Power
Mergers. Acquisitions. Scandals. Politics. They’ve dramatically
altered the power structure of this city in an astonishingly short
time. Along with Fleet, Gillette, and Hancock — all snatched up by
out-of-towners — have vanished top executives who did what needed doing
in this town. Many of the CEOs whose companies remain — State Street’s
Ronald Logue, Biogen Idec’s Jim Mullen — are busy shoring up their own
businesses. Since the last time we produced our power list four years
ago, a state Senate president and House speaker both have left those
posts. The cardinal has gone. The junior senator has fallen short in
his reach for the White House. The president of Harvard has suffered
self-inflicted wounds.
But there’s a New Guard marching in to
fill this vacuum. Their rise parallels the increasing importance of
their industries — healthcare, for example, entertainment, real estate,
and sports. Individual philanthropists are rising up the list as
corporate donors fall off it. Others possess the clout that comes with
having interests in the forever-on-the-brink Seaport, or because of
their involvement in the Rose Kennedy Greenway to be built (eventually)
where the Central Artery once stood.
The seeming deadlock in
those all-important projects is a symbol of what happens when there’s
no one to take charge. Who will push them forward? Maybe it will be one
of these 100 people who run our town now.
The Old Guard
You
don’t typically see photographs of President George W. Bush walking his
dogs. After all, who wants to watch a couple of Scottish terriers
relieving themselves on the White House lawn? And that’s just fine with
Joe O’Donnell.
It’s on these dog-walking jaunts that O’Donnell
and the president catch up. The extremely low-profile Boston
concessions king, whose net worth is believed to be just shy of $1
billion, is a big fund-raiser for Bush, to the tune of at least
$200,000 in the last election. But he’s an equal-opportunity
consigliere, also advising Mayor Tom Menino, Senate President Robert
Travaglini, Attorney General Tom Reilly — all Democrats — Governor Mitt
Romney, and Harvard president Lawrence Summers. “They don’t make a move
without calling this guy,” one insider says, exaggerating only
slightly.
They’d do well to listen. From blue-collar roots as
the son of an Everett cop, O’Donnell was recruited to play baseball at
Exeter and then at Harvard. Along with his diploma, Harvard Business
School handed him the graduation present of a job there, where he met
every whiz-kid entrepreneur who came through (not to mention Bush, a
member of the Class of ’75). Finally O’Donnell quit to start his own
company, now called Boston Culinary Group, which sells food services to
stadiums and other venues. He has 12,000 employees and stakes in
restaurants — including Figs and John Harvard’s Brew House — theaters,
ski resorts, and hotels; he’s in the middle of building, with pal Steve
Karp, the $200 million Westin at the new convention center. He’s the
largest shareholder in Suffolk Downs, and his Allied Advertising makes
him one of the biggest advertisers in New England. “Joe owns 4 percent
of everything,” another friend, talk-show veteran Eddie Andelman, once
joked of O’Donnell.
And he gives a lot of it back. His Joey
Fund, named for his son who died at 12 of cystic fibrosis, raises some
$2 million a year for research into that disease. O’Donnell gives
millions to Harvard, where he’s on the lofty board of overseers. He’s
also a director of Harvard Business School and on the boards of
Children’s Hospital and the Winsor School. “He can afford to speak his
mind,” another corporate executive on this list says: “He’s richer than
all these other people.”
Only one entity has proven to have
more clout than Joe O’Donnell: Major League Baseball. It reportedly put
the fix in that prevented him, along with Karp and other wealthy
partners, from realizing their lifelong dream of owning the Red Sox.
The
ranks of Boston’s Old Guard have been thinned, and some longtime power
players seem worn out: Witness philanthropist David Mugar’s rant that
he wouldn’t be around forever to underwrite the July 4 Pops celebration
on the Esplanade and that somebody else needed to step up. (Somebody
finally did — Liberty Mutual chairman, president, and CEO Ted Kelly,
part of the New Guard.) But they’re still around if you know where to
look for them: at the hush-hush Breakfast Group run by Meredith &
Grew executive VP Kevin Phelan (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
president Cathy Minehan, Harvard Pilgrim president and CEO Charles
Baker, Channel 5 president and general manager Paul La Camera). On the
Board of Governors of the Tournament Players Club in Norton (ad exec
Jack Connors, Kelly). At the high-powered lunches run by Boston
College’s Chief Executives’ Club. At the annual fall dinner of the
American Ireland Fund. On the wall at the Palm.
Take Connors.
