(17 of 41)
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David P. Gardner, 41. Appointed president of the 21,000-student University of Utah in 1973, Gardner arrived in Salt Lake City when town-gown relations were at a low ebb from past university indifference to community needs. But Gardner, a native of Berkeley, Calif., had served seven years as vice chancellor of the University of California at Santa Barbara—and he remarks dryly, "I could not imagine any problem Utah would have that California had not had earlier." He dined with several dozen top state legislators and met and listened to Salt Lake's businessmen. A year later, most major conflicts resolved, he is free to pursue a larger goal—"cultivating the respect in which the entire higher education system is held."
77
Murray Gell-Mann, 44, entered Yale at 15 and by 26 had already earned a doctorate in physics from M.I.T., and been appointed a full professor at the California Institute of Technology. Groping through the jungle of subatomic theoretical physics, Gell-Mann has attempted to bring some order to chaos by designing the "eightfold way," a system that explains the behavior of all subatomic particles, and by dreaming up the "quark," a theoretical bit of matter out of which all other particles could be built. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1969 for his work on the theory of elementary particles, Gell-Mann has extended his influence beyond the lab to the policymaking realm by serving on President Nixon's now defunct Science Advisory Committee.
78
Kenneth A. Gibson, 42, was prepared for disaster in 1970 when he became the first black mayor of Newark. His white predecessor was on trial for extortion and income tax evasion, and the reverberations from the 1967 race riots had not died down. Democrat Gibson lowered both the crime and property-tax rates and reduced corruption, but he acknowledges that "whatever troubles American cities have, Newark will get them first." A onetime civil engineer noted for his civil rights and community affairs work, Gibson recently won a second term and, as advisory board chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, is in line to become the first black president of the organization.
79
Neil Goldschmidt, 34, sounds old-fashioned when he talks about the need for "royalty" in the political process and says, "We are really short on heroes." But as the liberal mayor of Portland, Ore. (pop. 381,000), Democrat Goldschmidt, an expert organizer and personable politicker, has mustered the support of an army of young activist voters. Though he suffered a setback in May when a city-county consolidation measure that he backed was roundly defeated, Goldschmidt has inspired fealty by campaigning successfully for clean-air statutes and mass-transit improvements.
80
James C. Goodale, 40, a gutsy executive vice