Woodland Hills : 3 Finalists for Pierce President Identified

The three finalists to replace Mary Lee as president of Pierce College in Woodland Hills are college administrators from New York, Long Beach and Orange County, including two with past experience in the Los Angeles district, district sources confirmed Thursday.

The finalists are Bing Inocencio, associate provost for academic administration at New York City Technical College in Brooklyn; Kamiran “Kim” Badrkhan, vice president for academic affairs at Long Beach City College, and Christopher O’Hearn, vice president for instruction at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

Lee, a 56-year-old Chatsworth resident who has served as Pierce’s acting president for the past 21 months, was not among the finalists recommended last week by an 18-member selection committee for the job. That virtually excludes her from final selection by the district’s Board of Trustees.

Inocencio, a Filipino American, former Fulbright scholar and former community college business/economics instructor, said he had not heard anything since being interviewed last week. His four-year, 10,500-student campus is one of 20 in the City University of New York system.

Badrkhan, a Valley Village resident, has worked for the Long Beach district since 1986, holding two dean positions before becoming vice president in November 1993. He is a specialist in computers and electronics and has written several books in the field. Badrkhan was an assistant dean at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College from 1983 to 1986.

O’Hearn has worked for Orange Coast College in the Coast Community College District for the past four years. He was an instructor and dean at Harbor College in Wilmington from 1980 to 1991.