Art patron Roger Johnson dead at 70

Barbara Diamond

Political maverick and patron of the arts and education Roger W.

Johnson died Feb. 25 at his Laguna Beach home. He was 70.

Memorial services will be held at 3 p.m., Monday at the University

Synagogue in Irvine.

Mr. Johnson, who quit smoking in 1977, battled lung cancer for

more than two years before succumbing.

He will be remembered as a champion of political reform, a

Republican who defied fellow members of the powerful Lincoln Club to

support a Democrat for president, and for his commitment to the

performing arts and education.

He left the top job at a Fortune 500 company to become top gun of

the General Services Administration from 1993 to 1996 in President

Bill Clinton’s first term in office, and played a key role in the

administration’s effort to “reinvent government.”

A soft-spoken man, Johnson was at ease in the highest circles of

industry, philanthropy and government, as comfortable in his

well-tailored suits and dinner jacket as other men are in jeans and

T-shirts.

Johnson’s dedication to political reform did not wane when he

resigned at head of the GSA.

He and Janice, his wife of 48 years, endowed a chair in social

ecology at UC Irvine, where he was a member of the Board of Trustees

and taught. Last year, he published “It Can Be Fixed: Your Unmanaged

Government,” based on his experiences in Washington D.C.

The book was dedicated to his wife, “my inspiration and my partner

in all things for 48 years.”

In an interview with the Coastline Pilot in September, Johnson

opined that nothing was wrong with the federal government that

couldn’t be fixed by best management practices.

“The reason most government operations are screwed up is not

because politicians are lazy or crooked; it’s because they don’t know

how to manage,” he said.

“Washington insiders are smart and they think they know how to

manage, but they don’t and they won’t like this book.”

But then, the bureaucrats hadn’t much liked his attempts, with

some success, to streamline the government’s lackadaisical practices

at GSA.

They reacted with hostility, personal attacks and allegations of

improprieties, from all of which he was cleared a year after he left

government service.

Mr. Johnson did not advocate running the government like a

business. He was the chief executive officer and chairman of Western

Digital in Irvine when he was asked by Clinton to give up the job to

go to Washington.

The relationship between Democrat Clinton and Republican Johnson

began in 1991 when Johnson was quoted in a newspaper article saying

he was so distressed by then-President George H.W. Bush’s economic

policies that he would consider voting for a qualified Democrat. The

ink was barely dry when Clinton called.

A year later, he cosponsored a Clinton visit to predominantly

Republican Orange County and declared his support for the Democratic

candidate.

Mr. Johnson, who had been a registered Republican, since the first

time he paid taxes, kept his party affiliation while in Washington,

but switched to campaign for Clinton’s second term. The Johnsons also

hosted a traffic-stopping fund-raiser at their oceanfront home for

Hilary Clinton’s run for the U.S. Senate.

“I will remain a Democrat as long as the present administration is

in office,” Johnson said in September.

He was no stranger to the Democratic Party, even before his stint

in the nation’s capitol. His father was a union president in

Hartford, Conn., where he was born June 24, 1934.

Mr. Johnson and Janice married in August 1956. They lived in

Schenectady, N.Y. where she taught music and he began his climb up

the corporate ladder, employed by GE and later Memorex.

They moved to Orange County in 1982, when he was named to head

Western Digital, a company he is credited with turning around until

the economy stalled in the early 1990s, which prompted him to forgo

his $1-million salary.

The Johnsons became prominent supporters of the arts. He served on

the executive board of the Center for Performing Arts, while his wife

chaired the guilds. He resigned from the board when the rules forbade

married couples to serve on the board. Janice shifted to the Pacific

Symphony Orchestra board, on which she still serves.

Mr. Johnson is also survived by the Johnson’s three children:

daughter Marek Johnson Cantor and sons Eric and Daniel.

In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made to the

Johnson Share for Governments at UC Irvine.