After he handed over his responsibilities as president and CEO of Hill,
Holliday (whose chairman he remains), the veteran go-to guy might have
joined his fellow power-listers who had faded away. Instead, he helped
raise the money needed to nab the Democratic National Convention. He
chairs the board of BC, many of whose alumni form a local power network
of their own, and of Partners HealthCare, which includes Brigham &
Women’s and Mass General hospitals. One of the first important voices
to call for Cardinal Bernard Law to quit, he was named by Law’s
successor, Archbishop Sean O’Malley, to the panel that reviewed church
closings.
Peter Meade is on that panel, too. Executive VP of
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the former radio talk-show
host remains a frequent and respected political analyst, chairman of
the board of Catholic Charities, and a member of the Kennedy Greenway
Conservancy Board, which has the power to remake Boston’s downtown.
There
are other rocks of Boston’s power structure: the Patriots’ Bob and Myra
Kraft. Amos and Barbara Hostetter, who run the city’s biggest (based on
asset size) private foundation. Frank Doyle, president and CEO of
Connell Limited Partnership, a $1 billion-a-year manufacturer of
industrial equipment.
But there’s been a shift in the power business, too. A New Guard is marching in.
The New Guard
If
the Red Sox already held a mysterious power over us — the power to
break our hearts one season, but compel us to hope again the next —
it’s eclipsed by the clout they earned the night they won the World
Series in October. Church bells chimed. Men wept. Grown children
visited their parents’ graves. In a city many of whose corporate,
political, and even religious institutions have been diminished,
allegiance to the Red Sox soared. And with it rose the men who run the
team.
Principal owner John Henry controls the money.
Wonder-boy general manager Theo Epstein gets the headlines. But the
driving force behind the Sox is the organization’s president and CEO,
Larry Lucchino. Affable in public, Lucchino is a tough negotiator. He’s
the one who popularized the term “Evil Empire” to describe the rival
Yankees. He’s also a driving force behind the hugely successful
upgrades to Fenway Park — the primary mover and shaker in an
organization that owns this city like no one and nothing else.
The
emergence among this town’s vital industries of sports, along with real
estate, entertainment, and especially healthcare, has thrust a New
Guard of power listers into the fore. As other CEOs sell out, for
instance, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts boss Bill Van Faasen
has stepped up. He’s started a foundation to push for wider healthcare
access. He pulled his company’s ads from WEEI after two of the radio
station’s hosts compared an escaped gorilla from the Franklin Park Zoo
to a METCO student. He led the search committee to replace retiring
United Way of Massachusetts Bay head Marian Heard. His benefit roast
for Roxbury’s Whittier Street Health Center drew more than 800,
including many of the other influential people on this list, and raked
in $320,000 in one night. “How many CEOs in Boston can do that
anymore?” a Van Faasen admirer asks.
One who seems to want to
is Edmund “Ted” Kelly, chairman, president, and CEO of Liberty Mutual
Group. Kelly, whose $19.6 billion-a-year insurance company has nearly
38,000 employees (it’s one of the 11 remaining Fortune 500 companies in
Massachusetts, a total that has sadly dipped from 17 a decade ago),
seems determined to make a local impact, most spectacularly by stepping
in with $10 million over five years to sponsor the July 4 Pops
festivities on the Esplanade. He’s also signed on to the board of
trustees of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and he’s a member of the
executive committee of the influential Greater Boston Chamber of
Commerce.
Nancy Leaming, president and CEO of Tufts Health
Plan — the state’s third-largest HMO — is also on the Chamber board.
One of the few female corporate leaders in this town (a Bentley College
study found that women held just 9.2 percent of the executive positions
at the 100 largest public companies in Massachusetts), Leaming, too, is
stepping up to the plate. She chairs the board of the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation. (Another fast-rising woman star: Verizon regional
president Donna Cupelo, who has involved herself in educational
issues.)
Those missing corporate types and the philanthropy
they once controlled are also being replaced by wealthy individuals and
private foundations. None has rushed to fill the gap as aggressively as
the $675 million Boston Foundation and its president and CEO, Paul
Grogan, who as boss of the foundation gives away some $51 million a
year. That’s a lot of power, giving Grogan a base he can use if, in
fact, as rumored, he has plans to run for mayor.
Money remains a key ingredient of power in this town, of course. That’s how James Pallotta landed on our list. Ranked by Institutional Investor’s Alpha
among the nation’s 25 top hedge-fund managers, Pallotta controls the $6
billion Raptor Global Funds, which earned 19 percent last year, almost
three times the industry average. He’s a part-owner of the Celtics and
the Back Bay restaurant Saint and a big giver to inner-city charities
like Big Brothers of Massachusetts Bay, on whose board he serves.
