Peter Fortune has served on San Francisco Beautiful’s Board since 1992, when he volunteered for “much bigger, relentless challenges” after service on the City’s Citizen’s Tree Advisory Committee. Starting in 2012 he served the first of his two terms as SFB’s President.
Raised in Chicago suburbia, he graduated from Yale University and spent a year in Independent Study at Edinburgh University in Scotland. Upon obtaining his law degree from the Northwestern University School of Law, he moved to San Francisco, his adopted city. In 2011 he retired from a 41-year career as a trial lawyer, doubling up his last 15 years of practice as the managing attorney of his law firm. [He served for four years on the State Bar’s Board of Legal Specialization, twice chairing that Board’s Legal Malpractice Advisory Committee.]
In retirement Fortune continues to serve on SFB’s Board and on the Board of the Marina Community Association, on the Northern Police District’s Community Police Advisory Board, on the Board of NAPP (Neighborhood Associations for Presidio Planning), and on the City’s News Rack Advisory Committee where he helped draft the City’s news rack ordinance to clear up the pervasive news rack clutter.