Hiring Their Friends

By Jennifer Jacobson

Both Paul Costello and J.R.W. "Wick" Sloane have personally known Evan S. Dobelle, the president of the University of Hawaii System, for 25 years. But, Mr. Dobelle says, that's not why he hired them.

"They're here because they know we need to make change," says Mr. Dobelle, who took office in July. In December, he hired Mr. Costello as vice president for external affairs and Mr. Sloane as chief financial officer and vice president for administration to help him turn the beleaguered system around. "I had interviewed a significant number of people in the institution and didn't find what I think the legislators, regents, and I needed -- people experienced in financing and marketing institutions. If they're here, I hire them. If not, I go find them."

When presidents take office, it is expected that they will bring in some new faces to the administration. But when they hire people they have worked with previously and known closely, that doesn't always sit well on the campus. Critics may see the hires as evidence of cronyism and view them with suspicion. The way to combat that perception, presidents say, is to make sure the friends you've hired are undeniably the most qualified and best candidates for the job.

Mr. Dobelle can't imagine why anyone would see his hiring of Mr. Costello and Mr. Sloane as cronyism, which he says "is defined as hiring people you know who aren't qualified." Both men, Mr. Dobelle points out, have years of experience in their fields.

Before joining the university, Mr. Costello was managing director of the New York office of Weber Shandwick, a public-relations firm. Before that, he was vice president of corporate affairs for HBO, director of public affairs at Marshall Field's, and press secretary for Richard Celeste when he was governor of Ohio. Mr. Sloane, before taking his job at Hawaii, was chief operating officer of K@tapult Inc., a company he founded in 1999 that provided financial and technological services to other businesses. He closed the business before going to Hawaii. Before creating his own business, he was chief operating officer for the North American branch of Baring Asset Management, a financial investment company in Boston.

Both men, "have been brought in seamlessly," Mr. Dobelle says. "I've gotten not one e-mail of concern."

Initially, Mr. Dobelle says, he sought to fill the two openings with candidates from the Hawaii system or the surrounding region. The search produced local candidates for the two jobs, but both turned down the offers for salary and benefits reasons. Mr. Dobelle chose Mr. Costello and Mr. Sloane, the only two people among his 14-member senior administrative staff who didn't come from within the Hawaii system.

Friendship aside, Mr. Sloane says, he wouldn't have gotten the job if he hadn't been qualified. He and Mr. Dobelle met in 1974, and they grew closer in 1994 when Mr. Dobelle became president of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., where Mr. Sloane and his wife, Elizabeth D. Sloane, were living. Mr. Dobelle hired Ms. Sloane as chief investment banker for Trinity, where she served for three years. She may end up working at Hawaii, too. According to her husband, she and Mr. Dobelle are in discussions about a job in his administration.

Mr. Sloane says he was so impressed with what Mr. Dobelle had done at Trinity that he would have taken a job with him even if it weren't in a place like Hawaii. Asked whether members of the president's administration treat him differently because of his personal connection to Mr. Dobelle, Mr. Sloane says, "That's natural; you can't avoid that somewhat." For example, when he visited the English department to find out which books students were reading, members of the department, "thought I was going to shut them down," he says, with a laugh. "They couldn't imagine someone from the finance office wanted to talk to them about books." Now they know his interest was genuine, he says.

As for Mr. Costello, he lets his previous public-relations experience erase any doubts that he was brought in because of cronyism. "When people see my background and résumé, that evaporates almost immediately," he says. "There was probably suspicion early on." He adds: "Cronyism to me is defined as bringing someone in who can't deliver. It doesn't benefit the system if everyone says behind a person's back, 'God, where'd they get that person from?'"

Mr. Dobelle and Mr. Costello have been acquaintances since they worked together in the White House during Jimmy Carter's administration. When Mr. Costello received one of the thousands of postcards Mr. Dobelle sent to friends and colleagues telling them of his new job, Mr. Costello sent an e-mail message saying that if the new president ever needed his background and experience in public relations he would consider a job there. "He e-mailed me back: 'Send me your résumé.'"

Marlene Ross, director of the American Council on Education's Fellows Program, a yearlong effort that grooms men and women for presidencies and other senior leadership positions in colleges and universities, says the organization has not surveyed presidents on how often they appoint friends and close colleagues, or their reasons for doing so. But she can see the definite advantages: "They've got people they can work well with and know they can trust, and that enables them to make changes more quickly than if they have to first develop some of those relationships with people they don't know."

After Martin C. Jischke became president of Purdue University, he hired two people who had worked with him at his previous job as president of Iowa State University. "The most important issue was to hire the very, very best person we could attract," he says. He hired Rabindra N. Mukerjea, formerly the assistant to the president for budget planning and analysis at Iowa State, as his director of strategic planning and assessment at Purdue. And he brought in Murray M. Blackwelder, formerly the vice president for external affairs at Iowa State, as his senior vice president for advancement.

Both were hired after "open national searches," Mr. Jischke says, which "helps reduce the possibility of cronyism or allegations that that's what's at work." He adds: "In a number of cases here at Purdue we've hired applicants I've never worked with before." Both the provost and dean of engineering were external hires he had never worked with before.

Both Mr. Mukerjea and Mr. Blackwelder say they have moved smoothly into their new jobs and have heard no whisperings of discontent about their appointments. "After I found out who I was up against, I was surprised I got the job," Mr. Blackwelder says. Presidents of university foundations, strictly skilled in fund-raising, it turns out, were also in the running for the position.

The ultimate test of a successful appointment, Mr. Jischke says, is how the person performs in the position. Mr. Mukerjea and Mr. Blackwelder were "good choices," he says. "They're doing a terrific job." He knew they would, though, because he had worked with them previously. They came with no surprises.

The downside of that, Mr. Dobelle says, is that presidents who appoint people they know to senior positions are more directly responsible for them. "You can't hide behind the search committee that you don't know the person very well," he says. "You own them. You own their reputation."