As
Mellon Financial Corporation extends its reach in Boston, Babson grad
David Lamere does, too. The clients of the fast-growing $75 billion
private wealth group he oversees are also among the city’s richest and
most powerful.
David Fialkow made his money starting that
cut-rate travel business at Filene’s Basement, Last-Minute Travel, part
of his National Leisure Group. After selling the company for an
estimated $25 million, he founded a private-equity firm with classmates
from Buckingham Browne & Nichols. A triathlete who holds a law
degree from Boston College, Fialkow is on important boards including
the MIT Leadership Center Advisory Council, the Pan-Mass Challenge, and
the Boys & Girls Clubs, and a major donor to local causes including
the Boston Ballet.
The Missing
Many
longtime power players have fallen off or tumbled down our list — some
by choice, some not. The priest-sex scandal finally cost Cardinal
Bernard Law his once-powerful job; his successor, Archbishop Sean
O’Malley, has slipped to the very last place. Senate President Tom
Birmingham stepped down after running unsuccessfully for governor,
House Speaker Tom Finneran to take a job as president of the
Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. (Finneran remains on the list,
although he has slid considerably, because he can still get people’s
attention — and not just that of law-enforcement authorities
investigating whether he committed perjury.)
Then there are
the CEOs: Fleet’s Chad Gifford, who took a payout reported at more than
$25 million after selling off the city’s biggest bank and squandering
years of personal goodwill; James Kilts, whose sale of Gillette to
Procter & Gamble is expected to mean $173 million for him and an
end to that annoying commute by corporate jet from his home in New
York; and David D’Alessandro, who quit as CEO of John Hancock after
selling it to Toronto-based Manulife. (D’Alessandro remains on the
list, too, though much farther down it, thanks to his vice chairmanship
of the Boston University board of trustees. John Silber, finally out as
BU chancellor, is off the list.)
Others left under duress —
WBUR general manager Jane Christo amid allegations of mismanagement,
for example, and Putnam president Lawrence Lasser during an
investigation of illegal trading. Senator John Kerry is still on our
list, but much diminished; never known for his attention to his home
state, Kerry seems to remain distracted by the dubious prospect of
another White House run. Ex-Democratic National Committee chair Steve
Grossman cast his lot with Howard Dean and went down screaming. State
Treasurer Shannon O’Brien crashed and burned in her gubernatorial
face-off with Mitt Romney.
A few one-time power listers have
simply left. After suffering a heart attack, David Spina opted to spend
time with his family instead of in the CEO’s office at State Street.
John Harrington’s sale of the Red Sox cost him most of his clout,
though he keeps busy running the now-much-richer Yawkey Foundations.
Oedipus retired as the influential program director of WBCN. And Frank
and Jamie McCourt seem firmly resettled in Los Angeles, where he owns
the Dodgers, with their South Boston property (and $18.5 million
Brookline mansion) up for sale.
The Out-of-Towners
If
the typical Bostonian is most immediately affected by what she sees on
TV or buys, or by who signs her paycheck, then our local power listers
really don’t have that much clout at all. Most of those things, these
days, are controlled by people somewhere else. ClearChannel president
and CEO Mark Mays, a Texan, for instance, is responsible for the
quality of our live entertainment, the messages on many of our
billboards, and the remaking of the Theater District. Bank of America’s
Ken Lewis calls the shots from Charlotte. The man Globe business scribe
Steve Bailey calls “the other D’Alessandro,” Manulife president and CEO
Dominic D’Alessandro, has run John Hancock from his desk in Toronto
since Hancock chairman and CEO David D’Alessandro (no relation) oversaw
the sale of the company. Of course, this works both ways. Ken Himmel,
principal in Excelsior and Grill 23 & Bar, lives in Marblehead and
commutes to New York.
