it's monday november 24th of 2000 and three. And we're here at A. S. U.
To do an oral history interview for the Arizona state University retiree
association living history video project and I'm pam Stevenson and I'll
let you introduce yourself. Okay, my name is Brandon Whiting Brown and
you want some of my, just give you a little history of myself. What were
you doing when you left A. S. U. And when did you retire? Well I haven't
actually retired yet. I'm in the process. I will retire next May and I was
an associate professor in the school of Public Affairs and go back and
cover the whole career a little bit later. But let's start with your, your
early life. I always like to just have a little background about where
you're from. So tell me, well I was I was born and raised in ST johns
Arizona a little community up in the northeastern part of the state. My
ancestors arrived in their their from Utah in 1876, so they were some of
the first settlers in that area and my family has been a ranching family
in that area ever since. And when were you born? I was born in 1941,
I've been interviewing Stewart Udall so little um
So you you grew up then in the ranching family. What were your career
goals as a young boy? Well my I thought I was going to be a lawyer but I
got interested in political science in in college and kind of skewed
towards that area and I ended up getting my PhD in political science from
the university of Illinois. I got my masters from Arizona State University
and Political science and my Bachelors from Brigham Young University. All
in political science. So I got interested in political science and kind of
went in that direction moved around from university.
Um What do what were you going to do with political science teach?
I was I was going to teach it. I thought about teaching at high school but
then I recovered from that and decided that if I was going to teach its
best at the university level high school level. No and in all the years
that I've taught I've never had to meet a parent.
So I made the right career choice.
Well tell me about what what was your first job out of college? My first
job out of college was assistant professor in the political science
department at A. S. U. Was that always your goal to come back to you? Well
I I never thought I would be able to because you know it's hard to go home
but the opportunity was there and I grabbed it. When was that 1972? I
started here in 1972.
So this next spring it'll be 32 years.
You've seen a lot of change I imagine since then. Um why don't you tell us
a little bit about what a issue was like when you came in 1972
there was absolutely no parking. It was a disaster. You would drive around
if you got here for a 10 o'clock class or meeting, you would wait in the
parking lot until somebody left and then run and grab it. It was an
absolute nightmare. So in that arena things have improved. Now. They
didn't charge you anything, they only charge you $5 a year or something
for a sticker but there was no parking. So so things have improved a lot
and as far as parking is concerned. And I came here just as they were
building, just completed the part of the new stadium and then they added
to it and the new fieldhouse. And so I got here at the beginning of the
construction era which hasn't stopped, it hasn't stopped.
So your first position, uh what what, how many classes did you teach? Well
, I was in the School of Public Affairs. And so I taught two classes a
semester and uh I only stayed in that position for a year and then I
became the acting director of the Institute of Public Affairs. It was a
division of, of Political Science. And during that year we kind of split
off from political Science and became the School of Public Affairs. And
it's always been a separate entity since that time, explain to me what is
the school of Public. Well, it's, it's a research and teaching entity. It
teaches mostly students who are working on their master's degree in public
administration are their PhD in public administration. And it teaches
people who are going into public service city managers, people that want
to do government service.
It's not something that most people would be aware of as a separate thing
to study. Not unless they're interested in public service. And then
students learn about it come this way. It's a very well respected school.
It's in the top 25 schools in the country, Top 10 and in the management
area, urban management area. So it's a good school. Um was it something
new at the time when you split off? We were the founding, I was one of the
founding fathers. Yeah, I mean, were there other schools like that?
Another university? Yeah. USC Syracuse indiana LBJ school and in texas. So
there there's a there's a lot of schools like that around the country.
So how big was it when it first started? Three professors,
Then we went up to five I think right away, about 60 students.
