From 1981 through 1988, Charles Z. Wick was director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) under President Reagan. As USIA director, Wick launched the first live global satellite television network.

Wick also established the Voice of America's Radio Marti broadcasting to Cuba; created RIAS TV in Berlin; headed the International Youth Exchange Initiative; established an office within USIA to implement the General Exchanges Agreement between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union; and created the Artistic Ambassador Program with its international young artists' exchanges.

Mr. Wick had been an independent businessman involved in the financing and operation of motion picture, television, radio, music, health care, and mortgage industries in the United States and abroad. He was previously president and chief executive officer of Wick Financial Corp., and Mapleton Enterprises, which he founded in the early 1960's. He was co-chairman of the 1981 Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Mr. Wick was a member of the Center on Public Diplomacy's Advisory Board from 2005 through 2008. Mr. Wick graduated from the University of Michigan (B.M.) and Case Western Reserve University Law School (J.D.). He was a member of the California and Ohio Bar Associations.

In 2008, at 90 years old, he died of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles.