This article by Ed Kaufman was originally posted in the Laguna Beach Independent on June 19, 2026.
Doug Wilson moved from Newport Beach to Laguna Beach in 1999 because he was drawn to a community that had a creative culture and looked at life from a broader point of view. In addition, he loved mountain biking and was just learning to surf and knew how marvelous our town was for those activities. He quickly joined the advisory circle of the Laguna Art Museum and became chair of that important group. He developed a deeper love for the museum and brought many philanthropic Laguna Beach locals into that circle. Doug next supported his wife, Karen as Chairperson of Laguna Dance, where he preferred the freedom of leading fund-raising efforts without being an official member of the board himself.
In 2010, Doug joined the board of Laguna's Friendship Shelter and together with Doug Anderson spearheaded a group who purchased an apartment complex in Dana Point to accommodate The Shelters' residents who were ready to advance to supportive housing. He went on to help the shelter purchase several other housing units nearby. Wilson stayed on this board for six years until he 'termed out' having helped our city to be a model for placing and maintaining the unhoused into long-term supportive housing.
Always a team player, Doug and his colleague Dick Gochenauer worked with Mike Mussallem of Edwards Life Sciences Biotech to form the CEO Leadership Alliance of Orange County, which included leaders like Don Bren of the Irvine Company and Jim Morris, chair of Pacific Life. Their desire was to be a force for good in shaping Orange County's future, where all the residents especially those disadvantaged would have the opportunity for a good job. They raised a venture capital fund with over $100 million in assets that would invest in start-up companies in Southern California and has so far created 11,500 jobs, mostly in innovative fields.
In 2021 Wilson used his skills learned in working with local businesses to become co-founder, chair and CEO of The National Talent Collaborative (NTC) with headquarters in Laguna Beach. This organization consists of 33 business-led community groups in major cities like New York and Chicago, as well as Orange County. NTC brings business leaders together to learn from each other, shape important programs and policies and scale these changes across the country. Business leaders learn that by contributing to their community they also provide for success in their own businesses.
Doug was raised in a small town of 10,000 in Southern Illinois where in high school he was able to play football, run track, toot the French horn in the school band and perform the baritone lead in Brigadoon. His mother provided abundant love, support and consistently built up his confidence. His father was the CEO of Roadmaster Bicycles, the largest company in town with a workforce of 1,400 who also invested creative energy into the churches and parks of the community. His dad was a role model for comfort with other businessmen and helped Doug to be at ease when with other CEOs like Ignaz Schwinn of Schwinn bikes.
Doug is the middle child between two brothers with the oldest sibling being a professor of human rights at American University in DC who taught him about compassion for immigrants. His younger brother is a contractor in Portland, Oregon. Doug graduated from Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Texas with a double major in Industrial Psychology and Economics. He was deeply moved there "by a group of Christians with a deep sense of community who lived with a great love for life and for each other." He felt destined to invest his life in Christian work and enrolled in Dallas Theological Seminary for a four-year master's degree.
However, after completing this degree he decided his calling was more to be in business and work with business leaders, so he went to the University of Texas at Denton for a Ph.D in organizational psychology that took two and one half more years. He met his wife Karen while in Denton and they moved to Newport Beach where a friend who directed a counseling service offered him employment. The move was promising, but when they arrived in Newport, he discovered the job didn't exist. He was married, had a newborn child and very little cash. Doug was terrified but gradually managed to build up a counseling and consulting practice.
One of Doug's first experiences as a therapist was as the leader of a support group of homebuilders. It follows that one of his early work ventures was as a freelance investor in home building firms where he built a reputation for greatly raising volume and profits in one firm after another over a 10-year span. He volunteered to do this for little or no salary, but for a percentage of each company's growth in profits. He also taught a course in organizational behavior at USC that led to his developing a national network of organizational psychologists. It is easy to see from his life history how he telescoped a single group of homebuilding CEOs into sequential citywide, county and national groups concerned with human rights and jobs for minorities.
Meanwhile, Doug never let up on his goal of turning Laguna into a world-renowned performing arts community to match its excellence in the visual arts. To achieve this end, he is presently joining his wife Karen to support her second tenure as chairperson of Laguna Dance. Here his ability to tap the purses of the wealthy and even middle classes is unmatched.
Doug and Karen celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary this June 2. Doug went through the agony of seeing his wife suffer through two bouts of cancer and come dangerously close to death. "I am more in love with her today than ever. She is my life partner in work and play. I'm a much better person because I married a strong woman who helps me grow."
"Today, I wake up every morning knowing I'm still making a difference. I have a clear meaningful purpose that keeps me alive and fresh."