Linda White-Peters sometimes likes to say she eats for a living.
“I have breakfast, lunch and dinner with a lot of people,” said White-Peters, vice president of development for Discovery Science Center, a Santa Ana nonprofit that focuses on science for kids.
White-Peters, who oversees fundraising for the center, was one of five businesswomen honored at the Bus-iness Journal’s 16th annual Wo-men in Business award luncheon May 25 at the Hyatt Regency Ir-vine.
Since White-Peters came to the center three years ago, annual giving has nearly tripled to more than $2 million. The nonprofit has an annual operations budget of $9 million and sees more than 400,000 visitors yearly.
White-Peters now is in the middle of an effort to raise $60 million set to go toward doubling the size of the center. So far, the nonprofit’s raised $10 million as part of the campaign.
“Development is not immediate gratification,” she said.
Raising money is about finding people, including executives and other wealthy people who believe in a group’s mission, and eventually getting them to support it, she said.
Fresh Ideas
White-Peters calls Discovery Science Center “unique and entrepreneurial.” The center has “fresh ideas” under President Joe Adams, who came from Walt Disney Co. seven years ago.
“I’m not a good maintenance person,” White-Peters said. “I couldn’t be passionate about something that wasn’t becoming or about to become something bigger.”
During her time at the center, White-Peters said she has built upon programs. She helped expand the Chairman’s Cup, a golf fundraiser where some 50 executives are taken to Pebble Beach for three days.
Besides raising money, White-Peters said it was an opportunity for participants to learn more about the center.
“Many of them have become major supporters,” she said.
Her Background
Before coming to the center, White-Peters spent a good deal of her career in education.
She was with the University of California, Irvine, for 13 years. Her positions included assistant vice chancellor for university relations.
White-Peters also was a development director for Chapman University, where she managed a $42 million fundraising campaign to build the Marion Knott Studios on the school’s campus in Orange.
At a previous job, she said male colleagues would go to the men’s room “and you knew decisions were being made there.”
In a twist, White-Peters said later when she was at UC Irvine she found herself in the women’s room chatting with then-chancellor Laurel Wilkening.
“I said, ‘This is great—we’re making decisions in the women’s room,’” White-Peters said with a laugh.
She said she believes women have to support each other, although she’s had both male and female mentors in her career. She said she’s mentored other women, including ones who would come to the career center that she ran at Pepperdine University’s business school.
White-Peters holds degrees from Pepperdine, Chapman and California State University, Fullerton.
Outside work, White-Peters said she enjoys spending time with her family.
She and husband Ross, an oral surgeon, have homes in Newport Coast and Palm Desert. Ross Peters is a chief dentist for the state Department of Corrections.
White-Peters married her husband, a father of four, nearly 18 years ago. The couple now has five “well-blended” grandchildren.
Two of White-Peters’ granddaughters are part African-American. A grandson is a Korean adoptee. Another grandson is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Ireland.