Mhm. And so your first position, there were the chair, I was the acting
chair, Chair. Well, no, I didn't become chair because I after I served
that I got chosen by Governor Castro to go down and head what was then the
Office of Economic Planning Development. So I worked under Governor Castro
and then Governor boland. And then Governor babbitt for four years. I was
, I was the head of the Office of Economic Plan Development. it was a
major state agency and
I was on the leave of absence from the University for four years at that
time. And when I came it's now the department of Commerce, it's now called
the Department of Commerce. When I came back, uh they asked me to because
they didn't have a lobbyist for the university and they, we're just
discovering that they needed to have somebody lobby for him. And so they
asked me to do that. And I started out, I think my title was Director of
Community relations and that that went until I was a vice president. They
kept changing my title and moving me up the ladder and I became assistant
vice president for community relations and then vice president of
university relations and Served in that capacity for 11 years. It seems
like that area has been an area that changes its name a lot. But does it
change its, it's description of what it does to, Well, it was a very
dynamic area and a very dynamic university. I've, I've told people that, I
don't think there was another university in the country where as many
things were happening as at Arizona State University. The growth, the, you
know, dynamics of a major university in a major growth area. It was just
very impressive to see what was happening during that era and your role
for most of that time then was down at the capitol. I I was the chief
lobbyist for the university during all that time. What was the biggest
challenge of that job? Well, when I, when we started out, we we were the
low
university on the totem pole, the history of A S. You had always been
second fiddle to the University of Arizona.
It's not quite as intense as it used to be, but at that time it was very
intense because Arizona State University had never had a member of the
border regions After they unified the border regions and I think it was
1946 when they unified the border regions. So from 1946 until 1972, we've
never had a member of the border regions and we were always
second fiddle. And so the big challenge was to to change that. In fact,
I'll tell you a little story that I was a student here at Arizona State
University as an undergraduate. That was before my, my graduate days. But
I was taking a class from ross Rice and it was legislative relations and
we had to write a paper for that class. And so I decided to write it on
the appropriations process. And my brother was in the legislature. Then my
brother is Jack Brown. He's still in the legislature, He's a minority
leader in the Senate still, but he's he's been there 30 years and he was
on the appropriations committee. And so I attended the appropriations
hearings and one day while I was down there, they kicked everybody out of
the appropriations committee. That was before the days of the open meeting
law. And so I stuck around outside to see what was going on. And when they
finally broke up an hour or so later, I asked Jack what happened? And he
said, well, he said, sweet johnson, who is the U. Of a vice president,
wrote the budgets for the three universities. And I said, well, where was
a issue? He says an any you, he says they weren't at the table. And so I
knew that that at that point in time that A. S. U. Was way behind in terms
of influence at the legislature. And little did I know that years later I
would become the lobbyist for the university and help to correct that. And
it was a battle, but we did turn the tide and we're able to get some
equity with the University of Arizona. But it was not an easy process. It
was long, hard and we had a lot of political battles. Didn't you tell me a
little bit about how you did that? Well, the leadership of the House and
was particularly the House had always depended upon the University of
Arizona supporters to kind of bring things to closure and to balance it.
And there was a group of, of people elected from Maricopa County who
started to take a S. You under their wing. There were people like Tony
west and carl cannon Asic. And the first thing that they took on was the
capital budgets. They always appropriated more money for the U. Of A. For
capital budgets than they did for a issue, even though we had more
students and we had a greater need because we were growing faster. And so
they took a stand one year and said they would not support the budget
unless there was some equity built in there. And that started the process
of the leadership having to pay attention to the issue. And then it kind
of mushroomed from there. But it wasn't just the legislature that it was a
big problem. It was the border regions that was so tightly controlled by
the U. Of A. And we were way underfunded in the formulas that they use
just for for teaching, You know, student ratio, you know, student 22-1. We
were way out of balance and they were just, you know, so much better
funded than we were. And one year the region's allowed us to ask for some
catch up positions.
And I think that the only reason that the region's did that is that they
didn't think that we could that we could get that through the legislature.
Well, because we were we were behind, see if you if you just sat down and
said, what are the number of students going here and what are the number
of students going to the U. Of a. We were way underfunded. And so they
finally allowed us to say, okay, we're going to give you a chance to catch
up with some of these positions. And they allowed us to ask that year and
we did it, we cut we had 52 new positions that we're not funded at the U.
Of A. In the same ratio. They were catch up. There was new money for issue.
That was the first time that we really broke down the barriers And
started to get some equity between the two. That was in 1980,
80, I think 79, 80. It could be a year or two. Often you mentioned about
the Board of Regents being unbalanced with that s you people on it also.
Um how did you change that or we didn't haven't yet. There are some, there
are some. Now Ralph Watkins was in the post war era Since the regions were
unified in 1946. Ralph Watkins was the first appointee who was a graduate
of a issue, but he only served a little while because he was appointed by
Mickum and and he never got confirmed, I don't think by the Senate. And uh
but he served for a while, but that shows you how long it was without an A.
