Rockefeller Ethic at WRI

Rex Nelson

Marta Loyd, executive director of the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute (WRI) on Petit Jean Mountain since 2014, announced last month that she will retire March 31.

Though it doesn’t receive the attention it deserves, WRI is among the most important institutions in our state. That makes Loyd’s job one of the most crucial to Arkansas’ future.

Let me explain: WRI serves as a quiet retreat, bringing groups together to solve problems facing the state. It uses what it calls the Rockefeller Ethic, a method of respectful dialogue in an era when people prefer yelling at each other.

As our state charts its course in the years ahead, this often will be where business and civic leaders come to talk, think, write and collaborate. Transformational changes will begin atop this mountain.

“He wasn’t perfect,” Loyd says of Rockefeller, who was governor from 1967-71. “He was very much human. But despite his challenges, he found a way to effectively deal with people regardless of their position in life. We lean on his legacy. We’re mindful of our responsibility to bring all sides of issues to the table.

“In keeping with his approach, this needs to be the premier place in this region of the country for people to come together in a safe environment for thoughtful discourse. Civil discourse is at the heart of everything we do.”

Rockefeller changed the trajectory of this state. When he died in 1973, he left much of his estate to the Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust. The trust, in turn, created the nonprofit Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation to focus on education, economic growth and social justice.

A second nonprofit entity, Winrock International, works worldwide to protect natural resources and provide economic opportunity. It builds on research Rockefeller did at his ranch on Petit Jean.

The foundation and Winrock International are based in Little Rock. WRI is on the grounds of the Rockefeller ranch and does more than any organization to educate Arkansans about Rockefeller’s contributions to the state.

Within months of Rockefeller’s death, Winrock International was established on 188 acres at the heart of the ranch. For three decades, the global development organization called the mountain home. The Petit Jean property reverted to the Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust when Winrock International moved to Little Rock.

The board of the trust joined forces with the University of Arkansas System in 2005 to create a world-class conference center and educational institute. Trust funds were used to remodel 30,000 square feet of existing space. Lodging facilities were constructed and extensive landscaping was done. More than $20 million was spent.

During its first five years of operation, WRI sponsored programs in areas ranging from agriculture to the arts. In 2007, an Arkansas Archeological Survey station was relocated to the WRI grounds.

The institute had a hard time finding its focus. WRI was trying to be all things to all people and not doing those things as well as board members and UA officials had expected.

The board hired Korn Ferry International, a nationally known executive search firm, to find a CEO with international contacts. Christy Carpenter, who at the time was chief operating officer of the Paley Center for Media (previously the Museum of Television & Radio), was hired in 2011. Carpenter drew attention to the institute but tired of its remote location and left her job in 2013.

The unassuming Loyd was the right person at the right time. In 17 years at Fort Smith, she was instrumental in the growth of what had been Westark Community College into the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. She worked tirelessly and provided the focus WRI needed.

Loyd also led the effort to secure a permanent endowment from the Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust of more than $100 million. That money is managed by the University of Arkansas Foundation. The spending allocation from the endowment covers a large percentage of the annual operating budget.

Meanwhile, Loyd improved fundraising from other sources in an attempt to take WRI to the next level.

“Our work of bringing people together around difficult issues like education, incarceration and rural health takes additional resources beyond basic operational costs,” she says. “During my time as CEO, we established a development program to help us raise private dollars to support our programming efforts.”

Loyd has laid such a fine foundation that nationally known think-tank leaders should now be interested in the job.

The late governor, with his love of Petit Jean, would be proud of what WRI has become. “He was economic royalty, and this was his citadel,” Robert Brown, a former Arkansas Supreme Court justice, said during an event I attended on the mountain several years ago.

Brown, whose father was Episcopal bishop of Arkansas, remembered a 1967 visit by the archbishop of Canterbury. Brown said the archbishop, who had met many of the world’s leaders, was particularly interested in meeting this member of what was then the nation’s richest family, a man who had abandoned the bright lights of New York and moved to a rural, impoverished place called Arkansas in 1953.

Within a year of coming to Arkansas, he had purchased a 927-acre tract atop the mountain and hired area residents to clear brush and run irrigation pipes. The ranch eventually expanded to 2,500 acres on the mountain and 4,500 acres down in the valley.

“Win found himself in Arkansas,” his brother David once said.

Now, Arkansans can plan their future at his ranch.