John Miltner : UCI Shows It Means Business : Official Able to Lower the Drawbridge, Raise the Funds

When John Miltner came to UC Irvine in 1983, he lowered the “drawbridges” surrounding the campus--and the money has been rolling in ever since.

Miltner, 42, brought to UCI the fund-raising skills he had acquired as executive director for development and communications for the Boy Scouts of America and assistant vice president and director of development for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

As the university’s first vice chancellor of advancement, he invited local business executives on campus and sparked their interest in various academic programs. That interest in turn has spawned generous gifts in support of the university.

Under Miltner, annual private donations to the university have soared from $3.8 million in 1983 to $24.7 million last year and this year are estimated to surpass $30 million.

Miltner said in a recent interview with Times staff writer Leslie Berkman that the university is taking new steps, including the hiring of a vice chancellor of research and establishment of an office of technology transfer, to promote more alliances between the university and industry.

It is hoped that such alliances will bring more money to the university, create a productive interaction between university and industrial scientists and make the university a more valuable community resource.

Q. What were you hired to do?

A. I think they were primarily looking for a fund-raiser. But they also wanted someone who could improve community relations. In 1982 (former UCI Chancellor Daniel) Aldrich commissioned a study that said the community was generally supportive of the campus but didn’t know much about it. They described the university as a castle with a moat that was unapproachable. The drawbridges were up.

The first thing (the university administration) wanted me to do was to launch a capital fund-raising campaign like I had done at Sloane-Kettering and the Boy Scouts. The money was obviously out there. It was a rich community, and we were a great university. So they felt they just needed someone to go out there and ask.

Q. What was your strategy?

A. I decided that it (a capital fund-raiser) was not the first thing we would do. I went around to meet people in the community and listen and I heard an earful. I heard that the people thought the university was remote and that we are not interested in the kind of industry there is in Orange County and that our research is esoteric. They felt that the university could be more of an asset than it was. They wanted to know how to get access to it and get the attention of the faculty.

Q. So how did you respond?

A. We came back here and looked at how we presented ourselves. Our fist priority was to become more pro-active in the way we communicated the university to the public. Our public relations office started to think about what kind of research we do that is germane, that people will understand. Our in-house publications became award winners, and our public relations people got press club awards.

Q. What did you do to improve your relationship with local business specifically?

A We brought business people on campus. They found we were a lot more open and interested in them than they had ever thought. And the people on campus learned that business people were not trying to make us into a UC Tech. I don’t think the industry in Orange County wants us to be a provider of all the engineers, plumbers and pipe fitters, so to speak. They understand what a research university is.

Q. Are you saying that there was fear on campus that greater involvement with local business could turn the campus into a vocational school?

A. I think research universities in general are concerned about that. It is what makes us different from Cal State Fullerton. Not that Cal State Fullerton doesn’t do great things. But we are not providing Ernst and Whinney with their accountants. Instead we may supply the people who design the new computer software for doing accounting.

Q. What methods did you use to promote participation of business people on campus?

A We took an existing organization called Business and Industry Associates and decided to segment it so members could relate specifically to the School of Engineering or Graduate School of Management or the program in Social Ecology.

We also formed a Chief Executives Round Table at Chancellor Jack Peltason’s urging. He wanted to see a more structured environment where chief executives of companies came in. The Business and Industry Associates tended to be the vice presidents.

Q. What do these business people learn about the campus?

A They learn that there are a lot of exciting things here and we are not opposed to applied research. We show them around. We show them an engineering project or a computer program and then we have a distinguished faculty member describe some of the things that are happening here. We let them feel like insiders, like part of the family. The faculty club opened just as I arrived, and we started to have activity after activity there.

Q. Did these efforts have any payoff in fund raising?

A From the very beginning we raised more money, initially just because we started asking. We went from $3.8 million the year I arrived and we finished last year at $24.7 million. Our half year report this year (the fiscal year ending June 30) is over $20 million and we expect to go over our goal of $30 million by the end of the year.

Q. What categories of fund raising have shown gains?

A Each category is dramatically improved. Alumni giving is up significantly. We now solicit every alum because we do it through telemarketing. We never did that before. And before we didn’t give alumni donors any options in how they gave. They were asked to write a single check. Now we let them pay monthly or by credit card. We try to be innovative. Corporate giving is also up.

Q. What are some examples of corporations who have made major contributions to the campus?

A Allergan historically has been a major supporter of ophthalmology. They have been the cornerstone of complementary funding to develop our ophthalmology program. Right now Allergan is saying that if a particular person (reported to be Dr. Steven Podos at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York) accepts an appointment here, the company will make a major commitment to an eye institute.

Western Digital put $250,000 in the Graduate School of Management building for executive education. The company is very supportive of our executive MBA, but they are also very interested in our engineering school. They hire our graduates, and they have done contract research with us. Western Digital Chairman Roger Johnson is going to be the new chairman of the UCI Foundation, the university’s fund-raising arm.

And Rockwell gave $500,000 toward building the new $4-million School of Engineering complex.

Q. Has Donald Bren, chairman and principle owner of the Irvine Co., played a role in improving UCI’s relationship with the business community?

