After graduating with honors in
American studies from Yale College, Robert Sargent
Shriver III worked as a reporter in Annapolis,
Chicago, and Los Angeles (for The Herald Examiner).
He left the newspaper business and his apartment in
Santa Monica to attend Yale Law School. Upon
graduation in 1981, he returned to Santa Monica to
clerk for the Honorable Stephen R. Reinhardt at the
Federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Judicial
Circuit.
In 1982 Shriver moved to New York to
work in the venture capital business with former
United States Defense Secretary Harold Brown and
James D. Wolfensohn.
Shriver produced the first primetime
television program on the 1987 Special Olympics
World Games for ABC. During the same year, he
produced the first A Very Special Christmas record.
The success of these two projects led him to form
Special Olympic Productions, which has produced
additional television specials on the Games and
seven more albums; it has raised more than $100
million to support Special Olympic organizations
worldwide.
Shriver is co-founder and Chairman
of DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) and co-founder
and Chairman of (PRODUCT)RED, both co-founded with
Bono, singer of the rock band U2. DATA lobbies
governments on the issues of debt, AIDS, and trade
policies as they affect Africa. (PRODUCT)RED engages
the world’s most iconic businesses to make (RED)
branded products and invest a significant portion of
the profits in programs to eliminate AIDS in Africa.
He also chairs the California State Parks and
Recreation Commission and is a director of The
Crossroads at Antigua Foundation.
Since being elected to the Santa
Monica City Council in 2004, Shriver has spearheaded
several new approaches to reduce homelessness,
concentrating on the chronically homeless and
promoting cooperation across the region. In 2005
Shriver convened a group of homeless veterans’
service providers, Veterans Administration
officials, and Santa Monica city staff to create a
proposal to convert three of the unused buildings on
the West Los Angeles VA campus into long-term
therapeutic supportive housing for homeless
veterans. In summer 2007, VA Secretary James
Nicholson accepted his plan and designated the
buildings for that use.