S. You graduate. It was it was one of the most bizarre political things
that I've ever experienced because we couldn't we couldn't move at this
university, we couldn't do things at this university. My job was to find
out ways to get around the border regions.
I'll give you a good example. Okay. There was agitation for an ax you West
and I don't know if interview interviews have ever told a story of how the
issue West went down in flames under
under president,
who's the president that went to Utah home or doing okay? Goodyear. I was
not here then, but I heard I've heard the story, I lived in the aftermath
of the story. Durham had received property from Goodyear. Goodyear had
given them some property to build a university up there and the Board of
Regents had accepted it and
they had all, everything was ongoing. And they were going down to make a
presentation to the joint appropriations committees to get the initial
funding that they needed. And Troy crowder stopped and picked up some
sandwiches for everybody and they got down there in the hearing
and as they started the hearing before they could start the hearing.
Senator john Conlan from Scottsdale
got the floor and he said, you know, mr Chairman, I'd like to ask a couple
of questions of dr Durham. And uh, the first question is I understood, I
understand that you had a peace rally on the campus last night, is that
correct? And the president responded, yes, that's correct. And he said
that I understand that the Dean that you have chosen for the new college
Dean Blandino took part in that peace demonstration. Is that correct? And
Dean Blandino was sitting there and, and it was correct that he had
participated in an anti war protest and there was bedlam in the
appropriations committee hearing. The hearing was shut down ah Troy
crowder as said that they, I don't know what they did with the lunches,
but they were all wasted. They came back home, there was never a hearing
on that campus. President Durham went to Utah Goodyear took their land
back and I started under Suada and Swaddle would not talk about an A. S. U.
West campus, he would not even consider it. And so when and I was the
lobbyist and I was getting lobbied all this time by the people down in the
legislature from the west side and they were getting pretty vociferous
about. They wanted a Westside campus and I was lobbied pretty intensely.
And when Russ nelson came,
I, I had my first interview with him and I still got the paper that I
wrote down that there were three things that Russ nelson had to do while
he was here. Number one is, he had to build a West campus. Number two, he
had to make sun Devil stadium available for pro football. And number three
, he had to increase the Mexican Americans at the university attending the
university and I'm happy to say he did all three of those things, but the
west campus was one that he had to pull together and I can tell you how
that happened if you want to please do no one else has. I even asked
someone and they didn't know
there was a in the legislature, it was a year when they needed to have a a
sales tax increase. And Burton Barr was the leader of the majority leader
in the house. And stan turley was the president of the Senate. And they
needed a vote very crucial in the Senate and so they they needed a vote
from a couple of West Siders legislators. Leila Alston is one who who was
there and Leila said I'm not going to vote for it unless you support an A
. S. U. West campus. So stan turley phoned me up and said Brent I'm on
board for a West campus. What what have you got, can you deal? And so I
got a page Mulholland
Russ, nelson
Reeves.
Uh Jack Kinzinger. No he wasn't here because paige was here. No. Yeah he
was here. Jack Kinzinger was here. Page was was doing something else. Then
Anyway there are four or 5 vice presidents and we got in the room and I
told him that there was a window of opportunity here that that we could
get the support from the legislature for West campus. And Russ nelson's
response was well that sounds really good. Let's appoint a committee and
you know, study this issue and I said no Russ, you've got to understand,
you've got until one hour from now, if you want to West campus, we can
deal. And to his credit, he said, go and we went down and we cut the deal
and we got the money in the budget, appeared in the, in the in the in our
budget to do something at west campus.
And the next year, very shortly thereafter we got doug Todd to help us.
And we rode into the legislation that there would be an issue west campus
in the statutes before the border regions ever considered it.
And that's how we got around the border regions. Can you do that? We did
it,
you can, you can check the record, it was in, it was in writing in the
statutes that there would be an a sus campus before the region's ever took
up the issue of the west campus. So then they had to figure out how to do
it or did they figure out how well we both had to figure out how to do it.
