UCI’s 1st employee dies at 94

People remember Lavonne Edwin Cox as precise, meticulous and strict. He was an overseer, making sure everything got done efficiently.

“He was one that dots every ‘i’ and has every comma in its right place,” said Jean Aldrich, widow of Dan Aldrich, the first chancellor of UCI.

Cox was the first employee at UCI. When former president of the University of California system Clark Kerr commissioned a new university to be built in Irvine, he hired Cox to oversee the $30-million campus construction. Cox worked with Dan Aldrich for many years, including some of the hardest in the four years before the university opened in 1965.

Cox died Tuesday from complications related to a fall. He was 94.

“I know they had a very close relationship and remained friends throughout the time he was here,” Jean Aldrich said. “He was a fine man. He was very faithful to his work.”

Cox, known to many as L. E. Cox, was an army engineer and the first vice chancellor of business and finance at UCI.

He arrived at UCI’s future home in 1961 and made camp at the Irvine Ranch House, which was near the Irvine Co.’s agricultural headquarters. There he often met and ate with former Irvine Co. executives such as Raymond Watson.

“They needed someone like Cox in the early years,” Watson said. “Everyone is excited, but there is a practical process and he was the one that could do that.”

Watson would often meet with Aldrich and Cox while working on the university’s construction. There was a dining room at the Irvine Co., and many movers and shakers would eat dinner there. A clothesline strung around the table held a napkin at each seat with a name written on it. One read Watson, another read Aldrich and Cox, some had names like Richard Nixon written on them, Watson said.

But to Watson, Cox was just as much a celebrity as the big names.

“I felt like the Irvine Co. was what I represented, and he represented UCI, but we both had one thing in common, and that was to build a first-class university,” Watson said. “I think we accomplished that. He accomplished that.”

Cox, a Tustin resident, oversaw building, landscaping and other facilities projects at UCI until he retired in 1978.

He is survived by his wife, Edna, sons Allan and Stephen, and four grandchildren.

A memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. Friday at Saddleback Chapel in Tustin.

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at daniel.tedford@latimes.com.