Huntington’s Steve Koblik to join American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Joining the impressive company of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Paul McCartney and Melinda Gates, Steve Koblik, the president of the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, was elected to join the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on Tuesday.

The academy, as part of a tradition that extends more than 230 years, added more than 200 members, which included scientists, scholars, writers, artists and community leaders. It’s not many organizations that can list members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside winners of the Fields Medal (a mathematics prize that should ring familiar to fans of the film “Good Will Hunting”).

In a statement to Susan Turner-Lowe, the Huntington’s vice president of communications, the academy was said to have considered Koblik “in recognition of career accomplishments and contributions to his field (history) and to society at large.”

When asked to further speculate on what may have caught the academy’s eye, Turner-Lowe said in an email that Koblik is seen as “one of the nation’s go-to guys when it comes to institutional leadership, change, transformation and, perhaps more specifically, fundraising.”

The Huntington was in the news in 2010 after receiving a cash gift of more than $100 milllion from L.A. art patron Frances Brody, the largest gift of its kind ever received by the organization.

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— Chris Barton