New College Chief Knows How to Conduct Himself : Education: Philip Westin, who becomes president of Golden West this week, says his classical music training will prove useful when it comes to managing the campus.

Music is wonderfully complicated, and so is the management of a community college, says Philip Westin.

And Westin, 48, enjoys both: being a music conductor and the president-designate of Golden West College here.

“There are many parallels between being a conductor and being a college president,” he said. “For instance, if you have a good soloist, you get out of the way, much the same as you do with a gifted faculty member.”

Trustees of the college unanimously elected Westin earlier this month to succeed President Judith Valles, who is retiring. Westin, currently the college’s vice president of instruction, takes over as president of the 15,000-student community college Thursday.

Much of Westin’s academic background is in classical music, as a composer and a conductor. Music is good training for college management, he said, because it involves rules and free-spirited creativity.

A good conductor, like a good administrator, also needs a thorough understanding of what he is leading, Westin said.

“You can’t really conduct without knowing the structure of a piece; you need to know not just what it is, but why ,” he said.

Westin came to Golden West College two years ago as its vice president of instruction. Prior to that he had served as dean of fine arts at El Camino College in Torrance. He has been a professor of music at Cerritos College and a music conductor in Norwalk and Torrance. Westin earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music composition from USC, and he received his doctorate in educational management from the University of La Verne.

Westin will become the fifth president of Golden West in the college’s 27-year history. Faculty members privately have said that he has a tough act to follow; Valles, the first woman ever to head the college, has been popular both on campus and in the community.

But Westin is a good choice to follow the energetic, gregarious Valles, according to the college district trustees and those who deal with him.

Sharon Salmans, executive vice president of the union that represents all the non-teaching staff, said Westin is friendly, open-minded and fair.

“He always has an open-door policy,” she said. “He always looks at all sides before making a decision.”

Gary Stratton, president of the college’s Academic Senate, said of Westin: “I’ve found that in meetings, he’s very skilled at keeping people on task and orchestrating the group. He’s also very skilled with numbers; one of his hobbies is computers. And I think his skill with numbers and budgets is going to be particularly valuable with all the fiscal hardships we have ahead of us.”

Stratton said that Westin “has a quick wit and a very good sense of humor--he tries to bring in fun, whenever fun is possible.”

Westin said he likes being with people. And he says his early youth, which involved many moves and 17 schools before high-school graduation, gave him skills in adapting.

“I was born in Providence, R.I., but I lived in many places on the East Coast and in the Midwest before my family moved to California,” he said. “My father was a Presbyterian minister. At one time, my father thought I also would be a minister, but my love was always music.”

Westin said that in addition to music and computers, his hobbies include taking long walks and hikes.

“My wife, Ellisha, and I like to go to the beach and the mountains and take long walks.” He said they also enjoy visits with their grown daughters.

“This is the second marriage for both of us, and we have a total of four daughters,” he said. “She had two daughters by a previous marriage, and I had two daughters.”

Westin acknowledged that he comes into the presidency under grim economic conditions. Funding for community colleges is threadbare because of state budget woes. But he said that he nonetheless looks confidently to the future.

“We didn’t make the problems, but our job is going to be to solve them,” he said.

Westin added that he hopes also to find time to continue doing a little music conducting.

“Our college is going to do ‘West Side Story’ next year, and I’d really like to do part of the conducting for that,” he said. With a smile, he added, “One of the things I don’t want to do is to lose my (music) discipline.”