The Third Rowe: A Washington Player Then and Now

When Lucia, daughter of James H. Rowe III '73, asked Dad what he did for a living, Rowe replied, "I'm a juggler."

Rowe's professional career--which has involved switching gears several times from Watergate investigator to Inaugural Ball chair to lawyer to NBC vice president to vice president for government, community and public affairs at Harvard--has indeed been a balancing act.

Yet, regardless of where the job offers took him, Rowe focused his professional life on a family passion: power play in Washington.

Colleagues, friends and family say Rowe's winning personality, his good judgment, his sense of humor (and what one friend calls his "decent" tennis game) have helped him jump from one prestigious job to another.

With a family rooted in the Beltway and experience in making friends and influencing people, Rowe has never had to stray far from his roots to be successful.

Son of the 1960s

Weaned on Washington wisdom, Rowe began to interact with top-level government officials early on and says he has "inhaled what was out there politically" since childhood.

His father, James H. Rowe Jr. '31 was a loyal New Dealer in the original Brain Trust during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt '04, a former Crimson president. In addition, Rowe's mother, Elizabeth, served as chair of the National Capital Planning Commission, leading the effort to preserve and protect the city she called "our national treasure."

When he wasn't listening to the Washington Senators (who he now admits was "the worst team in baseball") on his transistor radio or reading The Making of the President, young James III was spurning St. Albans high school's government club to listen to "the more interesting conversations going on at home."

Peter Fleming, a family friend who eventually hired Rowe to work in his New York law firm, recalls spending summers on Cape Cod with the Rowes.

"Jimmy was a '60s kid--a great kid--with hair down his back," Fleming says. "Then he cut his hair and went to Harvard--the typical good guy performance."

From College to University

Arriving at Pennypacker Hall in 1969, Rowe recalls an undergraduate atmosphere of activism, not academics.

In what was "not the most studious of times on campus," Rowe says Phillips Brooks House was often home for him, where he served as the service organization's vice president in 1972-73 after a stint as a volunteer at the John Marshall School.

Living first in a Leverett tower and then in a Lowell House suite, history concentrator Rowe graduated from Harvard cum laude in 1973 and soon after headed home to Washington.

Along with college pal Lee E. Sheehy '73, Rowe joined Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr.'s (D-N.C.) committee to investigate President Richard M. Nixon's "dirty tricks" and secret slush funds.

After working for Jimmy Carter's campaign and chairing the inaugural ball, Rowe concentrated on his course work at Georgetown Law and soon met his future wife, Lisa Adams, in 1977.

The two were not a natural match.

He had graduated from Harvard, she hailed from Yale. She was from New York, and he came from Washington.

"There were plenty of things to argue about," Adams says. "It was fun. It continues to be fun."

After graduating from Georgetown, Rowe practiced law for seven years, defending those "accused of all sorts of shenanigans," and had moved to New York by the time his 10-year Harvard reunion rolled around.

In his alumni statement in 1983, Rowe wrote that he would have laughed if someone had told him a decade earlier that he would be "working as a lawyer defending corporate executives accused of bribing, embezzling [and] stealing trade secrets."

Ultimately, Rowe discovered that straight litigation work was not for him, and he became general counsel for several Congressional committees by the late 80s.

Smiling broadly as he recalls working with Jim Brady and representative Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to "beat the NRA" with historic gun control legislation, Rowe says he never forgets his father's conviction that "the highest calling is public service."

Despite this calling, Rowe eventually chose to move outside the public sector to sway the Senate and rouse the House.

Opportunity knocked--twice.

The first time was in 1992, when NBC sought a new vice president based in Washington.

NBC's parent company, General Electric, had a "general preference for lawyers," Rowe explains, and he got an offer.

Rowe took the job after being assured by NBC's President and CEO Bob Wright that, even though Rowe was a newcomer to the industry, "this isn't rocket science."

After managing legislative matters for NBC for two years--including dealing with "the thorny issue of TV violence" on the Hill--Rowe was courted by Harvard.

He later moved into Mass. Hall as one of the University's five vice presidents, replacing John Shattuck, now assistant secretary of state.

Right Here, Right Now

The first year back in the Yard was trial by fire, an "on-the-job training year," according to Rowe.

"Not every year there's a bank robbery, a plane crash, a UFO book written by a Medical School professor--as well as the terrible tragedy of the Dunster murder-suicide and the so-called Gina Grant case," he says.

Rowe also handled the intense media scrutiny when his boss, President Neil L. Rudenstine, took an unexpected, lengthy leave of absence in late 1994, citing exhaustion.

Noting that "there simply isn't a play-book" for the months of crises Harvard's new vice president faced, Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, says Rowe has flexed his "strong set of nerves...and not a little bit of humor, which helps him keep his sanity."

When some of the external pressure was off--although he says that "the spotlight is always on because it's Harvard"--Rowe concentrated on a "totally new world for Harvard," a world he knows well: Washington.

Rowe saw that there was "not enough collaboration and coordination" among research colleges and universities at the same time that he says the "Republican revolution" of 1994 put research funding "up for grabs."

Commissioning focus groups and rallying broad-based support through inter-university coordination, Rowe developed the Science Coalition, an alliance that promotes federal funding on basic science research. Founding the Coalition was an accomplishment colleagues across the country laud.

"He stimulated desire to increase spending," Hartle laughs. "He does an absolutely terrific job of representing all of Harvard's diverse interests."

"This went from being a crazy idea to a 60-to-65-institution coordination," Rowe says. "I was regarded as a nut, and now [colleagues] are with me."

A Rowe Less Travelled

Susan L. Peterson was an intern at the Harvard News Office who needed a place to stay and was invited to live in one of the spare bedrooms at the spacious Rowe residence near the Quad.

"It was a unique situation, but probably one of the greatest years of my life," Peterson says. "Jim is one of the finest people I know and have ever met."

Having seen Rowe both on the job phoning lobbyists and at home with his family and his golden retrievers Butte and Montana (named after his father's birthplace), Peterson says Rowe is a dedicated family man.

"Jim's job mandated that he spend almost every waking minute on the job, but at the same time, he gave equal heart and soul to his children," Peterson says.

Rowe's family has since moved back to Washington, where Adams now manages and owns an interior design firm. The children are back with their D.C. friends in D.C. schools. Dad commutes, and recently rollicked with his son, Christopher, in a three-legged race at the school's field day.

A Washington job could stop the two-city shuffle Rowe performs weekly.

Mass. Hall observers say Rowe may resign from fair Harvard soon, although the current Currier House resident says he has no definitive plans to leave.

"He has certain skills that lend him to all different types of endeavors," Fleming says, adding that Rowe could be an active political candidate, a "Tim Russert-kinda guy," a U.S. presidential advisor or a public relations executive if he so desired.

"Frankly, I'd love it if he'd come back and work for me," Fleming laughs. "He's great fun."