Right man for the job
You've probably never heard of Karl E. White, the investment whiz who is in line to become the first black head of the University of Massachusetts board of trustees. He is the vice chairman of the panel whose elected chairman, James Karam, Governor Mitt Romney recently declined to reappoint.
White, however, may miss his chance at the history books. Word has it that Stephen Tocco, chairman of the state's Board of Higher Education and a newly appointed UMass trustee, is maneuvering, with Romney's blessing, to wrest leadership of the board away from White.
Tocco, of course, is an old hand in state Republican politics and won the affection of the administration last year when he deep-sixed a plan to bring the Southern New England School of Law into the state university system. Tocco, president of the powerhouse public relations firm ML Strategies, generally doesn't serve in operations he doesn't run.
That may bode poorly for White. But it is much worse news for the students, faculty members, and administrators of the UMass system, who would be lucky to be led by a man like Karl White.
White has been on the board since 1999, during a period of substantial growth for the UMass system. While state funding of the university system during that time has declined by $11 million, the system's budget has increased by more than $800 million. More than 80 percent of its cash comes from sources other than our taxes, a credit to a board that has been resourceful in finding money for the system. Research funding in that period has jumped from $238 million in 2000 to $377 million this year.
White was placed on the board for his financial acumen. One of the areas in which he has pushed hardest is to make money from the system's intellectual property -- essentially its research and ideas. That figure has tripled, from $9 million in fiscal 2000 to $27 million in fiscal 2006. The UMass system now makes $21.2 million from its online activities, up from $3.1 million in 2001, the year it started.
None of that is as impressive as the man himself. White, 41, moved to Boston in 1998 as a vice president at Putnam Investments. Until recently he headed the MBTA's retirement fund, managing $1.6 billion. He left to work as chief investment officer for a hedge fund based in New York, though he plans to continue living here. He might be the least-visible, successful African-American in Boston.
White's has been an improbable journey. He was raised in tiny Monticello, Fla. He studied pharmacy at historically black Florida A & M University, with no plans of a career in business. White's career changed paths after he became a sales rep for Eli Lilly & Co. He won a scholarship to the notoriously rigorous MBA program at the University of Chicago .
``I come from a town with two traffic lights, and the difference between me and my friends who didn't go to college is all about public higher education," he said last week. ``The clear difference in my life was that I was able to get a good, affordable education at Florida A&M University. I don't have to go far to see the significance of that."
Normally, the UMass board would not vote on a new chairman until September 2007, though White has been informed that the vote is likely to come much sooner, probably at the board's next meeting. He has heard nothing from Romney. In fact, they have never had a conversation.
``The governor has not contacted me at all," White said. ``I would guess if he has the votes [to make Tocco chairman] he doesn't need to talk to me." Tocco didn't return a call seeking comment.
A rags-to-riches millionaire who credits his success to public education and has served nobly as a trustee sounds like a perfect chairman to me. But in the bare-knuckles world of the lame-duck Romney administration, the priorities are different. Mitt Romney doesn't know the first thing about Karl White, and the shame of that -- for UMass -- is that he couldn't care less.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 
