SCR Official Takes Job in Santa Cruz : Theater: Associate producer Paul Hammond will join a smaller Shakespeare company. Staff realignments in Costa Mesa are expected next week.

South Coast Repertory has lost one of its top executives to a theater company in Northern California.

Only 13 months after becoming SCR associate producer, Paul Hammond has been named managing director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz, a much smaller troupe. The appointment is to take effect March 1.

Hammond, 38, said Tuesday that his departure is amicable and that he is being lured away “by the chance to live in Northern California. Wouldn’t you move there if you had the chance?”

He first came to SCR in 1980 as a part-time production secretary. As associate producer he oversees the day-to-day operations of Orange County’s largest professional theater with general manager Paula Tomei. He also has responsibility for development and fund-raising.

Hammond was elevated to his post from director of theater operations in January, 1993, as part of a reorganization of SCR’s top management designed to relieve co-founders David Emmes and Martin Benson of most of their business duties.

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SCR is expected to announce staff realignments March 1. According to a spokesman, Tomei will be named to the new position of managing director, and a general manager will be hired. Emmes and Benson could not be reached for comment.

“This opportunity came out of the blue for me,” Hammond said. “I was not actively looking for a job. Shakespeare Santa Cruz was conducting an executive search and apparently my name was submitted to them by a consultant.

“But my wife and I have been talking for a number of years about moving to Northern California. We have three children, and we’d like to have a different environment to raise them in.”

Shakespeare Santa Cruz, a not-for-profit company associated with UC Santa Cruz, has an annual operating budget of slightly more than $1 million, Hammond said. SCR has a budget of $5.8 million.