Big things are expected of Michael Drake, University of California, Irvine’s incoming chancellor.
The business community wants a UC Irvine leader who can build closer ties with companies. University officials want someone who can lift UCI out of the fund-raising doldrums and boost its rankings.
Business leaders say they aren’t put off by Drake’s relative lack of fund raising or corporate experience.
They expect the incoming chancellor to draw on his medical background and communication skills to strengthen business ties.
“He’s very bright, articulate and personable,” said Ted Smith, founder of Costa Mesa-based FileNet Corp., chair of the UCI Foundation and a member of the chancellor search committee. “A number of us thought he would be outstanding at building connections. I think CEOs running businesses will find him very savvy when it comes to understanding the problems on their side of the table.”
Drake’s medical background,he’s an ophthalmologist,wasn’t a critical factor in the appointment, according to Smith.
“But it certainly will be well received by the medical school and the hospital because of his knowledge of their fields and their needs and his ability to articulate that both locally and in Washington, D.C.,” he said.
Since 2000, Drake has served as vice president for health affairs for the University of California system. He headed all University of California medical schools and hospitals. He takes over at UCI on July 1.
Fund raising is a hot issue for UCI because the school has lagged some of its UC counterparts in raising money from private sources. Drake has done some fund raising at the department level, but not on a large-scale basis, Smith said.
“I am confident that he will be effective at it,” Smith said. “Since his arrival on campus I have heard nothing but positive responses from faculty, the deans and the people in the community who have met him.”
Other OC executives expect Drake’s healthcare background will help the school build ties to the county’s medical device and drug makers (see related story, page 1).
“The computer age was in the last century,the future is more about life sciences,” said Dwight Decker, chief executive of Newport Beach-based chipmaker Conexant Systems Inc.
Decker chairs UCI’s Chief Executive Roundtable, an 85-member group of OC business leaders that advises the school.
Decker said Drake’s off to a nice start from what he’s seen.
“One thing I was impressed with is that the night before the announcement he telephoned me and several others in the business community to introduce himself and express support for the links between the university and business community,” Decker said. “That he specifically took time at 9:30 p.m. to call me tells me that he views linkages as critically important.”
Drake outlined his general goals at last month’s welcoming ceremony.
“For the people whose careers are here, and there are thousands, I want them to feel that they have wonderful jobs and are respected and appreciated,” he said. “And I want our graduates to be the employees of choice for businesses in the region.”
In November, U.S. News & World Report ranked UCI’s undergraduate school No. 12 on its list of the nation’s best public universities. It ranked No. 43 among all public and private schools, better than No. 45 a year earlier.
Drake also expressed support for adding a law school to UCI.
Asked about fund raising at the ceremony, Drake didn’t offer many details.
“We could be a place the business community will seek out and fund so that we can grow our programs appropriately,” Drake said.
Outgoing Chancellor Ralph Cicerone played a big part in luring the school’s biggest ever single private gift earlier this year: $30 million from Hot Pockets inventor Paul Merage.
_________________________________________________________
UCI Chancellor Cheered As Healthcare-Friendly
By VITA REED
Healthcare executives have a particular reason to cheer University of California, Irvine’s incoming chancellor: The doctor is one of their own.
James Mazzo, chief executive of Santa Ana’s Advanced Medical Optics Inc., was one of several business leaders who lunched with Michael Drake a day after he was named to UC Irvine’s top spot last week.
“He’ll understand the trials and tribulations (of healthcare issues) better than most,” Mazzo said. “And I think the hospital program that’s going on at UCI has been a big one and it will only be further accelerated and supported.”
That could prove beneficial to Orange County’s sizable crop of medical device companies, such as Beckman Coulter Inc., Edwards Lifesciences Corp. and Sybron Dental Specialties Inc., and drug makers, such as Allergan Inc. and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. They often turn to universities such as UCI for everything from research to staffing.
Drake, a 54-year-old ophthalmologist, oversaw the University of California’s five academic hospitals and medical schools in his previous position as vice president for health affairs.
He is UCI’s fifth chancellor, set to take over July 1. Drake will oversee the 24,000-student campus and UCI Medical Center, a teaching hospital in Orange that’s set to start work on its new $370 million, seismically upgraded facility later this month.
Drake received his medical degree at University of California, San Francisco, and has spent more than 30 years in the University of California system.
He should benefit from groundwork laid by outgoing Chancellor Ralph Cicerone, said Mazzo, a trustee of the UCI Foundation, a member of the school’s Chief Executive Roundtable and part of the business school dean’s board of directors executive committee.
A pair of UCI’s key pending health projects,the new UCI Medical Center in Orange and a $55 million eye research institute,were started under Cicerone, who’s moving on to become president of the National Academies of Science.
“I know (Drake) to be passionate about issues in healthcare, quality, patient safety, access and building a great academic medical center,” said UCI Medical Center Chief Executive Ralph Cygan.
And several OC medical device executives play a key part on UCI’s biomedical engineering program advisory board.
The university has become more “open and responsive to the community in general and, specifically, to the medical device side,” said Mitch Campbell, chief executive of Irvine eye device maker Refractec Inc.
Any doubts raised about Drake,he hasn’t run a university with multiple schools and has minimal fund-raising experience,are downplayed by Cygan, Mazzo and others interviewed for this story.
“There already is an excellent team in place at the campus,” Cygan said.
Private donors generally would give money based on the overall mission of a certain project, Cygan said.
Said Michael Mussallem, chief executive of Irvine heart device maker Edwards Lifesciences: “I would also say that there’s no doubt that he must have been chosen for this role because of his breadth of his experience, not particularly because he was a physician.”
Still, the doctor could influence the career paths of UCI graduates, said Peter Bastone, head of Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo.
“A lot of our nurses and physicians get pulled away from the bedside to work for large biotech firms or pharmaceutical companies,” Bastone said. “Hopefully, based on his passion as being a physician, he’ll change that.”
