Former Lincy Foundation President Named CEO Of ProCon.org

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Dec 18, 2014, 04:43 ET

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ProCon.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit educational website (www.procon.org) that had more than 20,000,000 unique visitors in 2014, announced the selection of Jay Rakow as its new Chief Executive Officer. Rakow also has been elected to the Board of Directors of ProCon.org.

Mr. Rakow previously served as President of The Lincy Foundation, a charitable foundation created by industrialist Kirk Kerkorian which, under Rakow's stewardship, granted more than $600 million to charities before dissolving and transferring its remaining assets of $200 million to UCLA.

Prior to his tenure at The Lincy Foundation, Rakow enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a lawyer and business executive. He served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Paramount Pictures and later as Senior Executive Vice President of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. His teaching experience has included service as Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence at Cornell University Law School.

For more than 15 years, Jay served as a member of the Board of Directors of The John Tracy Clinic, a world-renowned center for teaching preschool children with profound hearing loss, which also conducts a degree-granting program for teachers in that field.

Rakow succeeds Steven C. Markoff, a Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist who founded ProCon.org in 2004 and served as its CEO. In welcoming Rakow to ProCon.org, Markoff stated:

"Now that ProCon.org has grown from an idea ten years ago, into a respected website used by more than 5,000 schools and millions of people, it is time for us to bring in a new leader to take ProCon.org into its next decade. Jay's experience, contacts and long record of accomplishments in the non-profit, legal and business worlds make him the ideal choice to meet that challenge."

In discussing his appointment as CEO, Rakow stated:

"What attracted me to ProCon.org is its success in enabling educators to teach civic education and critical thinking skills to a vast number of students. And, its widespread use by the public as an unbiased reference source shows the importance of ProCon.org's mission to promote informed citizenship and civilized debate. I am excited to lead an organization with such meaningful educational and civic impact."

About ProCon.org

ProCon.org (online at www.procon.org) is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity, founded in 2004, whose mission is promoting critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship. ProCon.org has 20 million annual readers. Information is presented on 52 different ProCon.org issue websites in subjects ranging from alternative energy, gay marriage, and medical marijuana to the death penalty, immigration, and Obamacare.

ProCon.org is free of charge and requires no registration. 21 international governments, 29 US state governments, and nine federal agencies have referenced ProCon.org.

ProCon.org has also been referenced by mainstream media more than 400 times in 2014, including: The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Denver Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, BBC, Slate, Daily Beast, Forbes, The Atlantic, USA Today, and International Business Times.