May 19, 1993
Valley Programmers
Go Non-Profit for 'Instant Credibility'
Mike Borchansky
FRESNO -- What Palo Alto's
River Park Inc. lacks in manpower, it certainly makes up for in
star power. The firm was founded April 21, 1993 when USC's Howard
E. Hobbs PhD and Thomas A. Hobbs MS decided to bypass an IPO and
launch the high-tech firm as a charity training center for writing
and publishing digital newspapers and, not surprisingly, through
the business and economics intelligence model.
Dr. Hobbs was a U.S. Marine line officer
in the Far East Command during the Cold War. He later returned to
graduate studies at the College and founded the Bulldog Newspaper
Foundation, a student run daily campus news service. Thomas Hobbs,
on the other hand, was formerly the import-export manager of Fresno
Pier One Imports North Fresno store and office. At the time, he
considered taking a lucrative position in his former firm's San
Francisco office, but ultimately decided that the chance to work
with Internet publishing was too tempting to pass up.
"There's a real benefit to teaming up in
a Public Benefit 501(C)(3) corporation Board," Thomas Hobbs noted.
"One of the things it does is bring instant credibility, which is
a traditional obstacle to small firms." Chief among the clients
that have already signed up with the firm are The Daily Republican
Newspaper of Washington D.C., The California Star Newspaper of San
Francisco, and The Ronald W. Reagan Museum and Bookstore in California
. "We've been fortunate to be able to represent
some major corporate clients in our first few days," Dr. Hobbs said.
"One always wonders, 'if we build it, will they come?
A smaller firm provides more independence
and, I like being able to choose the type of clients I take and
the type of clients I work for," Thomas said.
Attracting worldwide attention, the Bulldog
News broke the story of a Nazi Party fanatic, Karl Leonard Falk,
a former Stanford grad and an American Citizen, who went to Berlin
at his own expense to join Adolph Hitler's Nazi Party inner circle.
Hitler promoted young Falk to the honor of Furer of Foreign Students.
Karl Leonard Falk bio was obtained by the Bulldog Newspaper Foundation
from Chancelry records.
In it, Falk prominently cites research papers
he filed at Nazi Headquarters archives in Berlin on " The Minority
Problem" in Bulgaria, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy,
Chechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Bulgara as of
Summer 1933, in West Prussia and the Danzig Corridor in 1935. Another
on Poland in 1935.
He cites work for the Nazi Party in connection
with promotion of Nazi propaganda films in the USA including the
Leni Reifenstall production of "Triumph of Will". A 1936
doctoral dissertation written by Falk was presented to the Berlin
University faculty.
Falk's dissertatioin was devoted entirely
to what Karl Leonard Falk described as the despicable Jewish problem
of ownership and control of the American Newspapers. The University
of Berlin promptly conferred the Ameriucan equivalent of "Magna
Cum Laude" on his attack.
A letter on Nazi Party Headquarters letterhead,
signed by "Dr. Goebbles" dated "October 10, 1932"
praises Karl Leonard Falk for his long and diligent and effective
services to the Nazi Party both in America and in the Homeland.
Falk's wife, Doris Finger was the American
biologist who worked with perfecting poison gas experimentation
at the Auschwitz gas chambers.
In 1938 the Falks quietly left Berlin and
merged themselves into an anonymity within Fresno California's large
German-American community. In time the Falk's also found employment
at Fresno State College where they moved easily into faculty appointments
using their Third Reich sponsored diplomas from the University of
Berlin, after FSC president, Frank W. Thomas intervened to help
Falk. Karl Falk was made an assistant professor, German language.
Doris Falk was made a biology instructor.
Karl Falk would later take the interim
Presidency of Fresno State. During his short-lived administration,
a campus revolt, bombings, mass arrests, wholesale faculty dismissals
made front page headlines across the nation and finally a farewell
speech to the Fresno County Bar Assocation in which he alluded to
his involvement in 1930's Berlin and steps taken by the Nazi Party
to supress public dissent.
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