UCI’s Mandel on List for Top Art Center Job

Jerry E. Mandel, one of UC Irvine’s top administrative officers, has surfaced as a candidate in the search for a new chief executive of the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Mandel, UCI’s vice chancellor for advancement and its top fund-raiser as well as a member of the arts center’s board, would not confirm or deny Tuesday that he is a candidate. Center Chairman Mark Johnson, who heads the search committee, declined to comment.

Mandel came to UCI in May 1995 from his post as head of development for Cal State Long Beach to breathe new life into UCI’s fund-raising efforts. Eight months later he joined the center’s board of directors and, as vice chairman for education, is part of its executive committee.

The 57-year-old fund-raiser, who lives in Irvine, is credited with increasing philanthropic contributions more than threefold at Cal State Long Beach, where private donations rose from about $6 million to $20 million during his tenure. At UCI, under Mandel’s aegis, contributions have increased from $21.5 million in 1994-95 to $25.6 million, up 19%, for fiscal 1995-96. He’s projecting a 17% increase to $30 million for 1996-97. Mandel’s current salary is $140,700, according to the UC president’s office.

Other candidates for the center job, as reported earlier, are Josiah A. Spaulding, Jr., president of the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in Boston and former chairman of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the state arts agency; and Louis G. Spisto, vice president and executive director of the Pacific Symphony, which is based in Santa Ana. There also is a fourth candidate, still unidentified, from Los Angeles.

The center’s search committee is expected to decide soon which candidate will be offered the job. If negotiations are not prolonged, the center could announce the name of its new top administrator as early as next week.

The center, a privately funded, tax-exempt, nonprofit institution, relies on donations to cover an annual gap of roughly $5 million between earned income and expenditures. And it has a long-term strategic plan to build a second hall, which would cost about $100 million, according to a preliminary study by the center.

Like Mandel, Spaulding has a track record as a powerful fund-raiser in both the public and private sectors. When Spaulding took over the Massachusetts Cultural Council in 1991, the agency’s budget had sunk to $3.5 million. By the time he resigned as its chairman at the end of 1995, the politically well-connected Spaulding had its budget up to $14 million through his assiduous lobbying of state legislators, according to the Boston Herald.

Spaulding also spurred a $10-million capital campaign among private donors to renovate the Wang Center from a huge, crumbling venue into a thriving performing arts complex.

The surfacing of Mandel’s name in the center’s executive search drew surprised reaction in some quarters.

“He’s got the qualities they’d want,” said one arts executive familiar with Mandel’s track record. “But it still would surprise me if he’s the one. He’d probably get a raise, but he has extraordinary benefits at the university.”

A UCI administrative staffer, who asked not to be named, said: “He just came, and everybody had such high hopes for him. Everybody is shocked that he could be leaving so quickly.”