The Insider says goodbye to Edison’s chief spokesman

At the peak of the energy crisis, Edison International is losing one of its most visible spokesmen. Tom Higgins is leaving as senior VP of corporate communications to join the San Francisco advocacy group Business for Social Responsibility Chapman U is interviewing candidates to fill big shoes. Business dean Richard McDowell, who built a department into a school, has left after 10 years to become provost and VP of academic affairs at the University of LaVerne With its Anaheim expansion, Disney has surpassed the county government as OC’s biggest employer, with about 20,000 full-time-equivalent jobs to 17,000 for the county Things are heating up in Latin America. A contingent of 30 OC execs, including Brandon Birtcher, Jeff Moorad, Mike Echolds, Bob Olson, Maria Chavez Wilcox, Mike Lutton and Publisher RR, is headed for Cuba this week. Separately, Larry Thomas will soon be hooking up with the globe-trotting Wisner brothers (see page 83) in Rio Wylie Aitken decided St. Patrick’s week is a fine time to form the Celtic Bar Association of Orange County, throw a party at Muldoon’s Irish Pub in Newport Center and take on partners, at least one of them Irish. His firm will henceforth be known as Aitken, Aitken & Cohn Only in OC: The Hyatt Newporter is offering a round of golf on its nine-hole executive course, a box lunch and valet parking for $15. (949) 729-1234 or www.hyattnewporter.com Stephen “Dr. Beach” Leatherman has nice things to say about Huntington Beach, but it’s Newport Beach that gets anointed as “Best City Beach in the Southwest” by the author of “America’s Best Beaches” (www.topbeaches.com) During a recent lobbying trip to the Pentagon, El Toro airport advocates Dave Ellis and Barbara Lichman got to go where civilians rarely do: the Medal of Honor room and the Hall of Heroes, featuring mementos like the pen and treaty used to end World War II. Fellow airport activist and retired Marine Gen. Art Bloomer took them on the sight-seeing detour Bureaucratic tale: EE RR needed to have a court order served. The U.S. Marshal’s office failed in three tries, total bill $84. A private process server got the job done on the first try for $30 Old school’s out: Mike Stockstill’s return to The Irvine Company was brief. His departure, following several others, means nobody in media relations has more than about a year with the company … On a related note, the Insider was inexcusably sloppy last week in reporting another change at the Irvine Co. To get it right, Larry Williams has replaced the retired John Hile as head of land sales for the office group.