Peter A. Magowan
President and Managing General Partner

Recognized as one of Major League Baseball's most progressive leaders, Peter Magowan enters his 16th season as the Giants' president and managing general partner. A longtime resident of San Francisco and lifelong baseball enthusiast, Magowan is credited with playing a critical role in two major events that kept the Giants in Northern California.

In an 11th-hour effort, Magowan and a group of civic-minded San Franciscans saved the Giants from relocating to Tampa Bay in December 1992. The successful rescue had special meaning for Magowan, a New York native who moved to San Francisco with his family about the same time the Giants moved west in 1958.

Then in December 1995, Magowan unveiled a revolutionary plan to build a new 41,000-seat ballpark at China Basin which would further ensure successful Major League Baseball in San Francisco well into the 21st Century. The Giants' president, determined to eliminate any public taxpayer assistance, announced that the new baseball park would be the first privately financed Major League ballpark in more than 30 years. Three months later, the team's "Yes on B" campaign passed in overwhelming fashion, as San Francisco voters approved the China Basin ballpark proposal by a 2-to-1 margin. Originally named Pacific Bell Park soon thereafter, the Giants broke ground on their spectacular new downtown waterfront home Dec. 11, 1997, with a completion date of April 2000.

For his efforts in overseeing the nationally acclaimed Pacific Bell Park project, Magowan was named the 2000 Sports Executive of the Year by Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal.

He has a strong commitment to putting a successful team on the field. During his 15 years that he has been in charge, the Giants have reached the post season four times, including the 2002 World Series. On three more occasions, the team was eliminated on the last day of the season.

Magowan's aggressive and innovative management style, as well as his well-known business acumen, has earned him assignments on some of Major League Baseball's most influential committees—Labor Relations, Strategic Planning, Equal Opportunity, and the Executive Committee.

Since assuming the club's reins in 1993, Magowan has been the recipient of many community awards. The San Francisco Business Times, in recognition of his efforts to keep the Giants in San Francisco, named Magowan their 1993 Bay Area Business Executive of the Year. In addition, the Commonwealth Club of California honored him and other team investors with the prestigious 1993 Distinguished Citizens Award.

In recognition of the Giants becoming the first professional sports team to stage a benefit game for AIDS, Magowan was presented a Special Achievement Award for Outstanding Leadership and Commitment to HIV/AIDS Awareness at the 1995 AIDS Update Conference. Among his prestigious honors, the Harvard Business School named him their Bay Area Business Leader of the Year in 1999 and he was awarded the 2004 Junior Achievement Award.

Magowan also spent 37 years with Safeway, Inc, before resigning his position on the board of directors on March 31, 2005. Originally named chairman and CEO on January 1, 1980, he relinquished the CEO title and left the day-to-day operations in April 1993 after becoming president and managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants. In May of 1998 he retired from his position as chairman, then stayed on the board of directors until 2005. Magowan remains in his role as a director on the boards of DaimlerChrysler A.G. and Caterpillar, Inc.

A 1964 Stanford graduate with a degree in American literature, Magowan received his masters degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University. He also completed two years of additional postgraduate work at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He and his wife, Debby, live in San Francisco.


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