The Boy Scouts in Orange County aren’t the only ones sticking to the motto of “Be Prepared.”
The Orange County Council of the Boy Scouts of America recently announced the creation of a seven-person board of regents that counts an A-list of local business people as charter members.
The inaugural “Founder’s Circle” of regents will take on the job of providing strategic vision for the nonprofit, which oversees scouting programs for nearly 30,000 local youths and counts sizeable land holdings in OC.
The regents also will use their clout in the business community here and nationally to help grow the local chapter’s presence.
In the near-term, expect to see the board of regents develop an annual symposium on leadership—a core mission of the Boy Scouts—with the hope of landing star power for a high-profile event in Orange County later this year. The symposium is expected to attract a crowd from the business community as well as local Boy Scouts.
Powerful Example
Not all the board members grew up as boy scouts, but the new board regents “are a powerful example of boy scouting today,” said Rob Neal, senior managing partner for Newport Beach real estate investor Hager Pacific Properties.
Neal is the incoming board chairman for the scout’s Orange County Council and one of the newly appointed regents.
“They offer young men a positive set of role models who can help reinforce the type of values and goals we believe in teaching our scouts,” Neal said.
The regents will work alongside the local chapter’s board, which numbers more than 50 directors.
Other board of regents members enlisted so far includes:
n George Argyros, the real estate investor and former Ambassador to Spain who runs Arnel & Affiliates in Costa Mesa.
n Parker Kennedy, executive chairman of Santa Ana-based title insurer First American Financial Corp., and chairman emeritus at sister company CoreLogic Inc.
n Tim Busch, founder and chief executive of Irvine-based hotel developer Pacific Hospitality Group, and head of a prominent law firm that carries his name.
n Tom Larkin, vice chairman of Los Angeles-based investment management firm TCW Group Inc.
n Thomas McKernan, chief executive of the Automobile Club of Southern California in Costa Mesa.
n Jeff Herrmann, who serves as Scout Executive for the local chapter, which brings in revenue of nearly $10 million annually through its programs, fundraising events and other support.
“As a past chairman of the board of the Orange County Boy Scouts and a longtime supporter of the program, I was delighted to add my voice to the new Board of Regents,” Argyros said. “Leaders are at a premium in our community, and the Boy Scouts do the best job I know of in building young, dynamic and principled leaders.”
The board of regents counts some overlap with the boards of directors for a couple of OC’s most prominent companies.
Along with Kennedy, both Argyros and McKernan are on the board of directors of First American, which counts a market value of about $1.6 billion.
Likewise, Larkin is a director at the Automobile Club of Southern California—the largest AAA-affiliated motor club in the country—which is run by McKernan.
Neither Kennedy, nor his father—First American Corp. chairman emeritus Donald Kennedy—were scouts. Parker Kennedy said he grew to appreciate the group while running the title insurance company and overseeing its philanthropic efforts.
Seeing prospective employees at the company listing “Eagle Scout” on their resumes is a good way of judging their management potential, Kennedy said.
Other members of the board of regents count personal experience as scouts.
The scouts are “a time-tested organization to bring boys of all faith traditions from a finite community together to learn leadership skills for the future educational and professional experiences,” Busch said. “As a founder of a Boy Scout troop in Laguna Niguel and a father of an Eagle Scout, I have firsthand experience of the leadership skills which this organization teaches young men.”
The scouts aren’t without critics. The Boy Scouts of America has an official policy of excluding gays, agnostics and atheists from its ranks. On a national level, those controversies are said to be hindering the growth of the scouts.
Challenges
In OC, the local chapter has had challenges expanding its reach in various ethnic communities, and in maintaining a presence among youth accustomed to video games and other indoor activities.
“Society is losing the core value of what it means to be a man in today’s world,” Herrmann said.
The new board of regents hopes to “re-instill valuable lessons of commitment and responsibility that may be missing from other places of learning,” he said.
