Leader pushed art center to forefront

Deepa Bharath

Mr. Thomas R. Kendrick, first salaried president and chief operations

officer of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, died on Thursday

in his Corona del Mar home. He was 70.

Mr. Kendrick was first hired by the center in 1985. He retired in

1993. Mr. Kendrick was involved in getting the center’s new cultural

complex on its feet, including planning, hiring employees,

fundraising and marketing.

Mr. Kendrick will be remembered “as a key individual responsible

for establishing the center as one of the foremost arts organizations

in the country,” said center President Jerry E. Mandel, in a news

release on Friday.

“When you consider the mission and goals that were placed in his

charge and the remarkable immediacy of the center’s growth and

success, you realize how strong and creative his mind was,” Mandel

said. “Tom took the vision and dreams of our founders and made them

come true with extraordinary success.”

Mr. Kendrick was born in Portland, Maine, on Aug. 4, 1933. He

received his bachelor’s degree in English with honors in 1955 from

Amherst College and a master’s degree in international communications

from Indiana University’s Ernie Pyle School of Journalism in 1959. He

served in the U.S. Air Force from 1956 to 1959.

Mr. Kendrick worked for the Washington Post from 1959 to 1977,

holding a variety of editing positions. Before joining the Performing

Arts Center, he was director of operations at the Kennedy Center for

the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., for nine years.

Kendrick is survived by two children, his daughter Tracy and son

Ryland. Details about services were not available on Friday.