Steve Soboroff (born August 31, 1948) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and politician, who has been serving as a Los Angeles Police Commissioner since August 2013. Soboroff previously served as President of the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission between 1995 and 2000. After serving on the L.A. Harbor Commission and as Senior Advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, Soboroff ran for Mayor of Los Angeles in the 2001 election and placed third. An active philanthropist, Soboroff was the Chairman and CEO of Playa Vista. He served on the Board of the Weingart Foundation for 22 years, seven of which he was Chairman. In September 2011 he was appointed by the California Science Center to be the Senior Advisor to the museum in its project with NASA to bring, and permanently exhibit, the Space Shuttle Endeavour. He is Chairman of the Maccabiah Games Committee of 18. Soboroff was Chairman of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, and was a Senior Fellow and member of the Advisory Board at UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs. Early life and education Soboroff was raised in a middle-class, secular Jewish family in Chicago, the son of Evelyn and Irving Soboroff. His father's hat manufacturing business declined in the 1960s when hats went out of fashion and the family moved first to Arkansas and then to California where his folks opened the successful Shaxted linen boutique in Beverly Hills. In 1966, Soboroff graduated from Taft High School in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles. He tried to enlist during the Vietnam War but was denied for medical reasons. He holds Bachelor and Master's Degrees from the Dept. of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate at the University of Arizona. During the summers while in college, he worked as a chauffeur/kid watcher/assistant for Kirk Douglas, whose wife Anne was a frequent customer to his parents' retail linen shop called Shaxted Career While in college, Soboroff's father had introduced him to J. K. Eichenbaum, a Los Angeles-based real estate developer who specialized in shopping centers. In 1971, Soboroff went to work for Eichenbaum, and in 1979, he left the company and using his network of contacts began to lease and renovate shopping centers on his own. In 1994, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan appointed him as president of the Recreation and Parks Commission. STAPLES Center Soboroff is widely credited as the driving force