A major player waits

for a new listing

DON Lee Gevirtz the new US ambassador to Fiji, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu is a major player. He is seriously rich, seriously well connected, and has developed a strong interest in the Pacific.

He is the founder and chief executive officer of the Foothills Group, an invest ment firm that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Foothills successfully plays a risky game it looks for bank rupt companies with promise, and then pumps capital and expertise into them in the hopes of a turnaround.

A few years ago Foothills stock was selling at less than $lO per share; it is now at $25. Gevirtz owns, among the things, 700,000 shares.

In addition to playing major roles (presumably as a fundraiser) in the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton cam paigns, Gevirtz has been co-chair of all three of Senator Diane Feinstein’s statewide races in California. The for mer mayor of San Francisco, a Democrat, lost a close race for Governor in 1990 and then in 1992 and again in 1994 won hot races for the US Senate. The Senator, probably the strongest of the women in the US Senate, clearly helped Gevirtz get the Suva appointment.

Although the ambassador-designate

has not been to Fiji (or to other islands in his anticipated assignment) he has been reading The Fiji Times daily as part of his preparation for the job in Suva. He also attended the school for ambassadors at the US Foreign Service training insti

tution in Arlington, Va. Bom in Chicago 67 years ago, Gevirtz and his wife, Marilyn, live in Montecito, a tiny sub urb of Santa Barbara, an attractive small city up the coast from teeming Los Angeles.

Despite his wealth and political clout, Gevirtz appears both modest and open, qualities that are reflected in his listing in the phone book.

Telephone listing? Yes, the image one projects from a telephone listing may be an American peculiarity, but bear with me. Many rich American families have multiple listings, with secondary num bers in the phone book for “gate house,”

“stables,” or “servants.” Gevirtz has no such listings.

Most males in America list the phone only in their own name. And often they use their full, formal first name. But the listing in this case is: “Gevirtz, Don and Marilyn”. He also has a home fax with a telephone line of its own, another (less er) indicator of major player status and a sign that he is not so swell-headed that he will not personally handle such a piece of office machinery.

Mr and Mrs Gervitz are said to be quietly looking forward to service in Suva, but he is avoiding policy state ments in the American ambassadorial tradition of speaking on such issues only at one’s confirmation hearing before the US Senate.

No hearing has been scheduled for Gevirtz, so it may be some time before he has to make up his mind about how to be listed in the Fiji phone book. A

Appointed: Don and Marilyn Gevritz