PBS chief named to Sun board

Sun Microsystems has named Pat Mitchell, chief executive of the Public Broadcasting Service, as the 10th member of its board of directors, the server and software company said on Monday.

Mitchell has led the noncommercial media organization since 2000, and she was the first woman to do so. Before that, she was president of CNN Productions and Time Television.

Among other noncommercial activities, Mitchell serves on the boards of United Way America, the Sundance Institute and the Women's Advisory Council of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She also serves on the Council on Foreign Relations and is a trustee of the Mayo Clinic Foundation. In the commercial realm, she sits on the boards of Bank of America and Knight-Ridder.

Mitchell graduated magna cum laude from the University of Georgia and has a master's degree in English literature.

The other Sun board members are Chief Executive and Chairman Scott McNealy; Jim Barksdale, CEO of Barksdale Management Corporation; Stephen Bennett, CEO of Intuit; John Doerr, general partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Robert Fisher, chairman of the board of The Gap; Mike Lehman, Sun's former chief financial officer; Kenneth Oshman, chairman and CEO of Echelon; Naomi Seligman, senior partner at Ostriker von Simson; and Lynn E. Turner, managing director of research at Glass Lewis & Co.