The 100 People Who Run This Town
1. Joseph O’Donnell
Chairman, Boston Culinary Group
2. Robert Travaglini
Senate President
3. Bob, Myra, and Jonathan Kraft
New England Patriots
6. Edward M. Kennedy
Senator
7. Jack Connors
Chairman, Hill, Holliday; Chairman, Partners HealthCare
8. Ned Johnson and Abigail Johnson
Fidelity Investments
10. Tom Menino
Mayor
11. William Van Faasen
Chairman and CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
12. Salvatore DiMasi
Speaker of the House
13. James Mongan
President and CEO, Partners HealthCare
14. Margaret Marshall
Chief Justice, Supreme Judicial Court
15. Mitt Romney
Governor
16. Larry Lucchino
President and CEO, Boston Red Sox
17. Charles Baker
President and CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
18. Paul Grogan
President, the Boston Foundation
19. Craig Coy
CEO, Massport
20. Edmund “Ted” Kelly
Chairman, President, and CEO, Liberty Mutual Group
21. Kathleen O’Toole
Police Commissioner
22. Kevin Phelan
Executive Vice President,
Meredith & Grew
23. Cathy Minehan
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
24. James Mullen
President and CEO, Biogen Idec
25. Nancy Leaming
President and CEO, Tufts Health Plan
26. Mark Maloney
Director, Boston Redevelopment Authority
27. Ronald Logue
CEO, State Street Corporation
28. Donna Cupelo
Regional President, Verizon
29. Peter Meade
Executive Vice President, Blue Cross Blue Shield
30. Gloria Larson
Cochair, Government Practices Group, Foley Hoag; Chair, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority
31. Amos and Barbara Hostetter
Philanthropists
33. William Swanson
Chairman and CEO, Raytheon
34. Bob Popeo
President and Chairman, Mintz Levin
35. Barbara Fish Lee
Philanthropist
36. Martin Baron
Editor, the Boston Globe
37. Anne Finucane
Northeast President, Bank of America
38. Mike Sheehan; Karen Kaplan
CEO, Hill, Holliday; President, Hill, Holliday Boston
40. Lawrence Fish
Chairman, President, and CEO, Citizens Bank
41. William Galvin
Secretary of the Commonwealth
42. Ron Druker
President, the Druker Company
43. Joseph Campanelli
President and CEO, Sovereign Bank New England
44. Elaine Ullian
President and CEO, Boston Medical Center
45. David Mugar
Philanthropist
46. Michael Ruettgers; Joseph Tucci
Chairman; President and CEO, EMC
48. Robert Beal
President, the Beal Companies
49. Martha Coakley
Middlesex County District Attorney
50. John Fish
President and CEO, Suffolk Construction
51. Patrick Lyons
Principal, the Lyons Group
52. Paul Fireman
Chairman and CEO, Reebok
53. Steve Weiner
Founder, S.R. Weiner & Associates
54. Pat Purcell
Publisher, the Boston Herald
55. Chris Myers and Michael Schlow
Restaurateurs
57. Paul Guzzi
President and CEO, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
58. Tom Reilly
Attorney General
59. Julie Kahn
General Manager, WEEI and five other stations; Vice President and Market Manager, Entercom Boston
60. Ted Cutler
Philanthropist
61. Michael Sullivan
U.S. Attorney
62. Ed Eskandarian
CEO, Arnold Worldwide
63. Steve Bailey
Business Columnist, the Boston Globe
64. George Regan
President, Regan Communications
65. Larry Rasky
CEO, Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications
66. Frank Doyle
CEO, Connell Limited Partnership
67. Tom Finneran
President, Massachusetts Bio-technology Council
68. Malcolm Rogers
Director, Museum of Fine Arts
69. Stephen Lynch
Congressman
70. Steve Karp
Developer
71. David Lamere
Chairman and CEO, Mellon New England
72. James Pallotta
U.S. Equities Manager, Tudor Investment Corporation
73. Alan Leventhal
Chairman and CEO, Beacon Capital Partners; Chairman, Boston University Board of Trustees
74. Paul Kirk
Chairman, John F. Kennedy Library Foundation
75. John Hynes III
Managing Partner, the Gale Company
76. Drew Murphy
President, Broadway in Boston
77. Joan Vennochi
Op-Ed Columnist, the Boston Globe
78. Jay Cashman
Chairman, Jay Cashman Incorporated
79. Wyc Grousbeck
Managing Partner and CEO, Boston Celtics
80. Josiah Spaulding
President and CEO, Wang Center for the Performing Arts
81. David Fialkow
Managing Director, General Catalyst Partners
82. John F. Kerry
Senator
83. Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa
Gossip Columnists, the Boston Herald
85. Don Law
Chairman of Global Music, Clear Channel Entertainment
86. Roger Berkowitz
CEO, Legal Sea Foods
87. Richard Friedman
President and CEO, Carpenter & Company
88. Regina Pisa
Managing Partner, Goodwin Procter
89. Michael Kineavy
City Hall Chief of Policy and Planning
90. Paul La Camera
President and General Manager, WCVB-TV, Channel 5
91. Curt Schilling
Pitcher, Boston Red Sox
92. Robert Walsh
Chairman and CEO, R.F. Walsh
93. John Drew
President, Drew Company
94. Lawrence Summers
President, Harvard University
95. Jill Medvedow
Director, Institute of Contemporary Art
96. David D’Alessandro
Vice Chairman, BU Board of Trustees; Chairman, Wang Center for the Performing Arts
97. The Reverend Eugene Rivers III
Cofounder, Ten Point Coalition
98. Ed Ansin
Owner, WHDH-TV, Channel 7
99. Maryann Gilligan Suydam
Senior Vice President, Equity Office
100. Sean O’Malley
Archbishop of Boston
The Lessons of Leadership
This
is one I’ll be sort of careful on, word for word. To me, leadership is
boldly stepping forward, on a matter of real importance, in such a
manner, with such qualities and character, that others choose to
follow.