But we got the initial appropriation in and, and it was there, we were,
we were spending money before they ever approved it. So what was the first
thing you had to do then to get the land? Was that the first thing or then
we, we get the land trade and got the land, but we have the Westside
legislators, you know, mhm. You know, lobbying for us and helping us. And
so there was already a piece of land out there that we traded for some
land over here, that was state land. So that was the easiest part of the
deal because I get out there once or twice a year and it's amazing how
it's grown to, it looks like a real campus. It is.
But that was how that little little campus was born
and I, I can guarantee you that nobody on west campus knows that story.
Well, we've got it now and it just proved to me that my feelings for john
Conlan were well found.
It was amazing how deep how he deep Sixed that whole process and Goodyear
took the land back. It was by litchfield park. But, and that's, that's how
it all came about. Set the state back in a lot of ways. It also shows that
people can make a decision in an hour if they have to. I was, I was proud
of the people that did it. It was really Russ nelson who made the final
decision and most people think that he was not a very strong president.
But he did some things that like that, that didn't get a lot of attention
that we're, that really moved this, this university forward. That was a
big, that was a big step forward because the whole strategy that we, if we
were ever going to compete with the U. Of A as we had to cover the valley
and the U. Of A. And N. A. You fought us on this branch campus because
they knew that if we got the, you know, extended in the in the phoenix
area that they could not contain us. Well you're landlocked here. Yeah.
And like I say that the atmosphere is not like it was when I started out,
you have to remember this university is the only university in the country
that has been named by a popular vote. Have you covered that? Well we've
talked about the vote but I hadn't thought of it in those terms of it
being the only one. Herman Kahn who was a futurist when he was on campus
here studying and writing. I was introduced to him once as a, as a, as a
lobbyist for the university and he says, my gosh, he says, I'll never
forget a story I heard. And the story was when we were trying to change
the name of this university from Arizona state college to Arizona State
University. We couldn't get it through the legislature, we we couldn't get
it through the region. So they went to the legislature, they couldn't get
it through the legislature. And Herman Kahn says the most bizarre story
I've ever heard is that they brought somebody in from the hospital on a on
a gurney to vote against changing the name. He says that is the most
bizarre story I've ever heard in my life. And that was the kind of
atmosphere that was prevalent in those days. It was not a friendly
relationship. It was open warfare in the halls of the legislature and it
was, it was brutal and you didn't take prisoners and I was lucky to have
survived because that was a a no no to go around the regions and and do
that. But the rest is credit. He protected me. Why don't you talk a little
bit about the presidents, You served under a couple of presidents that not
too many people have talked about heard a lot about damage and I've heard
a lot about jerome. Um, but tell me about the, you said you started
underhand Suada was, they came in the aftermath of that debacle. And he
was very cautious, a very, I think very smart, brilliant individual. But
that episode so colored his administration that I don't think he, he fully
recognized how cautious he was and there were a lot of things that needed
to be done. And in Arizona, we have an interesting situation in a lot of
states. The regions are elected Only. Our elected sometimes and appointed
only to represent one university
in in Washington, Washington has a set of regions, Washington state has a
set the university, I graduated from the university of Illinois. They have
a set of regions that are only for that university and they become
advocates for that university. We used to have that in Arizona until we
went to a unified board. And what has happened is that the unified board
became more of a watchdog
board than a, than a supporting board. Nobody was advocating for the
universities and it's still that way. So the only one that can advocate
for the university and have any credibility as the president.
And I spent a lot of time prodding presidents that you have to take on the
legislature, you have to get out on front on these issues because nobody
else is doing it. And so that, that was a hard thing to get across because
presidents, when you finally make it to be a president, you're very
cautious because you've learned to be a dean, you've learned to be, you
know, vice president going up the ladder. And so it was not their natural
inclination to be entrepreneurs.
And I will say this for, for the ones I served under uh Russ and and
Laddie were much more entrepreneurial than was wanna Shweta was more of a
caretaker. But there were so many things going on that even a caretaker
president had lots of lots of things to take care of because of the growth
that issue was experiencing
nelson you just talked about that one instance where he, well, he did a
lot of things, he started the on the road to a research one university,
I'll tell, I'll tell you another thing he did. That was very courageous.
