By JOSEPH KELLARD
Last summer, Iger wrote a letter to Principal Ron Schoen expressing his interest in attending School 8's 50th anniversary celebration last October. Though it turned out that Iger was unable to attend, the men carried on an e-mail correspondence. At one point Iger asked Schoen if those distinctive words still existed above the front entrance.
"I wrote back yes," Schoen said, "and he e-mailed me again, saying [he] always thought about that etching and how a boy going across that threshold could one day become the president of Disney."
Iger, whose promotion was announced March 13, will run Disney with Eisner until Oct. 1, when the Oceanside native will take over the helm of one of the best-known companies in the world. Earlier this month, after Long Island native Meg Whitman, chief executive of eBay.com, withdrew from consideration for Eisner's position, Disney's board saw Iger as the obvious in-house candidate for the job and promptly promoted him.
Some analysts have criticized Iger's promotion, predicting that he will merely be a clone of the micromanaging Eisner - who drew considerable criticism from Disney shareholders and directors. Others regard Iger as a much more team-oriented leader. "Iger is a good choice, because he's familiar with operating Disney [from] the inside," said Peter Jankovskis, director of research at Oakbrook Investments, which owns 900,000 Disney shares, in an interview published in the New York Sun. In an endorsement letter to the board, Eisner wrote that Iger "helped steer Disney through a storm of challenges."
Among Iger's chief critics are former directors Roy Disney, the nephew of the late Walt Disney, and Stanley Gold, who point out that the ABC television network, which is owned by Disney, was unprofitable for nearly three years under Iger's leadership.
But this year's surprise hits "Desperate Housewives," "Lost" and "Extreme Makeover" have reversed the network's, and Iger's, fortunes.
Iger's father, Arthur, who lives in Long Beach with his wife, Mimi, declined to comment on the office politics surrounding his son's promotion, other than to say, "Disney has a wonderful new CEO." Asked about the reasons for his son's success at Disney, Arthur Iger said, "He's a man of integrity and decency," and added the Robert is "a very coolheaded and private person."
Born in 1951, Iger first passed through School 8's front doors five years later to attend kindergarten. "I have nothing but fond memories of my time at the school," he wrote in his Aug. 2004 letter to Schoen, "and can recall vividly to this day my teachers as well as the school leadership."
One of those leaders was Iger's father, who served on the school board for nine years - for one year as president. After Iger left School 8, he moved on to Oceanside High, where he graduated in 1969 and where his interest in broadcasting bloomed.
"He had a bad knee in high school, so he couldn't play sports anymore, and so he turned to sports announcing instead," his father recalled. Iger attended Ithaca College, majored in media and graduated magna cum laude. "He was always interested in media," Arthur Iger said. "He won the president's award when he graduated. So he had a very nice college career, and a nice high school career in Oceanside, because he had great teachers."
After graduating in 1973, Iger was briefly a television weatherman, and the following year joined ABC as a studio supervisor. He then transferred to ABC Sports, where he was under the wing of the company's legendary sports chief, Roone Arledge.
In 1987, Iger was promoted to vice president of programming for ABC Sports. He worked up to president of Capital Cities/ABC, the position he occupied when Disney bought the company in 1995. During Iger's tenure at ABC, the network expanded into various cable ventures, including A&E, ESPN and the History Channel.
In 2000, Iger was named president and chief operating officer of Walt Disney International, and he assisted Eisner in overseeing the company's global operations. Iger married television journalist Willow Bay in 1995, and divides his time between Burbank, Calif., and New York.
When Iger originally wrote Schoen last summer about the anniversary celebration, he asked the principal, "If I cannot attend, is there anything I can do to either help or contribute?"
"That's the part of his letter that my staff keeps pushing me to ask him what he'll be getting us," Schoen joked. "They want me to ask him for a theme park in the school yard."
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