Patrick Butler

President and Chief Executive Officer

Patrick Butler has been president and chief executive officer of America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) since January 1, 2011. During his tenure, public television stations have secured record levels of federal and state funding and substantially enhanced their local service in education, public safety and civic leadership.

Butler joined APTS after 18 years as senior vice president of The Washington Post Co., where among other duties he founded and led Newsweek Productions, which produced more than 200 hours of nonfiction programming, including "Watergate Plus 30: Shadow of History," winner of the Emmy Award for best documentary of 2003.

While at the Post Company, Butler also chaired PCS Action, a coalition of companies pioneering personal communications services, the spectrum technology that ultimately enabled the smartphone. He also founded the Post Company’s conference business, now operating as Washington Post Live.

Butler earlier served as Washington vice president of Times Mirror, the corporate parent of the Los Angeles Times and other media properties, and he was a founder of the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press, which evolved into the Pew Research Center, one of the world’s leading public opinion research institutions.

Butler also served as government relations vice president for RCA Corp. and as director of corporate public relations for Bristol-Myers Co. He was founder and president of Patrick Butler & Co., a communications consulting firm whose clients included leaders of government and business, and Cary Grant.

In government service, Butler was special assistant to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr., R-Tenn., and adviser to the White House chief of staff during Baker’s service with President Ronald Reagan. (He was policy director of Baker for President in 1979-80.) Butler was also a speechwriter and the associate editor of the White House Editorial Office for President Gerald R. Ford, drafting most of Ford’s speeches celebrating the Bicentennial of American Independence and serving as chief political speechwriter during the 1976 presidential campaign. He was chairman of the impeachment task force for U.S. Rep. Lawrence J. Hogan, R-Md., a member of the House Judiciary Committee during its consideration of articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon in 1974.

Butler was appointed by President Reagan and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to the National Council on the Humanities, where he served as chairman of the public programs committee for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) under Chairman Lynne V. Cheney. During his tenure, Butler recommended the largest grant in the history of NEH for Ken Burns’ landmark public television series, The Civil War.

Butler is chairman emeritus of the Maryland Public Television Foundation and of the Corporate Advisory Board of SOME (So Others Might Eat, providing comprehensive care for the homeless people of Washington, D.C.). He is also the retired vice chairman of the board of trustees of American University and of the Foundation for the National Archives, where he secured a major grant to endow the Boeing Learning Center.

He is a member of the boards of APTS (ex officio), the Howard H. Baker Jr. School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee, the Better Angels Society supporting the work of Ken Burns and other filmmakers following in his tradition, the Broadcasters Foundation of America, and the DC College Access Program, which since its founding in 1999 has helped more than 30,000 D.C. Public Schools graduates attend college.

Butler has also served on the boards of the Pew Research Center, Ford’s Theatre, the International Research & Exchanges Board, Alfred University, the National Endowment for Democracy’s Center for International Media Assistance, the University of Tennessee College of Communication & Information, the American University School of Communication, Friends of Cancer Research, American Ireland Fund and Greater Washington Sports Alliance.

Butler has received the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Champion of Public Broadcasting Award from America’s Public Television Stations, which has also named its National Advocacy Award in his honor. He has also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from American Public Television, a leading provider of programming for public television stations, the Excellence in Leadership Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Champion Award from Maryland Public Television. He was awarded a Governor’s Citation from the Governor of Maryland in recognition of his career in public service and philanthropy.

After majoring in political science at the University of Tennessee, he earned a Master of Arts (with distinction) in communication from American University and a certificate in finance and accounting from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has been accepted as a Joan Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and he was a guest lecturer (The First Amendment in the Twenty-First Century) at the 75th anniversary of the Princeton University School of Public Affairs.

Butler is married to Donna Norton Butler, and they have three daughters and three grandchildren.