Laurence William Lane Jr. (November 7, 1919 – July 31, 2010) was an American magazine publisher, diplomat, and philanthropist.

Early life and education

Lane was born November 7, 1919, to Laurence William Lane (1890 – February 20, 1967) and Ruth Bell. His father was known as "Larry", so he was generally called "Bill". In 1928, the family moved from Des Moines, Iowa^[1] where Larry Lane was advertising director for the Meredith Corporation (publisher of Better Homes and Gardens magazine) to California.^[1] The Lane family owned and published Sunset Magazine.^[2] Lane graduated from Palo Alto High School.^[3]

Bill Lane attended Pomona College before transferring to Stanford University to study Journalism.^[4] He was a member of the Stanford Chaparral. After graduating with a bachelor's degree from Stanford, he joined the US Navy during World War II.^[4]

Lane married Donna Jean Gimbel in 1955, they met while she was working as an interior designer in Chicago.^[5][6]

Career

As their father phased himself out of the business, Bill took over the Sunset Magazine publishing and brother Melvin (1922–2007) managed the Sunset Books business.^[7]

Lane was the first mayor and one of the founders of Portola Valley, California in 1964.^[8] From 1975 to 1976, he served as US Ambassador-at-large and lived in Japan. From 1985 to 1989, he was appointed US Ambassador to Australia and Nauru.^[9] Ronald Reagan knew Lane from their membership in the Los Rancheros Vistadores horseback riding club.^[10][11]

The Lane publishing business was sold to Time Warner in 1990. In March 1993 he was appointed an honorary officer of the Order of Australia for service to Australian-American relations.^[12]

In 1995, Lane was named Conservationist of the Year by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).^[4]

In 2006, Lane received the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration's Pugsley Medal in 2006 because of his contributions to parks and conservation with advocacy through his magazine, leadership positions on a host of national and regional boards and advisory committees, and personal philanthropy.^[3]

Philanthropy, death and legacy

The Lane family were large donors to Stanford University including renovations in 1983 to the Palo Alto Stock Farm Horse Barn^[13] and after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, for the reconstruction of the Stanford Memorial Church and other historic campus buildings.^[14] In 2005, a donation to Stanford University named the Center for the Study of the North American West department after the Lane family.^[15]

Lane, with a long interest in aviation, was a founding member of the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, CA.^[16]

The Lanes sponsored an internship program starting in 2002, the Bill and Jean Lane Internship Endowment at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution.^[17]

In 2005, Lane and his wife (who graduated from Northwestern University in 1952) funded the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance.^[18] In 2015, an additional $5 million endowment to Northwestern University was announced.^[19]

With a large donation to the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, the Lanes established the Jean and Bill Lane Botanical Library in 1994, a non-lending library focusing on South African, Australian, New Zealand, and California plants.^[20][21]

Bill and Jean Lane endowed the Lane Family Lectureship in Environmental Science at Washington State University.^[22] The lecture was inaugurated in 1993. With their son, Robert, a 1983 WSU graduate, they also created the Robert Lane Fellowship in Environmental Science to support graduate students studying environmental science at Washington State University.^[22]

Bill Lane died on July 31, 2010, at the age of 90.^[5] His wife, Jean Lane, died in Portola Valley on 18 November 2017, after a brief illness, at the age of 87.^[6] Together they were survived by their three children, two daughters Sharon Louise Lane and Brenda Lane Munks and a son Robert Laurence Lane.^[23]