I’m afraid that, from the beginning, I’ve been bold
and willing to step forward. And there are times when I turn around and
I’m alone.
I don’t know that I’ve ever stopped and looked in
the mirror to see if I’m a leader or not. Not long into our
administration, [Administration and Finance] Secretary Eric Kriss said
to me that there are at least two kinds of effective leaders. One is
the kind that has a formula they are conscious of and follow carefully
to achieve their objectives. The other is a leader that is highly
effective but doesn’t know why. And he said ‘Mitt, you tend to be more
in the latter category.’
My dad had a favorite saying, that
politics is the fastest place to go from who’s-who to who’s-that.
Politicians tend to become swelled with a sense of their great
authority and power. But in our society, it’s stripped very quickly, as
it should be.
If you’re a Republican leader in Massachusetts,
you’re reminded almost every week that your power is a thin tissue,
easily torn. You know, I lose more battles than I win. But the
opportunity of leadership is to bring forward the things you believe
in.
I’d been told by everyone, ‘Oh, this is going to be very
different than what you experienced in the corporate world. You’re
going to find that you won’t be able to order people around anymore.
You’re going to have to get people to agree with you to get anything
done.’ But that’s also true in business. In a business setting, you
never stop selling, to your shareholders, to your employees, to your
customers. In political life, you find the same features. Going from
the private sector to the Olympics and then coming into state
government, I think that was the biggest surprise for me, that the
principles of leadership were very similar, if not identical.
One
different aspect of political leadership is that there is a strong
opposition. Not just disagreement over the right course, but an
opposition that doesn’t want you to win. I jokingly said about the
speaker [of the House] — and this was just a joke — that my job was to
try and make Massachusetts better, and his job was to make sure I
didn’t. Of course he’d say just the opposite about me.
I love
wallowing in data. I came into office, and there were no reports that I
could look at. None. Now every month I get a benchmark report, so I’m
able to look at data across all of our agencies. But I don’t want just
tables of raw numbers: I want it gathered and thoughtfully organized to
yield observations and perspective. I don’t just want someone to come
in and say, ‘Here’s the recommendation of the transportation
department.’ That’s unacceptable.
Once I have the data, I like
hearing at least two viewpoints aggressively advocated. I grew up on
the case method in law school and business school, where people are
arguing different views. If a cabinet secretary comes in with a
consensus view, and there’s no opposition, I refuse to proceed. I
insist on there being an opposition view. And sometimes, if other
people can’t supply one, I will.
On important issues, I also
take time to sleep on it. Don’t know why it is, but it seems that the
subconscious mind, and time, allows the mind to identify flaws or gaps.
The man I call my wingman is this guy named Bob White. Bob and
I have worked together for a couple decades. First at Bain &
Company, then Bain Capital, and then he helped me in the Olympics. He
helped me in my campaign against Ted Kennedy, and he helped me again in
my campaign for governor. He has no government position. He’s just a
good friend. And I talk to Bob on some of the most difficult issues
that I face — personnel issues, organization structure, life choices.
The
most important leadership role I’ve ever had is as a father. Because if
leadership is affecting the lives of others for good, in some respects,
that’s where one does it in most abundance. I was well prepared by my
own parents, but highly inexperienced. My children forgave my
weaknesses, turned out remarkably well, and now that I have it down
pat, I can spoil my grandchildren. — As told to James Burnett
The Perks of Office
Though
averse to indulgence by theology and disposition, Mitt Romney admits to
taking advantage of one privilege of his title. “One of the greatest
benefits to being governor is that I get driven, which allows me to
read in the car.” He holds particular affinity for Shakespeare — at
Brigham Young University, the future executive was an English major —
and political biographies: David McCullough’s John Adams, he says, “let
me into the life of someone I thought was a friend.” His car is
customized to ensure that neither dark of night nor gloom of tunnel
will keep him from his pages. “I’ve got a special light installed.”
Romney feels less enthusiasm for certain ceremonial
duties. Repeating a maxim he picked up from former Washington Governor
Gary Locke, he likes to say his time is too valuable for him to play
“lunch or dinner entertainment.” But that’s not his least-favorite part
of the job.
