Top from left to right: Bill Paley, Joan Fleischmann Tobin, Michael Sonnenreich, Albert and Shirley Small. Bottom from left to right: Harold and Nancy Zirkin, Tim Russert, Morton Bender, and Catherine Hughes.
STAN SLOTER Sloter’s baby, Paradigm Development, is a full-service real estate development, construction and property management firm. With two kids of his own, Sloter’s pet causes tend to be for the advancement of youth services. He’s chairman of the local board of KidsPeace National Center for Kids in Crisis and a board member for the Washington Center and the Harbor School.
MICHAEL SONNENREICH Sonnenreich is chairman and CEO of Kikaku America International, president and CEO of Global Communications Corp. Ltd. of London, vice chairman of the board of PharMa International Corporation of Tokyo, and more. His love of opera got him appointed president of the Washington National Opera in 2004, where he created Generation O, a program that offers 18- to 35-year-olds a fresh look at the world of opera. When newspaper
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heiress Betty Knight Scripps abruptly resigned as Opera Ball chairwoman this year, Sonnenreich stepped in to help underwrite the event.
JOAN FLEISCHMANN TOBIN Before margarine, Americans had limited choices as to what to spread in the nooks and crannies of their various breakfast bread products. Enter the Fleischmanns, also the harbingers of gin, molasses, vodka, and yeast. Joan Fleischmann Tobin, a descendant of the founder, Charles Fleischmann, keeps a low profile in Washington and Naples, Fla., where she owns much of the city’s prime commercial real estate. She supports Vital Voices, the Washington National Opera, the School of American Ballet, and Blair House.
ROBERT TORRAY It’s one thing to make money, it’s another to manage it wisely. For the
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latter, folks turn to the Robert E. Torray Companies (Torray LLC owns Robert E. Torray & Co., Inc., an institutional investment management firm, The Torray Corporation, a mutual fund management company, and TEL Corp., a private hedge fund). Torray and wife Nancy recently committed to an annual scholarship at Montgomery College to support ten fulltime students. He also pledged $1 million to the D.C. Central Kitchen.
GEORGE VRADENBURG Yet another AOL investor, he is is president of the Vradenburg Foundation, which supports capacity-building efforts in arts, culture, health, education, and security. As chairman of the Phillips Collection, he spearheaded fundraising the museum’s most recent addition. He also leads charity efforts for Alzheimer’s, as well as several regional planning efforts.
DON WOOD Wood’s Federal Realty Investment Trust acts as a sort of a mall landlord, with a business model based on hand-picking shopping centers in affluent and highdensity areas of the country. FRT’s president and CEO also is involved with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, where he serves as the chair of the Metro D.C. chapter.
HAROLD ZIRKIN Zirkin is president of Zirkin-Cutler Investments, Inc., a firm which provides investment management services for individuals, pensions, retirement accounts, foundations, and charitable organizations. He founded H. Zirkin Investments, Inc., in 1973, which he sold to First National Bank of Maryland (now M&T Bank) in 1996. Zirkin and his wife Nancy are heavily involved in civil rights activism, with Nancy focusing on women’s rights.
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