Heroes: Orange County residents from lifeguards to nurses gave hope and touched others’ lives in 1989. : IRVINE : 24-Hour Ombudsman Tackles Campus Crises

Long after other campus employees have left for the night, Ron Wilson’s beeper will often drag him back to work at UC Irvine.

Wilson, the university’s ombudsman, is on call 24 hours a day to soothe hurts, solve problems and mediate crises.

Wilson leans forward in his chair and speaks softly as he explains why his beeper is ever-present. It was just after Christmas a few years ago when a student whom Wilson had spent three weeks counseling committed suicide. The student had told his parents and friends he was gay, and they had rejected him. Wilson was on vacation at the time.

“It was right after that that I decided to carry a beeper,” Wilson, 38, said. He also started being more liberal about giving out his home phone number to those he is counseling.

As the trouble-shooter and mediator for the campus, “Ron’s on call essentially 24 hours a day,” said Vice Chancellor William H. Parker. “He’ll be bailing a student out of jail on a Sunday evening, and Monday morning he’ll be dealing with an executive vice chancellor.”

Parker said he is amazed at Wilson’s ability to earn the confidence of all segments of the diverse campus and to resolve their problems.

As ombudsman, Wilson has mediated a variety of crises, ranging from the humorous to the frightening. Once, when a local newspaper erroneously identified him as “Orange County’s ombudsman,” he received phone calls from senior citizens in Laguna Hills’ Leisure World complaining about the tough meat at their local supermarket. Wilson took the time to make a few phone calls to the supermarket’s management and to the meat supplier, which resulted in more tender meat.

On another occasion, a student Wilson had ousted from the university for cheating and spitting at a teacher barged into his office carrying an Uzi assault weapon and accompanied by a friend with a pistol. The student, an Iranian, “told me that because his family had close ties to the Shah, if he was deported, he’d be in trouble,” Wilson said. The student said he had permission from the CIA “to blow away anyone who got in his way,” Wilson added.

Wilson kept the student calm and ordered his outer office cleared. Then he excused himself from the office under the pretense of getting the student’s records to review the matter, which allowed the police to arrest both men without injury.

“You think, ‘Anybody else would be crazy to stay in this job,’ ” Wilson said. But “you can’t let one person who may be a little off-center decide whether or not you stay in something where you think you may make a difference.”