John Barnes Sias, a graduate of Stanford University who became president of the publishing division — which included Fairchild Publications and WWD — of Capital Cities Inc.; president of the ABC Network Division of Capital Cities/ABC Inc., and the president and chief executive officer of The Chronicle Publishing Company in San Francisco, died in a Houston retirement community last week. He was 88.
Sias was a larger-than-life figure who was remembered wherever he worked as a tough taskmaster who delighted in practical jokes.
“John Sias was as brilliant in business as he was eccentric around Fairchild’s offices at our old headquarters on New York’s East 12th Street,” said WWD editor in chief Ed Nardoza, who worked with him. “He was not above sporting a Goldilocks wig in executive meetings; sneaking up to some diligent staffer quietly at work to honk a deafening elephant horn; foot-racing buses on Fifth Avenue; encouraging the occasional food fight, or bellowing, ‘Third floor, lingerie!’ each time the elevator doors opened on WWD’s newsroom.
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“Antics aside, he inspired great loyalty. And when editors and publishers presented their budgets each year, he was all business. No wigs, no elephant horns, no jokes. He was disciplined, tough, insightful, strategic and as sharp as they come,” Nardoza continued.
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An article in Channels of Communications in August 1986 quotes an unnamed friend of the executive as saying, “When he met Roone Arledge for the first time, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he hit him in the middle of the forehead with a squirt gun.”
“He was a strict disciplinarian,” said Donald Sias, the older of his two sons. “He was a very funny man; he had quite a sense of humor. You got to see some of that at the dinner table. We did some active stuff while we were kids, took some good vacations — skiing, fishing.” From his father, he added, “I learned to be flexible with people. I guess I learned to try to get things done on time.”
“He was a very good father,” said his younger brother, Bill Sias. “His gift as a father was the example of everything he did in life. He was very honest. I saw him build people up at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, not tear people down, and the employees there said, ‘He gave us plenty of room to hang ourselves.’
“When I look back on it, he gave us a skill set that made me secure,” Bill continued. “A number of my friends told me they wanted to be like him. He was a good guy. He taught us to stand on our own two feet. I realize how special that was when I look at folks I encounter in today’s life who didn’t have that.”
Their father was an avid outdoorsman and conservationist, a member of the national board of the Nature Conservancy. He fly-fished all over the world, including off Tierra del Fuego in South America, where he pursued sea-run brown trout, always practicing catch-and-release. Tall, slender and deeply tanned, he wore well-cut suits, usually with a shirt and tie, but amused the rank-and-file at The Chronicle by sometimes pairing them with a Captain America T-shirt.
Sias served as president of the Fairfield County Hunt Club in Westport, Conn., and the Pacific Union Club in San Francisco. The boards he served on included those of the Norwalk Hospital, the California Investment Trust and Enzo Biochem.
The future executive was born in Los Angeles to Donald and Helena Sias, but his family, which included his older brothers Donald and Roane Sias, soon moved to Mill Valley, Calif. Sias attended Tamalpais High School, where, when he was just 15, he met Lucretia Thomas, who would later become his wife. After graduating from high school in two years, Sias went to The Citadel, then prepared to serve as a paratrooper in the WWII. In Newfoundland, he became a member of a pilot rescue team, jumping from planes with sled dogs that had learned search and rescue, training to be part of an invasion of Japan that never took place.
After the war ended, he went to Stanford, studying economics and graduating in two-and-a-half years.
Sias married Thomas, and he began his career in the media industry when they moved to San Francisco, where, as reported in an obituary in The Chronicle, he got a job with a firm that sold air time to advertisers. He became executive vice president of Metromedia in New York, then went to work for Women’s Wear Daily, part of Fairchild Publications. When that firm was bought by Capital Cities Inc., he became executive vice president at Capital Cities and president of the publishing division at the firm.
In March 1985, Capital Cities bought ABC, making it the first company to purchase a television network. In the Media Channels article, a former ABC executive and acquaintance said, “John Sias is probably one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met. I say that advisedly. He’s deceptively bright. No matter who else takes credit for it, he and Larry Fraiberg made Metromedia into the company it became….He’s the kind of guy who will never ask you to do something he won’t do himself. He used to make sales calls — the president of the company….Every Metromedia station manager used to keep a list of stats on his desk by the phone, because John would call and ask things like the exact height of their aerials.”
Sias retired from his position at Capital Cities/ABC at the mandatory retirement age of 67. But he remained active and was soon offered the opportunity to run Chronicle Publishing in San Francisco, the first person who was not a member of its founding family, the de Youngs, to do so. In that capacity, in 1995, he launched SFGate.com, an innovative Web site that was the first regional one to combine newspaper and TV content. He also dealt with a difficult 11-day newspaper strike; sold the station KRON to the Young Broadcasting Corp. for $823 million in 1999, and guided the sale of the Chronicle for about $660 million to Hearst Corp. the next year. At that point, he had bargained himself out of a job.
Sias’ two brothers and a daughter, Helena Thorpe Sias Witte, predeceased him. He is survived by his wife, Lucretia; his son Donald and his wife Barbara of Albuquerque; his son Bill and his wife Julia of Houston; his daughter Lucretia and her husband Tim Knapp, of Grand Junction, Colo., and seven grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday in the Jasek Chapel of Geo. H. Lewis and Sons at 1010 Bering Drive in Houston. Donations can be made in memory of Sias to The Nature Conservancy of Montana, 32 South Ewing, Helena, Mont., 59601.