Thomas R. Kendrick, 70; Shaped Orange County Performing Arts

Thomas R. Kendrick, first president and chief operations officer of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, died Thursday at his home in Corona del Mar. He was 70 and had suffered from cancer in recent years.

Kendrick “really put in place the basic structures, processes and culture of the organization,” said Jerry Mandel, the center’s current president. “He was clearly the most important staff member the center ever had and we are still operating today under his philosophy, ideas and push for excellence.”

Kendrick was born in Portland, Maine, on Aug. 4, 1933. He graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts and, after serving three years in the Air Force, earned a master’s degree in international communications from Indiana University’s Ernie Pyle School of Journalism.

He spent 18 years working for the Washington Post, where he became an assistant managing editor and helped launch the newspaper’s Style section.

Later, he spent nine years as director of operations for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

Looking for strong leadership to guide its soon-to-open performing arts center in Costa Mesa, the center’s board of directors hired Kendrick to take the helm in 1985.

“What we saw,” he later told the Orange County Register, “was exploding development, office towers and residences going up in all directions. And we realized this growth would bring people from other urban centers where they had been exposed to the performing arts.”

Aided by the center’s new general manager and his then-wife, Judy Morr, Kendrick spent the next several years building the Orange County Performing Arts Center into one of Southern California’s major venues for dance, symphonic music, opera and musical theater -- elements, he later recalled that “were the definition of a performing arts center.”

Contrary to the board of directors’ early inclinations, he also decided that the new center would feature such local performing arts groups as the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and Opera Pacific. “We believed that the involvement of the regional organizations was philosophically and economically the right road,” Kendrick later said.

In 1993, citing the need to “devote more time to other interests,” Kendrick and Morr announced their retirements.

Later divorced, both continued to play roles at the center, however. Kendrick agreed to remain as a consultant to the board for five years and Morr returned as director of programming. She is currently the center’s executive vice president.

Since retiring, Mandel said, Kendrick had been extremely generous in responding to requests for advice and consultations.

“He was bright, energetic and sophisticated,” Mandel said. “He had lots of great stories, and was fun to be around.”

Funeral arrangements at Pacific View Mortuary in Corona del Mar are pending, a spokesman said. Kendrick is survived by two grown children: a daughter, Tracy, and a son, Ryland.