMC, Northwest Airlines and Minnesota Mining.

But he doesn't always know where he is, according to his wife. Literally. Has his head in the clouds, some might say. Is she the more practical one? "Sometimes. I'd say I'm the more realistic one," Pat answers.

This is the second marriage for both, and both have three sons. Jim's sons are a Palo Alto architect, an Arizona contractor and a Boulder resident who founded and runs the Colorado School of Conflict Resolution. Pat's sons are all in construction, in Pacifica and Marin County. They are her proudest accomplishments.

Together the Comptons have eight grandchildren who seek out Jim. "He's the one with the playful side," Pat says, listing that as one of his most telling characteristics. He's on the board of Kids in Common, an advocacy group for the rights of children.

They both call each other stubborn, but indirectly. She edits her appraisal of him to "persistent." He changes his description of her to "dogged." Safe to say both could be called diplomatic, a handy trait, since much of their work involves cultural exchange.

She gardens to relax and wishes there were an art project constantly going in her studio. "I love painting and the layering of collage," she says. With the Comptons lives a layering process, that comes as no surprise.

"My desire to do so many different things is both an asset and a flaw," Pat admits. She's on the Peninsula Open Space Trust board; he's vice president of the Land Trust for Santa Clara County.

Jim would like to see more travel in their immediate future. "There are places we've never been--Greece, Ireland, Bali, China. I'd like to take an ultra-light aircraft [similar to a powered hang-glider] with an instructor over the Napali Cliffs in Kauai, Hawaii.

"I'm ready for some new adventures. I still haven't lived my dream. In May, I ski on corn snow in a bathing suit and T-shirt, go kayaking in the Truckee or in Nevada.

"I'd like to claim the title Grandpa Moses. I do our Christmas cards, and I just took a monotype marathon at the Institute for Contemporary Art. I'd like to do more," Jim says.

He won the Hotchkiss School Community Service Award and was elected to the Environmental Hall of Fame by the Santa Clara County chapter of the California League of Conservation Voters, both in 1996. In 1995, Jim and Pat together won the Outstanding Philanthropists Award from the National Society of Fund Raising Executives.

And this week the Duveneck Award. Others who will win Duveneck awards that night are comedian Michael Pritchard and Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell. Hidden Villa runs a Youth Leadership Camp. The Comptons show youth leaders what lives spent in community service can look like.

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