Cover Story
Veronica Weber
Veronica Weber
A
Jean Coblentz
Bill Floyd
Still growing after more than 50 years of volunteerism
Retired executive has always found satisfaction in charity
by Eric Van Susteren
by Eric Van Susteren
fter decades of volunteer work and community service, Jean Coblentz said she got where she is today by offering to do the work no one else wanted. “You never know when volunteering will take you to the next step,” she said. “So many of the interesting things I’ve done I did because nobody else wanted to.” The daughter of missionaries, Coblentz spent several years of her childhood in China. She joined Stanford University’s Cap and Gown, a women leaders’ honors society, in 1947, co-founded the society’s board in 1953, and hasn’t stopped since. She is chair of the Allied Arts Guild Auxiliary in Menlo Park, where she has volunteered for 50 years. She has been a development officer at Stanford for 27 years, where she served two terms with Associates of Stanford Libraries. She is also an honorary member of the PTA. Coblentz came to Stanford in 1943 and, after a brief stint living in San Francisco, has lived in the area ever since. As a freshman at Stanford she majored in social sciences and minored in psychology. “I’d recommend that major for a lot people who have no particular talent, but the goal was that I wanted an education, and it allowed me to get some of this and some of that,” she said. “It was a good platform to launch to other places.” The first place her education “launched” her was the Hewlett-Packard Company, which was then still a fledgling in the corporate world. During her last quarter at Stanford, Coblentz took a class in industrial psychology, and the professor had continually
praised the company. She went to the company “just to peep in the window” but after a 15-minute conversation was hired on as a secretary for the vice president of marketing. From this position, she said she learned a lot about volunteerism, which Hewlett-Packard championed. “It was a wonderful start for the world of volunteerism and giving,” she said. She worked at the Hewlett-Packard until she had the second of her four children with her husband, Maurice “Harry” Coblentz. But she wasn’t idle. She said she was very involved with the PTA and scouting troops for boys and girls. Close to 50 years ago she started a book club with two friends. That led to an invitation from Channing House in 1968, where she’s given book reviews twice a year since. By the time her last child went to school in 1962, one of Coblentz’s friends offered her a spot on the Menlo-Atherton Auxiliary, a volunteer organization that supports the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. “By George, I was ready to get back to work,” she said. She said she’s still very active with what is now the Allied Arts Auxiliary, has been the president three times, and sits on the board today. Coblentz was organizing volunteers for the Homemaker Service of Santa Clara County when she was tapped by the new director of the annual fund at Stanford to be a development officer for the school. She was told that the organization needed more (continued on page 29)
B
ill Floyd first did work to benefit his community as an Eagle Scout in the late ‘40s. Today, even as a major fundraiser and donor, he still enjoys putting in the hours to help people. “I make gifts to a wide range of organizations, but I only spend time on some,” he said. “I get more satisfaction working with those I devote my time to as well as my money.” Floyd has devoted himself to more than a few organizations and causes. A graduate of University of California, Berkeley, he has been a Berkeley Foundation Trustee since 1994 and has chaired the Berkeley Engineering Fund Board since 1996. Locally, he’s served Lytton Gardens, Community Housing Inc., YMCA of the MidPeninsula, the Children’s Health Council and Avenidas. He’s also served on the Yosemite Conservancy Board since 1993. Floyd has received recognition for his efforts, particularly in the area of fundraising. In 1997, he was named the Silicon Valley Distinguished Fundraiser for helping raise $2.2 million to renovate the Sequoia YMCA in Redwood City. Floyd grew up using the YMCA, and he sent his children to its programs as well. He said he supports the organization’s mission. “It’s a lot more than a place to lift weights and exercise,” he said. “There are youth leagues, parenting classes, youth camps and swim lessons and a lot more.” While serving on the board of the Children’s Health Council in Palo Alto, Floyd helped double the organization’s endowment from $15 million to $30 million. As general chair of the Berkeley Engineering
Fund, he raised money for the engineering portion of Berkeley’s New Century Capital Campaign. The campaign, which ended in 2001, surpassed its $1.1 billion goal, reaching $1.4 billion. He also helped complete a $13.5 million project to renovate the area at the base of Yosemite Falls. “My late wife and I had talked about it about the time she died,” he said. “I pursued the project, and it was 10 years from planning to ribbon cutting — that was 1995 to 2005.” He has since remarried, and he and his second wife have six children and 16 grandchildren between the two of them. Currently, he’s president of Friends of Cal, an advocacy organization for UC Berkeley created in response to declining state funding for the university. “Each campus needs to capitalize on its individual strengths so it can thrive,” said Floyd, who received his Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from Berkeley. “We need more decisions made at the campus level. There are a lot decisions made by the office of the president that would be better made by the chancellor’s office.” A native San Franciscan and fourth-generation Californian, Floyd has spent much of his life in the Bay Area. After attending the Harvard Business School, he started a family and worked as a vice president and director at Sierra Chemical Company, which made fertilizers for greenhouses and nurseries until he retired in 1989. “At that point I took off my for-profit hat and put on my charitable hat,” he said. (continued on page 29)
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