Lynn Swann, former gubernatorial candidate and Pittsburgh Steeler star, who is making $100,000 a year on the board of the company that operates Hersheypark.
The Hershey organization is complex, including three for-profit companies: The giant candy-maker Hershey Co., the Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Co., which manages Hersheypark, and the Hershey Trust Co., the private bank that manages the huge endowment that operates the Hershey School. Each company has its own board.
There is a fourth board - the Board of Managers - that oversees the school, but those eight positions are held by the same eight people who make up the Hershey Trust Co., the most powerful of the organization's boards. In all, 21 individuals hold positions on the four boards.
Director compensation at the three for-profit companies in the Hershey organization has soared in recent years, despite a spate of problems afflicting their primary beneficiary, the Hershey School.
A plan to increase enrollment to 2,000 students had to be postponed and various programs cut because of the bad economy. The school also closed Springboard Academy, an expansive $40 million structure meant to boost student retention. The building was shuttered after just three years.
In May, the institution was shattered by news that administrators paid $3 million to settle claims by former students who said they were sexually abused by a man on campus. The attacks were made by Charles Koons, whom a Dauphin County prosecutor described as the most prolific pedophile in the Harrisburg area in recent times. Koons' mother was a longtime "houseparent" at the school.