We decided that we weren't getting our share of federal dollars because we
didn't have the infrastructure and the research. So we went after money
and direct appropriation from Congress
and we were
kind of bandits in that regards because that is a no no, because most
universities have the peer review system and they look with a sconce at
anybody that gets direct appropriations from Congress. But we decided that
we had to do it because we didn't have the infrastructure to do it any
other way. And so we hired a lobbyist and in convincing rust to do this,
we hired George Ramona's who was a lobbyist in Washington and paid him
pretty good money to be our lobbyist. And we talked it back and forth. And
Russ finally said, we're going to go ahead and we're going to do it. And
he says, I just want to send a little note to the regions and you know,
advise them of what we're doing. And I says, Russ, this is one instance
where you do it. And then you advise the regions because I knew that the
executive director of the border regions, small abroad, I wanted to take
over the federal lobbying and make the university's go through her, which
would have been a disaster free issue. And I encouraged rust to move fast
to hire the lobbyist. And then to tell the border regions and to his
credit he did, which was, I think a very brave stand because it was much
like, uh
president damage when he decided to go to the initiative to name the
university. Well this was very courageous too because Russ did that and
told the region's later on. And then this resulted in the appropriation
for the Goldwater building. And that was the 25 million that we got for
the Goldwater building. That put us over the top in the special status to
be a research one university. If we hadn't had that 25 million, you have
to have so much in federal funding to qualify. And if we hadn't had that,
we weren't qualified. So it was a very courageous stand for him to to take
much like a S. U. West. Was that 25 million of direct appropriation from
the US Congress?
I got a plaque on my wall. That's for the 1st 10 million written into the
legislation. I didn't know you could just do that. It's done all the time.
Mhm
um Any other stories about President nelson that you'd want to tell us?
Well, I'll tell you the story of how the cardinals got here. Okay.
I try and avoid that discussion, but I thought I would live long enough to
have them make me look good, but I'm approaching retirement. My hair is
getting gray.
It's hard to describe the, the fever that was in this community too. Have
a pro football team here. We had had, well, I'm going to tell us what a
story before I tell you a nelson story
they wanted, there was a lot of the downtown people who wanted to use Sun
Devil Stadium for pro football and cush and miller were adamantly opposed
to that, adamantly opposed. So this jockeying had gone on and finally some
of the powers that be downtown decided that they would bring in a couple
of proteins
to play in a and but um boys town uh huh exhibition because they used to
go around and play exhibition games. And so it's not boys town, but
equivalent of that Big Brothers, I think it was okay. Big Brother's not
boys town, It was a big brothers organization. And so they came up with a
scheme to invite a couple of teams here to play in Sun Devil Stadium and
fred miller, the athletic director and frank kush said over our dead
bodies.
And then Mr Suada was invited down to the legislature into mr Burton
barr's office
and the conversation went, something like this, I wasn't there, but I
heard about the conversation and the conversation went, something like
this. President Suada, I have a piece of legislation here that I will drop
in the hopper if the Big brothers don't play that game
in Sun Devil Stadium, you got to choice and the legislation will take the
stadium away from a shoe and create a separate stadium entity to manage it.
The game happened. That was the first breakthrough of a pro team playing
in Sun Devil Stadium.
And then we had the outlaws and we had other teams, we had philadelphia
coming out here. There was just a lot of agitation to play in Sun Devil
Stadium
and I was the vice president over the stadium at that time and I knew that
the agitation was continuing and I got a call from from Hurt who was a
columnist for the Arizona Republic and he said the Cardinals were
interested in coming.
And so I says, well, we'll open up discussions
and
a issue was gun shy because we had had philadelphia out here and if you
remember the atmosphere, philadelphia owner was going to come, his
daughter was out here to sign the agreement and the police surrounded his
place and he couldn't get out and and he didn't. The people in
philadelphia prevailed and he and the team didn't come. And so everybody
thought that the cardinals were using us. But I opened up discussions with
the cardinals and to make a long story short, I kind of believe that they
were going to come and I was put by Russ nelson as the, as kind of the
bizarre over all of these negotiations. And so we kept edging forward
edging forward and we finally reached an agreement
and we signed that agreement. Well, no, we didn't sign it. We reached an
agreement and then president bidwell said, I've got to have that signed by
tomorrow because I'm going back to ST louis and I'm going to need that
because I'm going to the NFL to make an announcement on whether the team
is going to come here or not. But he says I gotta have that letter signed
and the rust was gone. And so I wandered around campus and thought, well
what do we do? And finally I came back with the legal counsel telling me
not to sign that letter. That I didn't have any authority to sign that
letter. And I said, yeah, I got authority to sign that letter because I'm
over the stadium and I signed contracts all the time. And so I signed the
letter and I senate with bidwell. Russ nelson was out of town and Russ
nelson came back. This was on a thursday. I signed the letter, bidwell
took it on friday on saturday. I got a phone call at home and Russ nelson
wanted to see me at his home. The one and only time that I got called on a
weekend to go see him. And when I got there I could I could see that the
atmosphere had been poisoned a little bit because the legal counsel was
there
and the conversation went, something like this Russ was pretty pretty grim
about it all. He said, I understand that you have sent a letter saying
that the Cardinals could play in Sun Devil Stadium. And I said yes, I've
done that. And he says can you get the letter back? And I said, no, the
letter is already gone. And he says, what if I tell you to get the letter
back?