“What’s the worst part? The toughest thing is to hug [Speaker of the House] Sal DiMasi. Just kidding!” – James Burnett
The Straight Scoop
. . . on Thirty-Five Gay Power Players
“Boston
marriage,” a term once reserved for 19th-century female roommates (“Are
they or aren’t they?” was hardly a proper Victorian query), came out of
the closet a year ago this month. That’s when same-sex couples lined up
at city halls from Provincetown to Pittsfield to reap the matrimonial
benefits of the historic Goodridge v. the Department of Public Health decision allowing them to legally unite.
The
ruling by the state Supreme Judicial Court sent respective waves of joy
and indignation across the country. It also raised the profiles of some
increasingly powerful members of the gay and lesbian community — most
notably lawyer Mary Bonauto, who represented the Goodridge
plaintiffs. Then, in a widely overlooked but wildly successful
operation in November, gays devoted considerable cash and labor to the
election of sympathetic state legislative candidates who will determine
the fate of a constitutional amendment that would reverse the right to
same-sex marriage and replace it with a system of civil unions. The
Democrats backed by powerful gays not only beat back a well-financed
challenge by Republican candidates pushed by Governor Mitt Romney (who
opposes same-sex marriage and decried the state Supreme Judicial Court
decision); they actually gained three seats in the House and Senate
over the Republicans. Gays 2, Romney 0.
Of course, to so
radically alter a state’s legal landscape is to be powerful. But
assuming that the only gay power players in town are the people leading
the push for same-sex marriage is like assuming Elton John is the only
gay man composing for Broadway. The gay community’s influence here
reaches far and wide, so we have, too, setting out to introduce you to
some of the openly gay (we’re not outing anybody) people wielding
influence in every sphere.
You already know some of our
listees. Number 30, for instance, has been visiting your living room
every night for years. Some, including number 26, have been included
for the powerful role they play within, or on behalf of, the gay and
lesbian community — and at least one (number 21) in spite of the effort
he puts into distancing himself from it. — Susanna Baird
1. Jarrett Barrios
State Senator
The
first openly gay Hispanic elected to any state Senate in the country,
Barrios is pushing bills protecting cell-phone users, potential victims
of gang intimidation, and everyone in between. And enjoying his first
year of marriage (see number 23). And raising two children. And
considering a run for attorney general.
2. Mitchell Adams
Executive Director, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative
Innovation
guru and former state revenue commissioner Adams brought acclaim to his
Republican Harvard-college-buddy Weld’s administration, implementing
new, award-winning tax-processing systems and cracking down on deadbeat
dads. When Weld delivered the homily at Adams’s wedding in June to
Kevin Smith, Massachusetts politicos from the left and right were
spilling into the aisles.
3. Barney Frank
Congressman
Frank became the first member of Congress to come out, which he did in a 1987 interview with the Globe.
A dedicated Bush-whacker, after 24 years in office he is the ranking
member of the Financial Services Committee and a devoted champion of
liberal causes.
4. John Auerbach
Executive Director, Boston Public Health Commission
Under
Auerbach, the oldest health department in the country created the
Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgendered Health Office, fought (and fights)
an upswing in heroin abuse, and oversaw the statewide smoking ban. And
speaking of society weddings, Auerbach married Atlantic senior editor Corby Kummer (number 32) in November.
5. Mary Bonauto
Civil Rights Project Director, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders
Lawyer for the Goodridge
plaintiffs, the celebrated Bonauto gets much of the credit for making
this the first state to legalize same-sex marriage one year ago this
month. But that was far from Bonauto’s first groundbreaking foray in
court. She served as co-counsel in, among others, the Vermont case that
led to civil unions being allowed in that state.
6. Harry Collings
Executive Director and Secretary, Boston Redevelopment Authority
Tom
Menino is just wild about Harry, who gets some of the credit for the
mayor’s gay-friendly reputation. When the two met as BRA up-and-comers
in the ’70s, Collings became one of the mayor’s first openly gay
friends. Over the years, he’s encouraged Menino’s adoption of a
gay-inclusive attitude — which is not to mention the influence he
wields at the city’s powerful planning agency. The BRA honcho
moonlights as a promoter of Buzz nightclub.
