Robert Erburu, former chief executive and chairman of the media giant Times Mirror Company, died on May 11, 2014. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California in 1952 and his law degree from Harvard University in 1955. Robert arrived at the Times Mirror Company in 1961 as an advisor to the company’s longtime owners, the Chandler family, and quickly became an instrumental part of diversifying the business and growing the company’s flagship paper, the Los Angeles Times. He became vice president in 1965, president in 1974, and chief executive in 1981. In 1986, he succeeded Otis Chandler as chairman, the only person outside of the Chandler family to hold that position since the 1880s, other than a period of a few months in the early 1980s. During his time there, the company acquired several major newspapers, as well as television stations and magazines. He retired as chairman in 1996. Robert was also very involved with several cultural institutions, serving as chairman of the board at The Huntington Library, the National Gallery of Art, and the J. Paul Getty Trust.
Los Angeles, CA
United States