Bringing forth results

The Orange County Performing Arts Center broke ground Feb. 6, among

about 2,000 thrilled spectators, dancing bulldozers and eye-catching

fireworks, on a $200-million expansion that will result in a new

2,000-seat concert hall and 500-seat music theater.

Paul Folino, the chairman and chief executive of Costa Mesa-based

Emulex, now leads The Center’s board, just as he previously did for

South Coast Repertory, to which he also donated $10 million toward

its expansion and outreach programs.

On Thursday, City Editor James Meier visited Folino in his Emulex

office to discuss The Center’s expansion, his interest in the arts

and his company’s relocation to the Home Ranch site later this year.

What sparked your interest in the arts?

Well, it goes way, way back. You know, I’m a World War II baby

boomer, born in 1945, and my early childhood was growing up in

central Seattle. So, in my early years, I grew up in a housing

project in Seattle.

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I was on one of those education

outreach programs where they’re busing kids from the less fortunate

parts of town into downtown Seattle to see live production and that

was my first exposure to live productions of the arts, really. It was

actually my first exposure to kids in other parts of the city, too,

who had different lifestyles than I was growing up under.

So that was my first exposure to it and I’ve always kept an

interest in the arts from that time forth. In high school, I played

baseball, basketball, football and all of that. I actually originally

went to school on a basketball scholarship, so I didn’t spend a lot

of time in the arts in high school. But after I graduated, and in

college, whenever there was an opportunity to see something in

Seattle, I always took advantage of that. So that’s where the

interest really developed.

How long ago did you get involved in South Coast Repertory?

I’ve been on that board about six or seven years. It’s one of

those where I joined and said “I’d love to join. I don’t have a lot

of time. I’ll sit in the background, glad to help it financially.”

You kind of learn about yourself as you go. If I get involved in a

project, it’s hard for me not to go full throttle. So very quickly, I

got more actively involved in it and eventually became president of

the board of trustees there and the head of the campaign to raise the

$50 million to develop that enhanced facility.

What do you think The Center’s expansion will do for Orange County

and Costa Mesa as an arts hub?

Well, again, let’s go back to SCR for a second. Look at SCR. I

think it’s beyond anyone’s expectations. This project I think

reinforced to Orange County what you can do when a group gets

together to make something happen. That was a great experience and

SCR’s now the best center of its kind in the United States for its

particular venue.

When I was approached about joining the Performing Arts Center

board and looked at what they were planning to do, I felt the same

way. There was a great opportunity to create one of the finest

centers of its kind in the United States and as I got involved in

that, I had to link SCR and the Performing Arts Center together as

what a great thing for Orange County. And I approached it from a

business perspective, too.

There are three reasons for me to get involved. One, there’s the

cultural aspect, enhancing the cultural aspect here, which has value

in its own right.

The second one is the education and outreach programs that both

the Performing Arts Center and SCR have. When we complete this

project, we have the ability to touch about 500,000 kids a year

through the education outreach programs through The Center. And then

you throw in another 150,000 through SCR. We have the ability between

these two arts complexes to touch 6 to 7 million kids over a decade.

That’s another reason I got involved in that because I remember the

impact it had on me as a kid and never would have had the opportunity

to do that without the outreach program.

And the third reason I got involved was purely a business reason.

One of the big challenges in Orange County -- we have a great

climate, it’s a great place to live, but it’s also one of the most

expensive places to live in the U.S.

So when you’re a company like Emulex, who’s the worldwide market

share leader in our particular piece of the business, you’re always

trying to recruit the best of the best in the industry to join your

company. And once again, Orange County isn’t the least expensive

place to live. There’s a great climate, but there needs to be other

reasons for people to come. You need two things to help on the

recruiting process over and above just having a great company and a

great market, and that is a strong educational system, which we have,

and you need to have a strong cultural availability because people

want things to do.

So SCR and the Performing Arts Center are extensions of that

cultural center that provides us with tools that help us recruit

people to Orange County. It’s not uncommon for me to take a guest to

SCR or the Performing Arts Center as a guest that I’m trying to

recruit to Orange County. That’s helps. So there’s a business reason

as well.

What plays would you like to see the Center and SCR bring to Costa

Mesa?

