Arco’s Chairman Cook Expected to Take Over RLA : Rebuilding: Corporate leader would be volunteer while entrepreneur Griego would be paid CEO.

Attracting a corporate heavyweight and a well-known businesswoman to fill its leadership vacuum, RLA is expected to name Arco head Lodwrick M. Cook as volunteer chairman and entrepreneur Linda Griego as chief executive officer to run daily operations of the private group created after the 1992 riots, sources said Wednesday.

RLA’s Executive Committee officially selected the new leaders, officials told The Times, but they must be approved by the full 96-member board of directors, which will meet Tuesday.

The surprise appointments, if approved, are expected to bring new life to the struggling organization, which was created to reinvigorate the inner city and has since become a lightning rod for controversy.

Criticized for having an unwieldy management structure, RLA has been seeking to streamline its leadership by replacing the four co-chairs who had led the group with a single volunteer chief.

The selection of Cook came as a surprise to many because Mayor Richard Riordan has said that Cook, who has the kind of extensive corporate contacts that RLA desired, did not want the job because of too many other commitments.

Arco spokesman Albert Greenstein said Cook intends to remain as Arco’s full-time chairman and chief executive officer through June, 1995. But Greenstein said Cook “realizes that (the RLA post) is an important commitment.”

The dual leadership, in which Cook will volunteer as the RLA chairman and Griego will be the paid chief executive officer, appeared to be a compromise that would lighten Cook’s workload. Both new leaders will report to the 13-member Executive Committee and the existing board of directors.

Officially, RLA would not confirm the names of the new leaders until Tuesday. “Until the board of directors approves of a candidate, reports identifying anyone are speculative,” RLA spokeswoman Val Bunting said.

But privately, RLA officials said they did not have to look far for their new leadership. Cook and Griego are members of the RLA executive committee and were part of the selection process.

Neither Cook nor Griego would comment on their selection as nominees but others said they agreed to take the job as a team, intending to shake up the organization from top to bottom. They were selected, sources said, for their broad experience in the city’s business and civic worlds.

Cook, 65, whose company has already contributed heavily to the post-riot rebuilding, is known as an innovator in the energy industry and since 1985 has guided Arco through a restructuring.

He is also respected for his community involvement. For example, Cook raised more than $10 million as chairman of the L.A. city library’s Save the Books Campaign, formed after fire destroyed the Central Library.

Griego, 46, is a popular restaurateur who served as Mayor Tom Bradley’s top economic development deputy. She knows the City Hall bureaucracy and is expected to serve as a contact between RLA and local government.

Griego surprised many political observers by finishing fifth among more than 20 candidates in last year’s mayor’s primary, despite having little money and low initial name recognition. Since then, she has kept one foot in government, working part time for U.S. Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown.

Word of the selections began leaking out to city officials and community leaders this week and the initial reaction was positive.

“Just what the doctor ordered for RLA,” said John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League. “Two excellent choices.”

“I think Lod Cook is in many ways the prototype corporate executive, and Arco the prototype corporation, in terms of the example he and Arco have set in their community activity and support,” Mack said.

Councilwoman Rita Walters, a critic of RLA, had mixed feelings about the news. “The people in and of themselves are obviously highly capable individuals,” she said. “The reservations I have go to the organization itself. I don’t know if it can be resurrected at all.”

Stewart Kwoh, director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California and an RLA executive committee member, said Cook and Griego “are well connected in the business world and in the community and have a commitment to help the city.”

After the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake, some observers wondered if RLA’s role would shift to encompass a wider geographic area. But officials said RLA, which was originally known as Rebuild L.A., will continue to concentrate on economic development in the inner city.

Since its inception, RLA has faced community pressure to represent the diversity of the areas it serves. Its four recent co-chairs were African American, Latino, Asian American and white and the huge board of directors was set up to include the many government officials, community leaders and others who wanted a say in rebuilding policies.

With little government funding and few new jobs being created by the private sector, RLA has had difficulty revitalizing the city’s riot-ravaged neighborhoods.

Lately, RLA has grappled with its leadership turnover.

Bernard Kinsey, one of three remaining RLA co-chairs, announced last month that he will step down from the group effective March 1. Linda Wong and Tony Salazar are the two other co-chairs.

Kinsey followed former Olympic czar Peter Ueberroth and lawyer Barry Sanders as co-chairs who have departed from day-to-day leadership of the group.

Times staff writer Michael Parrish contributed to this story.