Walking through
the Market Hall at
The Van Aken District,
Dan Moulthrop
exchanges hellos
with friends and
acquaintances.
He is well-known as the CEO of
the City Club of Cleveland – a
position he’s held since 2013 – and
for his previous role hosting the
popular “Sound of Ideas” morning
radio program on WCPN, the local
National Public Radio affiliate.
A native of New Jersey, Moulthrop
moved to Shaker Heights by way
of California. He joined WCPN
and brought with him the probing
inquisitiveness he honed as a high
school teacher. As he describes his
career progression over a cup of
coffee, his pathway to the leadership
of the venerable City Club almost
seems inevitable.
“In the mid 1990s, I was pretty
sure I wanted to be a lawyer. I
volunteered at the public defender’s
office in Harlem. And I found out
pretty quickly I didn’t want to be a
lawyer. I really admired what they were
doing, but the whole system needed
not just repair but complete reform. So
I asked myself, Where can you make
a difference? Where can you actually
make an impact on people’s lives?”
That question led Moulthrop to
teaching, which he started doing at
the county jail in San Francisco. After
earning his undergraduate degree
in English, from The University of
California Berkeley, he became a high
school teacher in the San Francisco Bay
area. It was there that he met Dorothy
Russo, who grew up in Shaker Heights.
46 SPRING 2022 | WWW.SHAKER.LIFE
The lineup at an event in January called Changing of the Guard: The Next Era
of Cleveland Leadership. From left: Nick Castele, senior reporter/producer,
Ideastream Public Media; Tania Menesse, CEO and president, Cleveland
Neighborhood Progress; Rosemary Mudry, executive director, West Park Kamm’s
Neighborhood Development; Jamar Doyle, executive director, Greater Collinwood
Development Corporation.
Just before turning 30 – one of life’s natural triggers for introspection –
“I asked myself, is this the track I want to be on?” It turned out that journalism
was his true passion, and so Moulthrop returned to Berkeley for graduate school.
The plan after graduation was to move to Dorothy’s hometown to start the next
phase of his career.
Interestingly, his path to the City Club can almost be traced back to a high
school writing assignment that led Moulthrop to read the book Bloods: An Oral
History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans by Wallace Terry. He interviewed
several Vietnam veterans and developed an appreciation for the power of oral
history. This combination – a literal fight for democracy and documenting the
human experience involved in that fight – set the stage for his role at the City Club.
“What we’re doing is fundamentally about democracy. The City Club is
about ideas. It’s about policy. It’s about vision,” Moulthrop explains. “It’s about
listening…listening to one another. That is fundamentally a part of the shared
project of a community that governs itself.”
For the past century these conversations have been happening at the City
Club, a “non-partisan debate forum.” From its long-time home in the City Club
Building at Euclid Avenue and E. 9th Street, it hosts programming throughout
the year, but is best known for its Friday Forums that are broadcast on numerous
public radio affiliates throughout the country and shown on PBS and C-SPAN,
giving it a national platform.
“The City Club is a really unique institution. I don’t say that just because I
am the leader – it’s the reason I wanted to lead. There is no other organization in
Northern Ohio that does what we do in the way that we do it with the audience
we reach. And that’s made possible because of our partnership with Ideastream
Public Media. It is absolutely the key to our success.
“Think about it: for the price of lunch – and often for free online – you can
get in the room. Anybody can ask a question – to a federal elected legislator, the
mayor, the county executive.”
Photo courtesy of Michaelangelo’s Photography.
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