8/7/00

Elaine Ray, News Service (650) 723-7162; e-mail: elaineray@stanford.edu

Publishing executive with experience in print and new media to head Stanford University Press

Geoffrey R. H. Burn has been named managing director of the Stanford University Press, effective Oct. 1. Burn was most recently president and CEO of the Brooks/Cole Group in Monterey, Calif.

"Geoffrey Burn has an extraordinary track record of taking dynamic companies and turning them into outstanding enterprises," said University Librarian Michael Keller, adding that an interview team recommended Burn unanimously.

As the senior manager in the Press, Burn will be responsible for maintaining and improving the current publishing program in scholarly books as well as developing important new lines of publication. All aspects of editorial and production operations, marketing and distribution are in the purview of the managing director.

The Brooks/Cole Group, part of the Thomson Corporation, publishes print and electronic products for the college market in mathematics, statistics, science, engineering and computer science. Prior to Burn's tenure there, he served as CEO of Thomson Science & Professional, a group of companies in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany that publishes journals, magazines, books, CDs and online products for researchers and practitioners in biomedicine, applied science, engineering, architecture and business technology. Other previous positions have included executive director of the BMJ Publishing Group, British Medical Association in London; managing director of Butterworth Scientific Limited in Guildford, England; president of Butterworth Law Publishers Canada in Toronto and Vancouver; and a series of positions with Methuen Publications in Canada.

Burn's industry appointments include director, University, College and Professional Publishers Group, the Publishers Association (UK); director, the Canadian Book Publishers' Council; and president, College Publishers' Group of the Canadian Book Publishers' Council.

He also was founding program director of the Professional, College and School Publishing Courses at the Banff School of Fine Arts, where he was also a faculty member of the Trade Publishing Course. Burn is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors and a member of the British Academy of Management.

In April, Provost John Hennessy announced that the Stanford University Press would report to Keller, and a nationwide search was launched to find an individual with experience in academic publishing and in emerging publishing technologies.

With this new reporting structure, publishing under the Press imprint will be overseen by the same executive responsible for the Libraries' HighWire Press, an Internet publishing services enterprise assisting in the production of Internet editions of more than 210 scientific journals.

For more information regarding these changes to the Stanford University Press, visit www.stanford.edu/dept/news/report/news/april12/supress-412.html.

Members of the faculty interview team were David Brady, associate dean of the Graduate School of Business and a member of the Press' board of governors; David Holloway, director of the Institute for International Studies; John Bender, professor of English and comparative literature and chair of the Academic Council's Committee on Libraries; Rob Polhemus, professor of English and chair of the Press' board of editors; Tim Lenoir, professor of history and editor of the Press series "Writing in Science"; Tim Warner, vice provost for budget and auxiliaries management; and Carol Olsen, regional manager of human resources at Stanford.

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By Elaine Ray