Peter F. Carpenter | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1940 (age 84–85) San Francisco, CA |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Harvard University (1962) University of Chicago (1965) |
| Occupation(s) | Business executive Philanthropist |
| Partner | Jane Shaw Carpenter |
| Children | 1 |
Peter Fredrick Carpenter (born 1940) is an American philanthropist and former business executive. Carpenter served in a volunteer fire department during high school, and as a smokejumper for the United States Forest Service while at Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard (1962) and the University of Chicago (1965), serving as an officer in the United States Air Force from 1962-1968. Over the next decade, Carpenter worked for various employers, including Lockheed, Stanford University, and the US Price Commission.
In 1976 Carpenter began to work for the ALZA Corporation, a pharmaceutical company. At ALZA, Carpenter introduced a patient consent insert for the Progestasert intrauterine device (IUD) which was considered “revolutionary" in terms of patient education and drug labeling. In 1990, Carpenter stepped down from the position of executive vice president of ALZA to work in nonprofit leadership. He has served on the board of nonprofits including the American Foundation for AIDS Research (1985–1991), Annual Reviews (1994–present), and Village Enterprise Fund (1997–2009). From 2001 to 2018, he served several terms on the board of the Menlo Park Fire District. He and his wife Jane Shaw Carpenter are co-recipients of the Avenidas Lifetimes of Achievement award. [1]
Peter Fredrick Carpenter was born in San Francisco, California in 1940. [2] [3] Carpenter's father was in the Navy during World War II. [4]
Peter Carpenter was part of the Boy Scouts of America, becoming an Eagle Scout in 1955. [5] Carpenter graduated from Bishop Kenny High School in Jacksonville, Florida in the class of 1958. [6] During his high school years, Carpenter was a volunteer firefighter who helped fight both structural and wildland fires. [4]
Carpenter then entered Harvard University. From 1959–1961, during his summer breaks from Harvard, Carpenter was a smokejumper for the United States Forest Service in Redding, California. [2] He also participated in the ROTC while at Harvard [4] [7] . Carpenter graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from Harvard University in 1962, and was commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force after graduation. [2] [8] Carpenter went on to attend the University of Chicago with Air Force sponsorship, graduating with an MBA in 1965. [2] [8]
“Smoke jumping was one of the most fundamental experiences that I have had in my life.… I learned how to work with other people, how to value their expertise, how to judge them and when it was best not to judge them at all." Peter Carpenter [9]
Carpenter's smokejumping experience led to his assignment as a parachutist in the United States Air Force. [2] [4] During the Vietnam War, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps 5th Force Reconnaissance Company. [9] From 1966–1968, he was the program manager for Southeast Asia for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and served as an Air Force Aide for the White House. Carpenter was honorably discharged from the Air Force in 1968. [2] [10] [3]
Carpenter entered the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University as a doctoral student in organizational behavior. [10] From 1968–1970, Carpenter served as assistant director in the Stanford University Center for Materials Research. From 1968–1971, he also worked as a consultant for various government and industry organizations, including Lockheed, working on marketing strategies for the Airborne System Division. [8] [11] [2]
From 1971 to 1973, Carpenter worked as deputy executive director at the newly-established US Price Commission, [5] [10] where he investigated illegal price inflation tactics by lumber companies. [12] [13] [14] [15] In 1973, he returned to Stanford University, first as assistant vice-president for medical affairs, and then as executive director of the Stanford University Medical Center. [16] [10]
In 1976, Carpenter was recruited by the ALZA Corporation, a pharmaceutical and medical systems company. [2] [5] There he rose to the position of executive vice president. [17] At ALZA, he oversaw the "highly unusual" and "revolutionary" decision in 1987 to require women to sign an informed consent form to receive their IUD "Progestasert". [18] [19] In 1987, The Washington Post noted that ALZA was "the only pharmaceutical manufacturer to try to make informed consent a condition for use of a marketed prescription product". [20] For several years starting in January 1986, ALZA manufactured the only IUDs available for sale in the US. [19] [20] In 1990, Carpenter left ALZA to pursue nonprofit work. [17]
Carpenter has served on committees on health and policy for the Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine), such as [21] . On November 10, 1993, Carpenter testified before the United States House Committee on Small Business. In his testimony, he emphasized that "uncontrolled population growth is the most serious threat there is to the environment, to international stability, and to economic well-being". He stated that US reproductive research was underfunded, and described a potential role for the federal government with respect to reproductive research. [22]
Carpenter has been actively involved in civic, nonprofit, and research organizations in California and abroad. He served as director of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) from 1985–1991. [5] In the 1990s, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford (1991-1994), where he founded the Mission and Values Institute in 1991. [23] [5] He has served on the board of directors for journal publisher Annual Reviews since 1994. [5] [24] He sat on the board of directors of the Village Enterprise Fund from 1997 to 2009. [5] In 2006, he became director of the humanitarian organization InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters). [25] [26] [5] With his wife Jane Shaw, Carpenter supports educational initiatives in California, Tanzania, and Bhutan via the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (PVF). [27]
Locally, he served on the Palo Alto Planning Commission and the San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury, and was appointed to the Palo Alto Emergency Services Council. Separately, he was elected to the board of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District, later serving as its board president. In 2001, Carpenter was selected to fill a vacancy on the district board of the Menlo Park Fire District. [10] He was elected to the board three times and appointed once more, becoming the longest-serving board member in the history of the fire district. He stepped down from the board in 2018 after not running for reelection. [28] [10]
Peter Fredrick Carpenter is married to Jane Elizabeth Shaw Carpenter. [29] Jane Shaw Carpenter is a former business executive at ALZA [30] and a co-inventor of the scopolamine transdermal patch to treat motion sickness. [9] [10] [31] They have one son, Jonathan Carpenter. [32]
Peter Carpenter has been diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). [33] He has been granted benefits as a veteran by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, in recognition that his cancer may have resulted from exposure to Agent Orange during his military service in Vietnam. [2] [34]