A. I think Donald Bren made the biggest leap of faith of anyone. In 1984 he made a $1.5-million grant for the Bren Center (an auditorium) when consultants that the university hired said the money to build the center could not be raised. The university went ahead in spite of the advice, and Bren stepped forward with the $1.5 million. I think he saw the opportunity to make a statement that UCI is an important place and you should make an investment in it, Mr. Community. It was primarily the development community that made construction of the center possible.

Q. Is Bren still actively involved with the university?

A Yes. He just endowed the first Bren fellow at $1.5 million. That is the largest endowment of a faculty chair. He also gave us the seed money to start our executive MBA. We had talked about doing an executive MBA for years, and the answer always came back that there were no start-up funds to hire a program director to develop the curriculum. Bren asked how much and they gave him an answer and he gave the gift. Now we have a very credible executive MBA. It is getting very good marks.

Q. What are the university’s weaknesses?

A. Our professional schools were developed late. They are quite small. And the professional schools tend to be areas which have a lot of public interest.

We are trying to get people to invest with us so we can bring additional faculty talent here to complement these rather small schools. For example, our short-term commitment is to double the size of the Graduate School of Management in 5 years. To do that we got a chair donated by FHP (a Fountain Valley-based health management company) and to fill it we got Paul Feldstein, a specialist in health economics, from the University of Michigan to come here and do a program in health-care management. The school also wants to do programs in real estate and entrepreneurship.

Q. What will the professional schools provide to the business community?

A The schools will study particular issues and provide reports that local businesses can use rather than going to an institution in another part of the country for information. It is similar to this community deciding it didn’t want to go to Los Angeles for fine arts and building a performing arts center. I think this community has said it wants a great university and now it is trying to decide how to invest in that.

Q. What share of donations is received by the UCI College of Medicine?

A The medical school gets 40% of the funds that the university raises. Everybody’s life has been touched by cancer or heart disease or AIDS or Alzheimer’s or some form of health crisis and we have people doing research in all those areas.

Q. Do you think UCI will expand, perhaps adding more professional schools?

A. Yes. I think this will be a broader, more comprehensive university, not by my wishes but by the wishes of the faculty and the people who are here.

Q. Will that depend on money from the state or the community?

A Both. There needs to be complementary resources from the community. But there needs to be basic resources from the state.

Q. Is there a commitment from the state to develop UCI into a larger and greater university?

A. I think so. There has always been solid support for Irvine to be a 25,000- to 30,000-student campus. Now we have about 15,500 students.

Q. Enrollment growth does not necessarily translate into an improvement in quality, though.

A That’s correct. That is why you don’t see us precipitously starting new programs without having the resources in place. We are seeing that the state will support things that fit into the California economy and will enhance the state. When you talk about programs in real estate or entrepreneurship, it is quite clear those all fit in California and the community will support them and so far the signs are that the state will support them.

Q. What is UCI’s ranking among research universities?

A Depending on the criteria used, we have been between 65 and 49. We are pushing on the top 50. One reason we have to get in gear is that we stand the risk of slipping because the national funding organizations increasingly are choosing to make large so-called “core grants” to fewer universities and the competition is fierce. We have to retool how we approach these things.

Q. What are you doing to win more research grants?

A We are trying to recruit better faculty. Five years ago we had no endowed chairs. Now we have 15. That’s an attraction. Then there is our construction program. We have over $300 million in construction under way as we speak.

(Also) we have decided to hire a vice chancellor of research who will give energy and focus to that effort. We are looking for someone with access to Washington; someone to look at new funding mechanisms like the core grants and new collaborative programs with other universities. Most of our research now is done by individual faculty members rather than by large groups of scientists. But the big federal research dollars are earmarked for large multidisciplinary research centers.

Q. What is the university’s plan for its research park?

A We have identified certain acreage on campus . . . to develop approximately 2 million square feet of commercial, R&D; and other nonacademic buildings. The first land to be developed will be bordering Jamboree Boulevard. We would like to have some project under way there in 1989.

Q. What kinds of businesses do you want in the park?

A We want to convince major industries to put their R&D;, their most innovative projects here. We want firms that will do contract research with the university, give graduate students part-time employment, have all sorts of synergistic relationships with the campus.

Q. Do you want big-name companies in the park?

A. We would like some to give the park credibility. There are some companies who are noted for their research and development work. It has been reported that we have had discussions with Rockwell in particular and those continue. Rockwell has a strong interest in expanding the relationship of their Newport Beach semiconductor business with the campus.

Q. Has the patent agreement signed last August with Nelson Research & Development Co. helped to promote joint research projects between the university and that pharmaceutical company?

A. Oh yes. And it is a good basis for relationships with other companies. We are working on setting up a technology transfer office within the office of the vice chancellor of research. The office would help private companies interact with the university in such ways as locating in the research park or arranging joint research ventures or for the university to do product testing. We do those things now. But we do it in a fairly painful, tortuous way. We would like to establish one-stop shopping.

I would envision that down the road the technology transfer office would have a full-time patent lawyer and access to the real estate group managing the university ground leases.

Q. What is your goal for the university?

A. For the moment it is to satisfy ourselves that we are constantly improving, to show that we are continuing to attract top quality students, be competitive for the National Merit Scholars, be able to get our first-choice graduate students. Those are very tangible measurements.

It is kind of ridiculous to say we will be UCLA in 5 or 10 years. There are too many variables and you can make a fool of yourself. But you can say you are going to be better next year than last.