7. Dennis Duffy; Chris Haynes; Dan Mathieu; Bryan Rafanelli
Duffy Design Group; CBH Communications; MAX Ultimate Food; Rafanelli Events
Fab
Five, you can keep your gaudy SUV. Boston has its own queer eye guys,
and we only need four. When their hour’s up, the whole city looks
fabulous. Duffy designs interiors for Boston’s most exclusive pads,
including Manny Ramirez’s, and just introduced Direction, a line of
furniture sold by Webster & Company. He’s also on the board of the
AIDS Action Committee. Haynes, head of Newbury Street’s CBH
Communications, serves as press maven for some of the hottest
restaurants in town, from No. 9 Park to Union Bar & Grill, where he
arranged Marc Jacobs’s uberhip all-white costume bash. (Duran Duran
crashed.) Mathieu wields a powerful wooden spoon as co-owner of both
South End hangout Flux and MAX catering. When he’s not whipping up
sweets and savories for such publicity-garnering bashes as last year’s
Moondance on the Esplanade, he’s serving on the boards of the American
Repertory Theatre and the ICA — and sometimes teaming up with
Rafanelli, whose wildly successful party operation had at least two
events on last year’s Herald top-10 parties list.
11. Joseph Barri
Partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr
When
the Massachusetts Bar Association named John Rogers legislator of the
year even as the Norwood Democrat was cosponsoring a bill outlawing
same-sex marriage, an angry Barri led a boycott of the bar
association’s annual dinner, and almost every large law firm backed him
up. Instead of sitting over dinner inside listening to Rogers being
honored, several hundred lawyers marched in protest outside. (Rogers
later withdrew his support from the bill.) Barri heads up Wilmer
Cutler’s pro-bono work for the AIDS Action Committee and is the founder
of the Partners Group of gay and lesbian law partners and executives.
12. Dr. Stephen Boswell
Executive Director, Fenway Community Health
A
nationally recognized HIV/AIDS expert, Boswell heads Fenway Community
Health, the largest provider of HIV services in New England. He’s also
affiliated with Harvard, is on staff at Beth Israel Deaconess, and
served on Bill Clinton’s Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
13. Mary Breslauer
Democratic Consultant
Longtime
political scenester Breslauer led Tom Reilly’s 1998 charge for attorney
general and was an original host of WFNX’s gay-focused One In Ten
radio program. Last year, she was a major lobbying force for same-sex
marriage and advised the Kerry campaign on gay and lesbian issues.
She’s also on the board of the Human Rights Campaign.
14. Gary Daffin and Arline Isaacson
Cochairs, Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus
The
caucus today led by Daffin and Isaacson has been fighting for gay and
lesbian rights for more than 30 years, helping win passage of the
country’s second gay and lesbian civil rights law in the ’80s and a
state domestic partnership law in the ’90s. Isaacson is a media go-to
girl on same-sex marriage while Daffin, who also cofounded the Black
Men’s Health Alliance, is a member of what must be one of the world’s
least-populous groups: He’s a self-described “black Catholic homosexual
from Alabama.”
16. Elyse Cherry
President, Boston Community Venture Fund
Cherry
is on the board of the civil rights group MassEquality.org, raises
money for breast cancer research, and packs a socially conscious punch
as head of her multimillion-dollar venture fund, which invests in
companies that do good while making money.
17. Dan Grabauskas
Likely next General Manager, MBTA
The
first openly gay member of the Romney administration, Grabauskas is the
former state secretary of transportation who’s now a frontrunner for
the top job at the T.
18. David Collins and Michael Williams
Cofounders, Scout
Scout doesn’t ring a bell? How about its most popular creation, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? The Emmy-winning tszuj-fest has spawned British and Australian spinoffs and Queer Eye for the Straight Girl. The West Roxbury couple also produced Errol Morris’s The Fog of War,
for which Williams won an Academy Award last year. Carson Kressley
helped him pick out his Oscar duds. Can Jamie Foxx say that?
20. Peter Gomes
Pusey Minister and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Harvard University
A
black, gay, Pilgrim-obsessed, Republican best-selling author, scholar,
minister, and Plymouth native, Gomes was raised by a Cape Verdean
cranberry bog worker and a Beacon Hill member of the New England
Conservatory. He took part in the inaugural activities of presidents
Reagan and Bush Senior and sits on boards all over town, including
those at Roxbury Latin and the Museum of Fine Arts.
21. Arthur Finkelstein
Republican Strategist
North
Shore resident Finkelstein is a campaign legend, known for his
aggressive tactics and the liberal use of the word “liberal” employed
as a pejorative. He’s also notoriously low-profile. When this magazine
outed him in 1996, he was taken to task by media outlets and pundits
for the perceived clash between his personal morality and his clients,
including such social conservatives as North Carolina’s Jesse Helms.
The Machiavellian mastermind reportedly has an anti-Hillary website in
the works, www.StopHerNow.com.
