Human Approach at the Top : Golden West’s Acting Chief Warms to Task

An Orange County resident recently wrote to officials of Golden West College to praise the beauty of the campus’s trees, grass and gardens.

“It was a very nice thing, and I at first thought I’d send a memo to the gardeners letting them know how much their work is appreciated,” said Fred Garcia, the college’s acting president.

“But I remembered how things can get lost in interpretation in a memo, so I decided to have the gardeners over for coffee in my office. That way, I got to tell them in person.”

Wanted to Thank Them

Garcia briefly recounted the anecdote on Tuesday in response to a visitor’s comment on the beauty of the college grounds.

Asked if the reception for the gardeners reveals something about his approach to managing people, Garcia, obviously embarrassed, said he “just wanted to thank them for the work they do.”

A soft-spoken, self-effacing man, Garcia, 55, took over the reins of the Huntington Beach community college on July 1. Garcia, former dean of admissions and records at Golden West, will be its acting chief executive for the next year.

Search for New Chief

A committee will seek candidates for a permanent president, and Garcia’s appointment allows him to apply. In an interview Tuesday, Garcia said he hasn’t decided whether he will be a candidate, adding:

“I didn’t seek to be the president, but I’m honored.”

Garcia was appointed to fill the vacancy created when former Golden West President Lee Stevens took an administrative post with the college district’s headquarters.

Garcia’s new status makes him a very prominent Hispanic-American educator in Orange County. In the interview, he acknowledged that his college president’s position can, indeed, be considered a role model for Orange County’s growing population of Latinos. “It’s just that I’ve never considered myself a role model,” he said.

A reason, perhaps, is that Garcia grew up in south Texas, where persons of Hispanic background were in the majority and had been pioneers of the land they settled. “My family has held land in our area of Texas since 1767,” long before statehood, Garcia said.

Garcia, like most multi-generational Texans, describes his native state with great pride. He frequently referred to the vast, sweeping ranch areas of southern Texas where he grew up and where his family was prominent.

“I think it’s important to have a sense of your culture, such as where you and your family grew up,” he said. “I was born in Hebbronville. It’s not far from the King Ranch, which is a very big place.”

Garcia said he liked to ride horses, and that in his early youth, he thought his vocation would be to take over the family ranch. His father, however, stressed higher education, and Fred Garcia went off to Texas A & I College in Kingsville.

Stressed Literature

“My father was an accountant, and my grandfather was a lawyer,” Garcia said. “My father was a great influence on my life because he always stressed the value of books and poetry.”

The Korean War in 1950 interrupted Garcia’s education. He enlisted in the Air Force and was trained as an air policeman--the Air Force’s version of the MP. He ultimately was sent to England, where he met his wife, Janice, a native of London.

Shortly before his discharge in 1954, Garcia was transferred to Edwards Air Force Base in California. He decided to stay, resuming his education, first at Long Beach City College, a community college, and then at Cal State Long Beach, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s in social science.

Garcia’s first teaching job was in 1958 at Rancho Alamitos High School, where he stayed until 1963. He then became a counselor at Fullerton High School, and in 1965 joined Coast Community College District, serving one year as a counselor and the subsequent 19 years in administrative roles.

Also along the line, Garcia was elected to the Garden Grove Unified School District board, a position in which he served from 1970 to 1978. Serving on a school board, he said, gave him an added insight into school administration. Pointing out that Garden Grove has a large Latino population, Garcia said: “While I was on the school board, we stressed efforts to get Hispanic children moving into higher education.”

The Garcias still make their home in Garden Grove. They have a grown son and daughter and two grandchildren.

Asked if he has any immediate plans for the 16,000-student community college, Garcia said: “I’d like to work with business and industries in Orange County to provide vocational training here for jobs they have.” He stressed that his interest in expanding vocational education would not be at the expense of, or diminish, Golden West’s college-transfer program for students seeking a four-year degree.

“We just want to help fill the need for training for skills that our Orange County industries need,” he said.

Garcia said he is enjoying his new job, even though it is quite a bit different from his role as admissions dean. “In that job,” he said, “there were definite parameters of what was supposed to go to the dean.” He smiled and added: “But in the president’s job, I find that everything that doesn’t fit is referred to this office.”

In his low-key way, Garcia made it clear that no problems have surfaced that he hasn’t been able to solve. And he indicated that he likes being with the people who make the college tick--right down to the gardeners, his guests for coffee.

“The people here at Golden West are very helpful and very friendly,” Garcia observed.