Well, they’re totally different kinds of venues. What I like about

SCR is its focus on bringing new plays, world premieres. That’s what

they’re noted for. At any one given time, SCR has anywhere from 40 to

50 commissions out to playwrights to write new works, and their goal

is to bring as many of those as they can, with quality, to South

Coast Repertory and Orange County. And for their efforts in that

area, there are a few Pulitzer Prizes and significant theater awards

under their belts for doing just that.

With the expansion of SCR, one of the great advantages we have and

one of the focuses now is in new play development for young

audiences. And they have playwrights commissioned to develop

brand-new plays for younger audiences. That was one of the reasons

the board was so supportive that through this expansion -- I always

use the words hardware and software, the theater’s the hardware, but

the programming is the software -- that it will give us a chance to

enhance the software content of the hardware and, very shortly, we’ll

be bringing some of those new plays across the finish line. And

that’s what really excites me about what SCR has the opportunity to

do. There’s no doubt in my mind over the next five to 10 years,

there’ll be another few Pulitzer Prizes for some of those new plays.

Segue over to the Performing Arts Center, The Center isn’t

essentially a creator, they’re a presenter. I think the expansion of

The Center offers us the opportunity to not only expand the symphony

and other venues in the new complex, with the Pacific Symphony

Orchestra being the resident symphony, but it enables us to expand

because we’re essentially at capacity now.

And it gives us an opportunity by that relief valve to move the

symphony across the street, enhancing what we do there, and at the

same time, it frees up the Segerstrom Theater to expand what we’re

doing there today -- the expansion of Broadway, dance, opera, etc. It

gives us a chance to continue to bring the best of the best into

Orange County and it also gives us an opportunity in some of those

venues to get first-run productions, which we can’t do right now

because we just don’t have the availability of time slots to enable

us to do that.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could bring first-run Broadway

productions to Orange County for a longer run and wouldn’t it be

great to expand our offerings in opera and dance and grow that side

of the equation as well. And you need both of them to expand the

education outreach program.

You’ve given millions of dollars and countless hours to both South

Coast Rep and The Center. Do you think there will ever come a point

where you’ll say, “Sorry, I’m spent?”

Well, I’m a part of the Orange County community. Orange County’s a

great place to raise a family. I have another three years as a board

member at SCR -- they rotate their board members every nine years --

so I’ll finish off my term there and leave it in very good hands. Tim

Weiss is the current president of that board. He replaced me. He’s a

great guy and a great leader, and they’re even doing better today

than when I was leading that board.

Over at The Center, I’ve signed up for three years. Their board

chairs serve three-year terms, so I’m looking forward to serving my

three-year term. So we’ll see where we go from there.

Are there any other projects you’d want to take on?

Well, I’m very actively involved at Chapman and they have a major

$30-million project expanding their film school and we’ve raised

about $10 million of that. I’m heading up that campaign committee as

well. Our goal over the next few years is to raise the final $20

million of that campaign to create one of the finest film schools in

the United States right here in our own backyard in Orange County, as

well.

What excites me, if you think about SCR, the Performing Arts

Center, Chapman’s film school expansion, the common thread throughout

all of those is to be the very best at what they do individually. So

that excites me. It’s fun being a part of something where you’re

shooting to be the best. And that has rewards of its own when you get

those across the finish line.

What more will Emulex be able to do that it can’t do now with the

move to Home Ranch?

Right now, I’ve been in this facility for just a few months.

Emulex is in four different buildings in this complex spread out all

over the place. So in the last four or five years, we’ve gone from

one location to now four. The goal with the new corporate

headquarters is to get everybody under one roof in a campus

environment. It’s just a more efficient way to run your business. You

know the old conversation of managing while walking around, which is

a common management style, is pretty hard to do the way we’re

structured today.

That project’s moving along. We hope to start moving in late next

fall.

I wanted to stay in the Costa Mesa area. It could have been easier

to move into existing office space someplace else in Orange County,

but I’m pretty committed to staying in Costa Mesa, which are the

roots of the company. They’ve been here for 24 years and I didn’t

want to go through a lot of change trauma for the employees to

commute someplace else. So it was an opportunity to do something very

close to home here and to get the office space we needed. We’ll have

about 240,000 square feet.