22. Rebecca Haag
Executive Director, AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts
Haag
made a name for herself in the corporate world, including as a vice
president at Burlington’s high-tech Wheelhouse Corporation, then left
it two years ago to lead AIDS Action, which annually helps 2,500 people
with AIDS. She and partner Mary Breslauer (number 13) moonlighted last
year as models in an ad for the Brookline boutique the Studio, co-owned
by Theo Epstein’s mom, Ilene.
23. Doug Hattaway
Democratic Strategist; CEO, Hattaway Communications
Hattaway’s
political history is all over the map: He popped up as Al Gore’s
spokesman when Gore ran for president, went intercontinental during
Tony Blair’s 2001 reelection campaign, stuck close to home to help plan
last year’s Democratic convention, and surfaces in news stories about
partner Barrios (number 1), who surely benefits from his seasoned
advice.
24. Nancy Shilepsky
Partner, Perkins Smith & Cohen
The National Law Journal calls Shilepsky, treasurer of the Boston Bar Association, one of the most influential lawyers in the state, and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
named a case she worked on involving alleged discrimination at
Stonehill College one of the ten most important decisions of last year.
25. Dr. Valerie Fein-Zachary
Cochair, Freedom to Marry Coalition
A
familiar face in the gay and lesbian activist community, Fein-Zachary
helped found the Lesbian Health Fund and has ramped up the Freedom to
Marry Coalition, which played a key role in the same-sex marriage
debate and has grown from a few hundred members to 10,000 during her
time there.
26. Sue Hyde
New England Field Manager, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Hyde came to Boston to edit the now-defunct Gay Community News,
then joined the Gay and Lesbian Defense Committee and worked to
overturn a ban on gays becoming foster parents. When she became part of
the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, she fought against national
sodomy laws. Hyde is also a cofounder of the Cambridge Lavender
Alliance, a gay and lesbian political group.
27. Vincent McCarthy
Counsel, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr
“Vin”
McCarthy, who retired from a senior partnership at Wilmer Cutler in
2003, is a philanthropic lion. He founded the Human Rights Campaign’s
New England branch and the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar
Association, served on the Governor’s Advisory Committee on Gay and
Lesbian Youth, and has championed the Pine Street Inn for more than a
quarter of a century.
28. Sue O’Connell
Copublisher, Bay Windows/South End News; Cohost, One In Ten
O’Connell worked at KISS-108, WBOS, and the Phoenix before landing at Bay Windows/South End News,
which she and business partner Jeff Coakley bought two years ago and
which won a combined six New England Press Association awards last
year. One of the first women on the board of the National Gay Newspaper
Guild, O’Connell spends her Sunday nights cohosting WFNX’s gay-issues
program, One In Ten.
29. Nicholas Martin
Artistic Director, Huntington Theatre Company
Martin
has won rave reviews since he came to the Huntington four years ago,
while his productions have gone on to New York to win no fewer than
three Tony nominations.
30. Randy Price
News Anchor, WHDH-TV, Channel 7
So
popular is Price that Channel 7 — famous for tossing the talent — has
given him an unprecedented contract extension to 2008.
31. Marty Rouse
Campaign Director, MassEquality.org
Devoted to upholding same-sex marriage, MassEquality.org has exploded since Rouse arrived soon after the Goodridge
ruling. The former Clinton operative has since built the group from a
casual collaboration of like-minded organizations into a political
force.
32. Corby Kummer
Senior Editor, the Atlantic; Restaurant Critic, Boston magazine
Winner of three James Beard awards and author of The Joy of Coffee and The Pleasures of Slow Food,
Kummer has an audience of half a million for his reviews of Boston
restaurants in this magazine. He also sits on the board of Community
Servings, a food delivery service for people with AIDS.
33. Bernard Toale
Bernard Toale Gallery
Part
of Boston’s gallery elite, Toale ventured into the South End when
trendy SoWa was still SoWhat? He and partner Joe Zina, now executive
director of the Coolidge Corner Theatre, got their professional start
cofounding Rugg Road Paper Company.
34. Gretchen Van Ness
Attorney
Past
president of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts, Van Ness has
been involved in several high-profile cases involving gay and lesbian
rights. At the moment, she’s defending Provincetown from a lawsuit that
seeks to prevent the town from letting out-of-state same-sex couples
marry.
35. Daniel Salera
Former Director of Community Relations and Sponsorships, FleetBoston Financial
Salera,
like Fleet, has left the stage, but the effect of his good works will
last at least as long as it takes us to get used to “TD Banknorth
Garden” — the Fleet (now Bank of America) Celebrity Series, for
example.