Dobelle fills brain trust with familiar faces

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer

The ambitious efforts of University of Hawai'i president Evan Dobelle to overhaul the school's management are increasingly tapping the talent of outside consultants and new employees from the Mainland that Dobelle worked with before.

Since he was hired last year, Dobelle has steered seven consultant deals worth a total of nearly $500,000 to people and firms he knew from his days heading Trinity College in Connecticut and City College of San Francisco.

The agreements include:

• A three-year contract for $338,000 with Gilbane Building Company to coordinate the management of UH construction projects. The Massachusetts firm oversaw a $110 million neighborhood redevelopment project led by Trinity under Dobelle, and handled other construction projects at the school.
• Three contracts worth $123,800 with SOS Consulting and its principal, Linda Campanella, for reviews and analyses of key UH operations. Campanella was Dobelle's senior vice president at Trinity.
• A $17,300 consulting fee for Peter Goldstein to assist Campanella. Goldstein was chief financial officer of City College under Dobelle, and is the school's vice chancellor of finance and administration.
• A $10,000 service fee for Elizabeth Sloane to review and recommend development plans for the University of Hawai'i Foundation, a nonprofit fund-raising group that Sloane was later chosen to head. Sloane worked with Dobelle as Trinity's chief investment banker. The UH Foundation will reimburse the university for Sloane's service fee, officials said.
• A $5,000 contract with City College's athletic director, George Rush, to study the feasibility of creating an intercollegiate athletic program for UH's community college system.

UH officials hired by Dobelle include Sloane's husband, J.R.W. "Wick" Sloane, the school's chief financial officer, whom Dobelle has known for decades. Sloane is a Yale School of Management graduate and former chief operating officer of a major Boston investment firm and makes $227,000 a year.

Other hires are new UH vice president for external affairs Paul Costello, whom Dobelle worked with 20 years ago in the Carter White House, where Dobelle was U.S. chief of protocol and Costello was first lady Rosalynn Carter's assistant press secretary; and Dobelle's executive assistant Prescott Stewart, who was Trinity's head of alumni affairs. Costello makes $184,000 a year and Stewart makes $105,000 a year.

Dobelle said he has worked hard to bring top-notch people and firms he could trust to UH, and has not overlooked Hawai'i-based applicants. He stressed that Sloane and Costello are the only ones on his 14-member senior staff who came from outside the university.

"I'm just trying to get people near me who I have confidence in," Dobelle said. "It was not easy to get people to come to Hawai'i. But it's important to understand that I have not disregarded people from Hawai'i."

UH President Evan Dobelle is confident in his consultants. Advertiser library photo

The positions that Sloane and Costello have held since November were newly created by Dobelle during his reorganization of the university's management. He said top Hawai'i-based candidates for the jobs were making more money elsewhere and couldn't be swayed.

The UH Board of Regents, which hired Dobelle in March 2001 after a nationwide search, has shown strong confidence in Dobelle and delegated more authority to him for hiring and contracting decisions.

The regents agreed in October to give Dobelle the power to hire many top employees and increase their salaries above scale without board approval, and establish new employee classes, waive minimum qualifications and change conditions for tenure.

And in January, the regents raised the threshold for consultant contracts that require their approval, from $25,000 to $100,000, meaning contracts below that amount will no longer require a board vote at a public meeting.

Dobelle said he was hired to be an agent of sweeping change at UH, and needs the freedom to make important decisions and hire key people to assist him.

"That gives me a confidence level I can extend to the regents and the community" he said. "I think (the regents) have confidence in me as a CEO, and they're holding me responsible to make sure things work right."

Ah Quon McElrath, one of the board's most outspoken members, noted that the regents have been criticized in the past for micromanaging the university. Giving the president more authority to make decisions is a step in the other direction, but does not mean the regents aren't keeping their eyes open, she said.

No one has alleged that Dobelle violated any rules or laws by bringing in Mainland associates, but doing so makes a certain amount of criticism inevitable, McElrath said.

"The other side of the coin is that these people bring in fresh ideas," she said. "If they can convince people that they are doing it with equality and justice and delivering on their promises, that's what people are looking at."

Rep. Roy Takumi, chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, said he had no problem with Dobelle hiring firms he had worked with on the Mainland — as long as they do a good job here.

"I think the proof is in the pudding. It's in the product," said Takumi, D-26th (Pearl City, Waipahu). "I guess it's really no different than hiring a brother-in-law to remodel your house. As long as you're happy with the product, it's fine."

UH plans to spend an unprecedented $247 million on construction projects statewide during the next year, and the Gilbane company was hired to map out ways to manage them with a strategic approach.

The university's history of construction delays and cost overruns made it clear that new talent and a new system were needed for important new projects, such as the new medical center that UH is building at Kaka'ako, Dobelle said.

Gilbane oversaw the Learning Corridor project in Hartford, Conn., a major public-private partnership with Trinity that included the construction of new elementary, middle and high schools beside the college. The firm also produced a master plan for Trinity and built a new student residence hall and admissions center.

Dobelle said Gilbane's solid performance, especially with the Learning Corridor, earned the firm high marks with him.

"It was a complicated project with big numbers, and very political," he said. "It was on time and on budget. There are numerous horror stories about capital projects at UH, and I didn't have confidence to be responsible for a system I didn't think works."

Dobelle said it was also important to have a proven leader and confidant at the helm of the UH Foundation, which is working to raise money for the medical center project. The foundation is structured differently than at other schools he has worked at, where the president directly controlled such organizations, Dobelle said.

Reach Johnny Brannon at 525-8070 or jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com.