UCI Administrator Mandel Takes Over O.C. Arts Center

COSTA MESA — Jerry E. Mandel, a proven fund-raiser and administrator with limited experience running major arts institutions, was named the new president and chief executive officer of the Orange County Performing Arts Center Thursday.

Mandel, 57, a center board member who has been UC Irvine’s chief fund-raiser for the past two years, said he wants the center to become “the most exciting place for the performing arts in this country.

“I want it to be more accessible to more people in the county,” he added. “What we do now is wonderful, and I want to keep doing that, but I want a more diverse audience.”

Robert C. Maxson, president of Cal State Long Beach, where Mandel spent six years as a fund-raiser before coming to UCI, said “the center is lucky to get him. He’s a very polished and articulate person who is a first-rate fund-raiser and a good administrator.”

Center board Chairman Mark Johnson, who headed the search committee, cited Mandel’s experience in “education, business and administration. . . . He has the skill and background to take the center into the 21st century.” Mandel has signed a five-year contract.

The appointment, effective July 1, caps a nine-month national search. Orange County’s most prominent arts institution, the center has been without a president since Tom Tomlinson left under pressure last July for reasons that never have been made public.

Mandel’s immediate challenges include responding to the downturn in attendance for center dance presentations, raising funds to build a second performance hall, figuring out what kind of hall to build and broadening the center’s programming, which has consisted almost exclusively of classical music, ballet, opera and musical theater.

In its early years, the center was criticized as catering to the interests of its major donors. But the need to increase its funding base by diversifying programming has become increasingly pronounced.

Johnson went out of his way Thursday to emphasize that the search process was longer and more thorough than usual, to counter any “conflicts” that might arise from choosing Mandel, who is not just a board member but who serves on the board’s executive committee.

“We did not want there to be any appearance [of favoritism],” Johnson said in an interview. “We realized it might raise eyebrows, as well it should.”

The $200,000-a-year presidency “is not a job that I sought,” said Mandel, who currently earns $140,700. He said he has spent “sleepless nights” deciding that the center “is where I want to go with my career.”

The search committee was satisfied that Mandel was “the best candidate,” Johnson said, asserting that “a substantial number” of arts executives were considered. There were about 150 applicants, he said.

According to sources, the other finalists were Josiah A. Spaulding Jr., head of the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in Boston, who was considered the front-runner until he took himself out of the race Monday; and Louis G. Spisto Jr., vice president and executive director of the Santa Ana-based Pacific Symphony, which plays regularly at the center.

Mandel, who joined the center board 16 months ago, emphasized at Thursday’s press conference that he was surprised earlier this year when other board members began asking him informally whether he would consider the presidency.

He said he had previously turned down the post of vice president for development at the center--the job is still vacant--because of his allegiance to UCI. Mandel said he told his fellow board members at the center that he had “the best fund-raising job in the county at UCI” and did not want to make “a lateral move.”

Two months ago, however, an executive search firm, hired by the center to identify prospective candidates for the presidency, approached Mandel formally and asked him to apply for the top post.

“There is no other job I would have left UCI for,” Mandel said Thursday.

Calling the arts his “passion,” Mandel said he has had a lifelong dream of running a performing arts center and that he regards his new appointment as “the culmination of my career.”

UCI Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening called the appointment a “great opportunity” for Mandel.

“We’re very sorry to lose Jerry, but he has accomplished a lot in a very short period of time and I know this was a position that he just couldn’t pass up because it brought together a lot of different aspects of his background.”

Joyce Gattas, who worked for Mandel at San Diego State University in the early 1980s when he was dean of its professional studies and fine arts college, praised him as a “maverick” who helped establish many fledgling arts programs there. Gattas now holds the same post.

“Jerry was not afraid to try out new ideas, new performers,” she said. “He’s gutsy that way. He had this gift to be able to say, ‘Let’s do it, this is going to be great.’ And then he’d pull those things off.”

Douglas Rankin, who heads the Irvine Barclay Theatre, said Thursday that “it’s not customary to hire someone without show business experience to run a place like the center. But I’ve worked with Jerry and he is an extremely capable guy. He has the qualities they want.”

Johnson said the incoming president is ideally suited to the center’s highest priority: expansion.

The center--essentially a single, 3,000-seat hall--must add a second hall “to reach out to new audiences,” Johnson said. Preliminary plans have estimated the cost at about $100 million; Mandel is an aggressive and powerful fund-raiser with experience in major capital campaigns.

During Mandel’s tenure at UCI, annual contributions rose from $21.5 million in 1994-95 to $25.6 million for fiscal ‘95-96. He has projected an increase to $30 million for 1996-97.

Before coming to UCI, Mandel was credited with raising $84 million in private funds at Cal State Long Beach in his six-year tenure as vice president for university relations and development. Annual contributions increased from $6 million to $20 million by the time he departed.

But the center’s future as the largest cultural institution in the county could cost much more than the price of a second hall. Johnson said he and the board want to make the center not just the premiere cultural site in Southern California but “an arts destination” for the rest of the country, rivaling both Lincoln Center in New York City and the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Johnson held out the possibility that future construction--which will depend on obtaining a plot of land adjacent to the center from the family of center founder Henry Segerstrom--might include a “visual arts” component.

It was the first time that Johnson or any member of the center board has said publicly that a museum might be built as part of the complex.

Trustees of the Orange County Museum of Art, created last year through a merger of the Laguna and Newport Harbor Art museums, have discussed the possibility of moving to a larger facility in Costa Mesa or elsewhere. The museum is currently located in the former Newport Harbor’s recently enlarged site in Newport Beach.

Times staff writers Ann Conway and Zan Dubin contributed to this report.

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Profile: Jerry E. Mandel

Age: 57

Hometown: Culver City

Residence: Irvine

Family: Wife, Whitney, a professor of broadcast journalism at Cal State Long Beach; daughter, Jennifer, a freshman at UCI

Education: Bachelor of arts in social science, Cal State Long Beach, 1962; master of arts, communication, 1965; doctorate in organizational communications, Purdue University, 1968

Employment: May, 1995-present: Vice chancellor for university advancement, UC Irvine. Previous jobs include: vice president for university relations and development, Cal State Long Beach; director of corporate relations, College of Business Administration, and professor of speech, San Diego State University; executive vice president, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Arts experience: Former trustee, San Diego Opera; former president, San Diego Arts Festival executive committee; former president, California Council of Fine Arts Deans; former trustee, Las Vegas Symphonic and Chamber Music Society; current member, executive committee, OCPAC Board of Directors

Sources: Orange County Performing Arts Center, Cal State Long Beach

Researched by ZAN DUBIN / Los Angeles Times