By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Staff Writer
He’s a handshaker. The guy who can work a room, convince a city to pass a sales tax or talk community leaders into pumping money into a neighborhood patrolled by prostitutes and gang members.
Those who know Evan Dobelle describe him as an unconventional problem solver and a mix of politician, visionary and cheerleader.
"He has a touch," said Trinity College trustee Benjamin Foster. "He knows how to walk with kings and not lose the common touch. He knows where the money is and how to get the money, but he can walk with the people in the neighborhood and not be out of place. He’s very genuine."
Despite having four college degrees, Dobelle talks about attending night classes at age 38 to earn his diplomas from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
"If they thought Hawai‘i needed a scholar, they wouldn’t have picked me," Dobelle said. "I am someone who can make things happen. I am an academic, but I am not a scholar. I am a practitioner."
In Hawai‘i, people hope Dobelle, the Trinity College president who yesterday was named as incoming president of the University of Hawai‘i system, will work the same kind of magic that he has elsewhere.
"He’s got to be a miracle worker," said DeWolfe Miller, epidemiologist in the John A. Burns School of Medicine. "We are hanging so many hopes on him. The guy has got to reverse the whole cycle of the university destroying the university."
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| Dobelle sits at a news conference at UH-Manoa yesterday with wife Kit and son Harry, 13.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Dobelle said he accepted the Hawai‘i position because he relishes a challenge.
"The University of Hawai‘i faces a moment of great and important challenges," he said. "I wouldn’t have it any other way."
Dobelle, the son of a high school principal and a doctor whose mostly blue-collar patients often couldn’t afford to pay, said his upbringing gave him a respect for all people.
"I was taught to treat everyone the same," he said. "I’m just comfortable with people. I don’t define the worth of people by what they do. I look at the person."
On vacations, his parents took him to Indian reservations, showed him the poverty of the South and in 1958, brought him to Hawai‘i and visited ‘Iolani Place, where he said he remembers learning about the overthrow of the Hawai‘ian Kingdom.
Later, Dobelle would march with Martin Luther King Jr. and embark on a political career. From 1973 to 1977, while in his 20s, he served two two-year terms as the Republican mayor of Pittsfield, Mass. Dobelle later was the treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and briefly chaired the Carter-Mondale campaign in 1980. He also served as the U.S. chief of protocol for the White House under President Carter.
His wife said he’s a champion of underdog causes. And Dobelle said he likes to go where he’s needed. "I have no fear of failure," he said.
Appropriately, he met his wife, Kit, during a political campaign. Both were working on the special election of a state representative in Massachusetts.
"I was addressing envelopes," Kit Dobelle said. "That was actually the first campaign I had ever been involved in. I’ve been licking envelopes ever since."
Kit Dobelle was also the U.S. chief of protocol for two years during the Carter administration and served as chief of staff to First Lady Rosalyn Carter. She was San Francisco’s deputy chief of protocol and was appointed by President Clinton to the Commission on Presidential Scholars.
"Kit had no detractors, unlike Evan who had his," said Rodel Rodis, acting president of the board of trustees at City College of San Francisco. "Everyone loved Kit."
At City College of San Francisco, Dobelle was hired to streamline the bureaucracy and curriculum. He faced budget cuts from the state, helped the school when its accreditation was threatened and convinced the community to pass a sales tax to help financially support the college.
Dobelle also has a reputation for doing things differently. At City College of San Francisco, Dobelle shocked the city when he moved his office off the main campus and into a poor neighborhood. At Trinity College, he brought a mix of public and private groups together to restore the blighted neighborhood around the college campus.
Kit Dobelle said, "He’s always happiest when he has a new challenge."
Dobelle is a public policy professor and taught classes in his field every semester at Trinity. He holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in education and public policy from the University of Massachusetts and a master’s in public administration from Harvard University.
The Dobelles have been married 30 years and have a son, Harry, 13, an eighth-grader, who is spending his spring break with his parents in Hawai‘i.
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