Patrick Butler to Head APTS

The board of the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) has named Patrick Butler as its new president and chief executive officer.

Butler retired as senior vice president of the Washington Post Co. in December 2008 after 18 years managing the company's public policy, new business development and special corporate projects. Among his Post Company duties, Butler was founder and president of Newsweek Productions, which produced more than 200 hours of non-fiction television programming, including Watergate Plus 30: Shadow of History, which won the Emmy Award for Best Documentary of 2003.

He is chairman of the Maryland Public Television Foundation, whose Thinkport online education platform has been credited with helping improve the scholastic performance of Maryland students. He has served on the board of APTS since 2009.

Butler earlier was Washington vice president of Times Mirror, the corporate parent of the Los Angeles Times, and as government relations vice president of RCA, which owned NBC.

In government service, Butler was a speechwriter for President Gerald R. Ford and special assistant to US Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker, Jr of Tennessee. Nominated by President Reagan and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a member of the National Council on the Humanities, he chaired the public programs committee of the National Endowment for the Humanities and recommended funding for Ken Burns's The Civil War, among other projects.