WASHINGTON, D.C.—America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) has presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Patrick Butler, president and chief executive officer of APTS.
The Lifetime Achievement Award is given on rare occasions to leaders who have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to public broadcasting over the course of their careers.
The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Patrick Butler during the APTS Public Media Summit on Monday, February 26, 2024.
During the summit, APTS also presented the 2024 Pillar of Public Service Award to Molly Phillips, former executive director and general manager of Iowa PBS, for her pioneering work in creating remarkable educational programming and content for the people of Iowa.
In terms of the Lifetime Achievement Award, Butler served as president and CEO of APTS for more than 13 years, making him the longest serving leader of the organization. Butler recently announced he will retire this year.
During Butler’s tenure, federal and state funding for public broadcasting has reached record levels. Forty of the 50 state governments now provide funding to support the work of public television stations. And Congress has enacted a new Next Generation Warning System infrastructure program for public broadcasters to assure their reliability as essential components of federal, state and local public safety communications, the group said.
Under Butler’s direction, APTS has pursued a strategy to help stations achieve “greater success through greater service,” concentrating on three pillars of local public service: education, public safety and civic leadership. These services encompass lifelong learning, multi-hazard emergency communications, and chronicling heartland America’s culture, history and public affairs.
The strategy has won growing bipartisan support. In recent years, APTS has presented its Champion of Public Broadcasting award to U. S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Governor Henry McMaster (R-SC) and other political leaders spanning the ideological spectrum.
“Pat Butler has been the dedicated and visionary leader and voice of our local public television stations in our nation’s capital for over a decade of growth,” said APTS board chair Franz Joachim, general manager and chief executive officer of New Mexico PBS. “Pat’s leadership has led to significant legislative successes, including the first increases in federal funding after many years of level funding. From the three pillars of public service to the convergence of broadcast and broadband through NextGen TV, Pat’s forward-thinking strategies are leading public television on a path to inventing the future.”
“From working with Ken Burns to serving as board chair at the Maryland Public Television Foundation to leading APTS, no one has served our system longer, for better, than Pat Butler,” he continued. “We are all immensely grateful for Pat’s tireless commitment, unwavering determination and enormous heart. It is my privilege to present Pat Butler with a Lifetime Achievement Award he so richly deserves.”
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. 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, the retired chairman of the Corporate Advisory Board of SOME (So Others Might Eat, providing comprehensive care for the homeless people of Washington, D.C.), and 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 from the Boeing Co. for the Boeing Learning Center.
He is a member of the boards of APTS (ex officio), the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy 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 received the 2023 Champion Award from Maryland Public Television; the 2021 Champion of Public Broadcasting Award from the board of trustees of APTS; the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 from American Public Television, a leading provider of programming for public television stations; and the Excellence in Leadership Award in 2017 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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.
2024 Pillar of Public Service Award
During the summit, Molly Phillips, former executive director and general manager of Iowa PBS, received the 2024 Pillar of Public Service Award for her pioneering work in creating remarkable educational programming and content for the people of Iowa.
The Pillar of Public Service Award recognizes the contribution of an extraordinary leader and innovator in one or more of public television’s three essential public service missions: education, public safety, and civic leadership.
Under Phillips’ leadership, Iowa PBS has become deeply embedded in the life of the State. From the station’s high-quality educational resources that help prepare Iowa’s children for success in school, to its hyperlocal coverage of agricultural news, to its broadcast of high school sports State championships, Iowa PBS provides services unique to Iowans that are unrivaled by anyone else in the State.
“Over the course of a 34-year career at Iowa PBS, Molly Phillips has pursued public television’s public service missions in extraordinary ways,” said Patrick Butler, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations. “Having served a variety of professional roles, including human resources, communications and community engagement, and culminating with her service as Executive Director and General Manager, Molly has made extraordinary contributions to communities across Iowa and to the entire public broadcasting system.
“Molly and her talented team at Iowa PBS have dramatically demonstrated the power of public television to deliver a broad range of essential public services across the State of Iowa,” he continued. “Iowa PBS is doing what public television stations do best: educating our children and serving our communities as partners in public service. Molly has been an innovative and relentless advocate for community service at its finest, both on television and through on-the-ground initiatives, and has set a standard of public service to which every public television station should aspire. We are all inspired by Molly’s dedication and passion for our public service missions and are immensely grateful for her decades of commitment to Iowa PBS and our system. It is my great honor to present Molly Phillips with the most well-deserved 2024 Pillar of Public Service Award.”
“I consider public television an essential service,” said Molly Phillips. “Essential because we help kids become school ready regardless of where they live or what their families can afford. Essential because we help teachers fill their classrooms with high-quality resources regardless of their district’s budget. Essential because our infrastructure helps assure public safety messages reach the most remote citizen. Essential because we help the homebound feel connected to their communities and each other. Essential because we inspire civic and civil discussion on the issues important to our state. We change lives every day in public media. What could be more rewarding than that? It has been an honor and a privilege to serve my community and my state through my work at Iowa PBS, and it is an honor to accept this award on behalf of that work.”
Molly Phillips was executive director and general manager for Iowa PBS, where she was responsible for leading Iowa’s only statewide broadcast network since 2013. Molly served Iowa PBS since 1990, devoting her career to the advancement of public television and Iowa PBS’s mission to educate, inform, enrich and inspire Iowans. She was previously the director of communications and community engagement at Iowa PBS, where for nearly 15 years she was responsible for the network’s state and federal public policy advocacy. America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) presented Molly with its National Advocacy Award in 2010.
Molly volunteered her time and talents to a long list of organizations advancing the vision and goals of public media. She served as chair on the APTS Board of Trustees and was an active member of the Organization of State Broadcasting Executives (OSBE). She also chaired the Diversity and Inclusion Committee for APTS. Molly served on the Public Broadcasting Service Board of Directors where she co-chaired the PBS Diversity Advisory Committee. She also served as past-chair on the National Education Telecommunications Association (NETA) Board of Directors. She previously served NETA as chair and secretary. As past chair, she also served on the Affinity Group Coalition of Public Media Organizations where she led an initiative to create professional development training opportunities for public media employees.
Molly holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business degree from Grand View University in Des Moines. She was raised in Southwest Iowa and she currently resides in Grimes with her husband Steve. They have three grown children together: Courtney and twin boys Taylor and Trevor.
