BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:

While volunteering with first-graders 20 years ago, Jack O’Neill stood tall in the R.L. Stevenson Elementary School classroom with his long arms by his side.

Before he knew it, three or four tiny, affection-seeking hands belonging to children he helped teach once a week were entwined with his.

Small gestures like these made O’Neill reexamine and change the course of his life.

“I discovered my affinity for children,” said O’Neill, who does not have children of his own. “And I discovered they had an affinity for me.”

He is known all over Burbank for the 39 years he dedicated to NBC and for the myriad titles he’s had, most notably vice president in finance.

But on Tuesday he was recognized as a civic leader when he was awarded Woodbury University’s 2008 Movers & Shapers Award, which is given to Burbank residents who have made an extraordinary impact on the area.

“[O’Neill] has done an extraordinary job as a corporate citizen and for the community,” said Don St. Clair, vice president of enrollment management and university marketing for Woodbury University.

“He has truly shaped the way Burbank looks,” St. Clair added.

In Burbank City Hall, O’Neill is known for brokering real estate deals, mostly for NBC, and being able to compromise with the city for its best interest.

“If [city officials] told me no, then I wouldn’t push it,” O’Neill said. “We had that kind of credit with each other.”

It took him a month to get used to referring to himself as chief operating officer for the Bob Hope Family Estate and Legacy after he retired from NBC three years ago, he said. And now, he brokers deals for the Hope family’s real estate operations.

He serves on the boards of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce, Burbank Media District Transportation Management Organization and Providence St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation.

“He’s gregarious, outgoing, funny,” St. Clair said. “He’s just a wonderful guy.”

In addition to O’Neill’s advisory commitments, he helps the Burbank Boys & Girls Club, Salvation Army, American Red Cross, Burbank Temporary Aid Center, Leukemia Society of America, Burbank Unified School District, Chrysalis, Olive Crest Home for Abused Children and Hillsides Home for Children.

O’Neill’s work with children began about two decades ago when NBC adopted five Burbank schools. O’Neill, who served on the advisory board for the Burbank Unified School District Partnership, began offering his services in the classroom, reading to the students, bringing in snacks and doing other tasks.

He later learned, though, that being altruistic isn’t always easy. One year, at a Christmas party for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, to which he served on the advisory council, O’Neill said he walked in and saw the faces of sick children. Feeling uncomfortable, he left the room.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “The president and chief executive of Make-A-Wish said to me, ‘I know exactly what you’re thinking, and don’t you dare. You’re being selfish.’”

He walked back to the party, that time with a smile on his face.

“It has nothing to do with the giver,” O’Neill said. “And everything to do with the receiver.”