Cover Story
Greg Gallo Attorney brings corporate savvy to the nonprofit world BY
GENNADY SHEYNER
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rich, where they became among the first 10 employees. Even then, he knew he wanted to apply his skills as an attorney to helping the community, not just his corporate clients. He also knew that he wanted to deal directly with decision makers, not general counsels on the low tiers of a giant bureaucracy. “One of the reasons I really came to Palo Alto was because I didn’t want to be just a lawyer, working on contracts,” Gallo told the Weekly. “I wanted to help people running their enterprises be successful.” Shortly after he moved to Silicon Valley, someone suggested that he volunteer on the board of American Red Cross, Palo Alto Chapter. So he did. “I found very quickly that the things I did every day for small companies had many similarities with nonprofits,” Gallo said. “The work of senior executives, particularly the executive director, and how they manage budgets is very important.” American Red Cross was just the beginning. Since the late 1970s, he has volunteered with Planned Parenthood and later the Senior Services Center, which ultimately became Avenidas. He served on boards, advised top executives and met people who encouraged him to join other boards. All along the way, he took it upon himself to transfer knowledge from the corporate side of his life to the nonprofit world. Gallo said he is particularly proud of the 2006 merger between the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley, where he served on the board, and the Peninsula Community Foundation. With his assistance, the two mid-sized foundations joined forces to become the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which has evolved into a philanthropic giant with nearly $3 billion in assets. V Ì Õi`Ê Ê«>}iÊ{ή
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s one of Silicon Valley’s most acclaimed merger maestros, attorney Greg Gallo knows all about shepherding startups from their risky embryo days to corporate stardom. But it’s not his work with clients like Steve Jobs or 3Com that has garnered Gallo a Lifetime of Achievement award this year but his decades of commitment to the nonprofit community, including organizations that serve seniors, children and low-income families. The affable Wisconsin native, who is a partner at DLA Piper, gets routine recognition by national publications as one of the nation’s top dealmakers. He helped organize Pixar in its early days, before it went public, and has lectured at Stanford and Berkeley business schools. But while dealing with startups and global corporations is his day job, Gallo is at least as proud of a merger he helped spearhead in 2006, a deal that created the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. It’s fitting that mergers are Gallo’s specialty. Even as Bay Area’s income gap expands, sparking animosity between the growing swell of millionaires at the very top and the priced-out service workers at the bottom, Gallo seamlessly toggles between the worlds of corporate finance and nonprofits. From his perspective, the two worlds have much in common, each requiring understanding of a myriad of legal, personnel and financial issues. “For me, the similarities are bigger than the differences,” Gallo said. “What you’re really doing, in both cases, is helping the managers make their organizations successful.” Gallo learned about these similarities in the early 1970s, when he arrived in Palo Alto with his wife, Penny, also an attorney, after a stint in Washington, D.C., to join the newly formed law firm of Ware & Freiden-
Honoree Greg Gallo sits in the lobby of his offices at University Circle in East Palo Alto last month.
Isaac and Maddy Stein Volunteering, organizing, leading: ‘Just do it’ BY
CHRIS K ENRICK
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mong the many theories of community service and philanthropy, Isaac and Maddy Stein subscribe to the simplest one: “Just do it.” “You learn so much by just jumping in and being part of something,” Maddy Stein said. In their 45 years of marriage and nearly as many years of living in the Palo Alto area, the couple’s commitments have ranged from volunteering in their kids’ elementary school to chairing the Stanford University Board of Trustees. Rather than any grand plan, their winding path of civic and professional engagements has reflected their circumstances and acquaintances as they went along: Co-honorees Madeleine “Maddy” and Isaac Stein visit the Elizabeth F. Gamble Garden in April. Maddy co-led fundraising drives to finance the restoration of the house and gardens there. ÜÜÜ°*> Ì " i°V ÊUÊ*> Ê Ì Ê7ii ÞÊUÊ >ÞÊÓ]ÊÓä£{ÊU Page 41