Bay Area Council Hosting 54th Annual Dinner and Bay Area Business Hall of Fame Tonight; U.S. Senator John McCain to Deliver Keynote Address, Paul Cook and Charles Schwab to be Honored.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 25, 1999--

The Bay Area Council, celebrating its 54th year of providing business leadership on public policy issues affecting the Bay Area, is holding its Annual Dinner tonight at the restored neoclassical Regency Building in San Francisco, at Van Ness and Sutter Streets. As part of the evening program, the Bay Area Council will install its new Chairman, Jay Harris, Chairman and Publisher, San Jose Mercury News, who will be succeeding outgoing Chairman Gary Rogers, Chairman and CEO, Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, Inc. In addition, U.S. Senator John McCain will deliver the dinner address. The reception begins at 6:00 PM and the dinner program will take place at 7:00 PM.

The Bay Area Council also will be presenting the annual Bay Area Business Hall of Fame awards. This year's honorees are Charles R. Schwab and Paul M. Cook. Each is being honored for outstanding achievement in advancing their Bay Area-based businesses to positions of national and international prominence and for enriching the civic life of the Bay Area.

As founder, Chairman of the Board and Co-Chief Executive Officer of The Charles Schwab Corporation, Charles Schwab is the world's foremost pioneer in the discount brokerage business. Schwab has been a driving force in empowering ordinary individuals to better manage their financial investments and thus better control their financial futures. Soon after starting his firm in 1974, Schwab began offering customers an unprecedented combination of low prices and efficient service and quickly became the nation's largest discount broker.

Today, The Charles Schwab Corporation serves more than 6 million active investors, which equals the second, third and fourth-largest discount brokers combined, and supports them through the most advanced on-line computer system in the industry.

Charles Schwab also is founder and Chairman of the Schwab Foundation for Learning, the leading charitable organization in the country seeking to improve the lives of kids with learning differences. The Foundation operates a national clearinghouse of information and resources on learning, and also provides financial support to partners addressing learning differences. In addition, Schwab serves as Chairman of All Kinds of Minds Institute, a non-profit institute dedicated to the understanding of differences in learning, and as a member of the Board of Trustees for Stanford University, his alma mater. Schwab also is the author of two personal financial investment books, the second of which, Charles Schwab's Guide to Financial Independence, is a New York Times best seller.

Paul Cook is one of the most successful and prolific innovators and entrepreneurs in the history of Silicon Valley. Cook set the standard for the high-tech world of the creative, innovative hard-working entrepreneur. Cook founded Raychem Corporation in 1957 to develop commercial applications for an entirely new field, radiation chemistry. Serving as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, Cook pioneered a new industry, created some 200,000 products, and led Raychem to membership in the Fortune 500 and to $1 billion in sales. Under Cook's leadership, Raychem was one of only 62 corporations cited by Tom Peters for outstanding management performance in the landmark book, In Search of Excellence.

Cook, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also has helped commercialize innovative technologies through several other corporations he has either founded or managed or both. Cook is founder and Chairman of DIVA Systems Corporation, which in its short history has already become the industry leader in providing digital video-on-demand services to the cable television industry, and was formerly Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of CellNet Data Systems, which developed a wireless system to automate the distribution of electricity. Cook is a member of the Board of Directors of SRI International, one of the world's most highly esteemed research and technology development organizations, where he served as Chairman for five years.

In addition, Cook has been a leading force for years behind the emergence of Opportunities Industrialization Center West (OICW) as one of the nation's most outstanding job training centers, and he also served as Chairman of the Bay Area Council. Cook was one of 10 Americans awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1988.

Senator McCain was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, where he served two terms before being elected to the Senate in 1985. He has been an outspoken advocate for lower taxes, deregulation, free trade and the reform of government institutions and of the current campaign finance system. He recently formally announced his candidacy for President of the United States.

A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a twenty-two year veteran as a naval aviator, McCain is one of the most respected voices in Congress on national defense and foreign policy. He is well known for having been held as a prisoner-of-war for five and a half years during the Vietnam War after being shot down on a mission over Vietnam in 1967. He retired from the Navy as a Captain in 1981. McCain's naval honors include the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, and Distinguished Flying Cross.

Senator McCain is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. He has become a recognized leader on telecommunications and aviation issues and is also considered one of the leading defenders of the rights of Native Americans. He was named in 1997 as one of the "25 Most Influential People in America" by Time magazine.

The Bay Area Council is a CEO-led, business-sponsored public policy organization founded more than 50 years ago to promote regional economic prosperity and quality of life. The Council presents a strong, united voice for more than 230 major employers from throughout the region to help shape public policy affecting transportation, environmental quality, economic development, housing and land use, sustainable development, water policy, education and workforce preparation, and telecommunications infrastructure.