Donald Kummerfeld is no more

Multifaceted Donald Kummerfeld breathed his last on July12, 2012. Also known as Don, 78 year old Kummefield became ill during gardening due to intense heat and was rushed to the hospital in Jersey City where the end came.
 
Born Donald David Kummerfeld on June 11, 1934, in Gilroy, California, he grew up on a 5,000-acre farm, rising before dawn to milk the cows. He rode a bus 24 miles to school and did his homework by flashlight, because the sun was not yet up. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s in political science from Stanford, and a master’s in public administration from Harvard.
 
Don has an illustrious career spanning over five decades. After a fellowship at the London School of Economics, he worked in Washington as a budget official in the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1968-69, he was staff director at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research group. In 1969 he co-founded the Government Research Company, which started The National Journal as a nonpartisan magazine on politics and policy. From 1971 to 1975 he worked for the First Boston Corporation (now part of Credit Suisse) in public finance, advising states and cities on bond borrowing.
 
He was a former president and CEO of International Federation of Periodical Press (FIPP) and a long time media advocate for the magazine. He founded a consulting and investment banking firm, Kummerfield Associates and also served as President and CEO of the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), the US trade association for consumer magazines, for 12 years between 1987 to 1999.
 
He also served as President of Rupert Murdoch’s News America Publishing, a diversified communications company. Its various publications included the New York Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Boston Herald, the San Antonio Express News, New York Magazine and the Village Voice. He was also founding partner of the Government Research Corporation, publisher of the Washington-based news weekly National Journal.
 
Donald Kummerfeld won accolades for his role as a budget director and first deputy mayor of New York City in the 1970’s. In 1975, the financial markets slammed their doors on New York City after years of excessive borrowing, and New York State stepped in to issue bonds to keep the city running. In return, the state demanded financial stringency. Kummerfeld’s role was to attend to the details of cleaning up the city’s sloppy accounting practices, enforcing budget cuts and for the first time extending financial planning years into the future.
 
He brought to the task years of experience as a budget official in Washington and as an investment banker on Wall Street. But those who worked with him say his negotiating ability matched his expertise with numbers. His firmness did not necessarily make him popular. News accounts at the time told of agency heads emerging in tears after meeting with Kummerfeld. At one public hearing he was accused of “heartlessness.” But the strong medicine worked, and by 1977 the city was beginning to turn a corner.
 
In addition to his wife, the former Elizabeth Miller, Kummerfeld, who lived in Jersey City, is survived by his daughter, Theodosia Kummerfeld, and a grandson. Along with public service, gardening was Kummerfeld’s passion, and for many years he grew vegetables and flowers on the terrace of his Fifth Avenue penthouse. His hobby was reading seed catalogs.
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