EIGHT NOMINATED TO CENTER’S BOARD

Thomas R. Kendrick, executive director of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and Martha Fluor, community service activist and wife of Robert J. Flour II, are among eight Orange County residents nominated to the Center’s Board of Directors in preparation for its membership’s annual meeting April 20.

A nomination to the board, which oversees policy for the nonprofit corporation operating the Center, has always led to election, said nominating committee chairman Hugh M. Saddington. Five incumbents are also being nominated to remain on the current 33-member board.

Among those departing the board are Norma Hertzog, former mayor of Costa Mesa; Raymond L. Watson, former president of the Irvine Co. and former chairman of Walt Disney Productions, and John Rau, a Costa Mesa businessman and former president of the Center board.

Other new nominees to the board are Anthony Allen, a partner in Citation Builders; H. David Bright, president and chief executive officer of National Education Corp.; Robert Engman, president of Opto 22, an electronics company; Donald P. Evarts, president of ITT Barton Instruments Division; Donn Hall, the new Costa Mesa mayor who replaces Hertzog, and John Pipia, vice president and regional manager for Citicorp Real Estate Inc.

The number of the three-year terms board members serve is limited only by the discretion of the nominating committee, said Saddington. He declined to comment on whether some departing members had resigned or been asked to leave.

Hertzog’s term was to have lasted until 1989; however, she held the Center board membership because of her position as mayor, a post in which she has been replaced by Hall.

Other members stepping down are Bernice K. Hird, manager of community relations for Beatrice/Hunt-Wesson in Fullerton, and Kenneth N. Heintz, a partner in the Costa Mesa office of Deloitte Haskins & Sells, an accounting firm.

Heintz, Rau and Watson could not be reached for comment regarding their reasons for leaving the board. Said Hird: “I’ve been on that board for six years, and I didn’t want to be reelected. I’ve enjoyed it but I felt that six years was plenty.”

Saddington said that after the upcoming changes the board will have 33 members, two short of the 35-member limit set by the Center’s bylaws. The board, which has existed in various forms since 1972, always leaves a few positions open for flexibility.

“We do have a policy of the board to keep new talent coming on,” said Timothy L. Strader, board president and chief executive officer of the Center. “The nominating committee looks at the situation, and they’re given free rein to do whatever they think is right.

“We’re looking for a cross section of the community and, quite frankly, at this particular time we are looking for people who are willing to be involved in fund raising. It’s that old saying about give, get or get off. We are all very aware about the requirements we have with the $4.5-million-a-year deficit that the Center faces.”

Kendrick’s nomination essentially makes him part of the board that employs him. A former head of operations at Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, he came to the Center in the summer of 1985.

Said Saddington: “That is very common in corporate America--which is where many people who run the Center have their backgrounds--that a chief operating officer is a member of the board. We all feel very comfortable with that.”

Four incumbents are being renominated along with Saddington: Carl Mitchell, partner in the law firm of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker; R. David Threshie, publisher and chief executive officer of the Orange County Register; Marcy Mulville, a longtime center supporter, and Florence Schumacher, who is widely involved in social and arts organizations in the county.

The April 20 meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Center’s Founders Hall. Members will hear a status report on the Center’s operations, the first such annual report since the Center opened in September. The Center organization consists of 5,000 “members,” who become eligible to vote by donating $25 or more.