Dobelle names two to his team
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
A day after the release of a highly critical report citing the many problems that face the new head of the University of Hawai'i, President Evan Dobelle announced the first two appointments to his management team: New Yorker Paul B. Costello, vice president for external affairs, and Boston-based J.R.W. "Wick" Sloane, chief financial officer.
It was an immediate indication of how serious Dobelle considers the issues, and how swiftly he's moving to get a new team on board to tackle them.
Paul B. Costello, left, will be vice president for external affairs; J.R.W. "Wick" Sloane will be chief financial officer.
"This will be a leap of faith on their parts," said Dobelle. "They're moving families, some with young children. To me it's a big deal. But my people will become Hawai'i's people."
In choosing Sloane and Costello, Dobelle turns to friends or associates from his work at Trinity College and in the Carter White House.
The two were chosen from a field of a dozen candidates from Hawai'i, the Mainland and Hong Kong. The positions and salaries — $227,000 for CF0 and $184,000 for VP — were authorized by the Board of Regents three months ago. By December Dobelle hopes to begin the search for a Manoa campus chancellor.
Both Costello, 49, and Sloane, 48, already feel connections to Hawai'i. Costello's older sister received her master's degree in social work from UH, and he was always envious of the years she spent in Hawai'i in the 1970s.
"It's always been a piece of my life," said Costello. "So it's ironic that now, 25 or 30 years later, I'm going to be at the university where she was a student. I feel as if I've been a member of the community for a long time."
Another link comes through their 4-year-old daughter, Kira, adopted from China. "She will be living in a culture where she's not as unique as she is in Westchester County, N.Y.," Costello said.
He and his wife, Associated Press journalist Rita Beamish, met in Washington, D.C., at a time when they also met Dobelle. Both Dobelle and Costello were staff members of the Carter White House. Costello was assistant press secretary for the first lady while Beamish covered the State Department and administrations of the senior Bush and Clinton.
Costello leaves his post as managing director of Weber Shandwick International of New York, one of the world's top public relations firms. He headed an office of 225, supervising corporate and financial relations, plus consumer, lifestyle and technology areas.
"Walking into a new situation, one has to take a lot of time to learn what the challenges are, and spend a lot of time listening," said Costello, who has given Dobelle a three-year commitment.
He has a bachelor's degree in communications from Southern Illinois University and a master's degree in social work from the University of Illinois.
Sloane, meanwhile, is so enthusiastic about Hawai'i that he and his 13-year-old son are hoping for surfboards for Christmas. The family arrives in mid-December.
"The hardest thing is giving the students a great education in an uncertain economy," Sloane said. "It's always nice to do things when everything is booming, but we have to make their education better and better with less and less resources."
Sloane is a fierce advocate for education. As soon as his daughter, now 16, started first grade in a Hartford, Conn., suburb serving a fairly large impoverished minority, he ran for the School Board.
"The biggest task was getting people to be accountable for learning. We got a new superintendent, and he brought in new people and made imaginative use of resources. ... The scores went up and stabilized."
Before founding his own Cambridge-based company, K@tapult Inc., Sloane was chief operating officer for North America at Baring Asset Management, a global firm that manages $45 billion for institutional clients. His achievements there include overhauling operating procedures, moving the office from a "weak" to "excellent" audit rating in two years, and instituting risk management tools.
Sloane has an undergraduate degree from Williams College and an MBA from the Yale University School of Management.
"He's one of those people who is constantly thinking about how to get other people talking to each other, to get different parts of the organization aligned," said Gina Solomon, senior vice president of marketing for Baring, in Boston.
Sloane and a group of friends, all back office operations managers in Boston, have begun their own support group, called Hogwarts, after the school of magic in the Harry Potter books.
"We're addicted to intractable operations problems," he said. "We get together and have lunch and help each other out." (One member even charmed "Potter" author J.K. Rowling by calling to get her approval.)
The group has now authorized Sloane to open a Honolulu branch.
His wife, Elizabeth, worked with Dobelle at Trinity College in Hartford as associate vice president for development. She raised money for the public-private partnerships that paid for the Learning Corridor, a massive ghetto redevelopment and revival project spearheaded by Dobelle with support from Trinity.
"She was sitting next to Evan at a dinner, and by the time they got to dessert he said, 'You've got to come and work for me,' " recalled Sloane. She and Dobelle are in preliminary talks about a role she might play in his administration.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the field of study in which Robert Costello's sister earned a master's degree at UH.
