William Hugh Kling - Other Business Ventures

Other Business Ventures

Kling is also co-founder, director and Chairman of Gather Inc., a web-based, user-driven media venture operating in Boston.

From 1989-2005, Kling served as a director of St Paul Travelers Inc, a publicly held company. He is also a director of the privately held Wenger Corporation, which designs and builds music related equipment and systems and is located in Owatonna, Minnesota.

Kling serves as a director of seven fund boards of the Los Angeles based American Funds mutual fund family, all of which are managed by the Capital Group. These include The New Economy Fund, Smallcap World Fund, AMCAP, American Balanced Fund, The New Perspective Fund, The Euro Pacific Growth Fund and the New World Fund. He is non-executive chair of The New Economy Fund and The Smallcap World Fund.

Kling is a member and chair of the Board of Trustees of the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, which is owned by MPR. He is a Regent of St John’s University. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the JL Foundation in Los Angeles. He was an incorporator and founding Director of National Public Radio and the founding Chair and President of Public Radio International, which was formed as a subsidiary of MPR in 1983 and later spun off to independence within months of its founding.

In 2004, he was inducted into the Minnesota Broadcaster's Hall of Fame.