And I says, well Russ, you can do this, you can fire me and then you can
tell Bruce to get the letter back. But before you do that, let me tell you
why I signed that letter.
And I went on to explain to him that this is a time when I knew that I had
to bite the bullet because he couldn't. I said there's no way you could do
that without getting border regions approval, but I can and I'm expendable.
And if it doesn't work out, you can fire me. But I says the thing you
don't want to do is to get yourself mixed up in the middle of this because
there there's no way that you could have sent that letter. And if bidwell
had gone back and said I couldn't get anything from a issue, I wanted to
come, but they wouldn't Cooperate, you might not have survived that either.
So either way it was a catch 22 for you and at times, vice presidents are
there to be expendable. And so I did that. Now you can fire me if you want
to and to his credit, he didn't fire me. We went through a lot of ups and
downs, but we did get him in Sun Devil Stadium, we got some new sky boxes
built the city of phoenix wanted to come and play in our stadium and the
downtown people and then leave us without anything. And I said it's not
going to happen. So they build us some skyboxes, they improved the stadium
and they played here from, This is 87, they'll probably be here for 20
years. So all in all, not too bad, Maybe they'll win someday. They played
a good game. Almost one yesterday. Well, you've got a lot of good stories.
Um, do we want to do anymore russell nelson stories or were you involved
at all in the, the building of the art museum? The controversy over the
design of that. And no, I didn't have anything that, um, well, Russ was my
favorite of all the years because we were of a like mind, he was a
photographer, I was a photographer and we spent a lot of time, you know,
talking about that. He is photography of the fine arts system. I'll tell
you how, we have got one other piece of property.
The old TB sanitarium, which was a Children's hospital
and
the state was, was kind of using it for that. It had somehow gotten into
the hands of the, of the state and the Legislature wanted to give it to
the Health Department wanted to turn over the Health department and we
discovered that there was a little clause in there that it was originally
the city of Tempe land and that they had to approve whoever it went to and
what it was used for? And we got the city of Tempe to tell the state that
they wouldn't approve anything except that going to ask you. And so we
acquired that 27 acres out there that became part of the S. U. Campus. I
haven't been out there in years but it's still part of the campus hasn't
changed a lot. It's a nice location, horrible building. Sometimes maybe
it'll sell off the property and make a million.
Mhm. About the downtown center.
The downtown center is another than a S. U. East that we were involved
with. The downtown center came about because we we were trying to get
something going downtown. We really needed to do it. And Alfredo Gutierrez
was in the majority in the Senate and he said Brent, I will help you get
the downtown center. But there is no administrator.
Mexican american administrator at a issue in any capacity.
And he says I will only do it if you appoint somebody as an assistant vice
president.
When I said, I think we can do that. And he appropriated the initial money
for an issue downtown. We started it. That's what we have today was an
outgrowth of that decision and we did hire a mexican american to be an
assistant vice president frank.
First one, you said one of your goals that you told Russell nelson was
that he needed more hispanic
representation on campus. Did you, do you think you've fulfilled that? I
think we made good strides. I think the university is, is still trying to
achieve that to make it happen. We started what was called the Los Diablos
, which is a chicano alumni association made up of mexican americans had
graduated from the university who started a scholarship program which is
still going, which has resulted in a lot of a lot of people coming to this
university. We started the Hispanic convocation, Channel eight filmed it
where you have people watching them go through and get their graduation on
tv and I'm sure influenced a lot of people to come here. So we made some
strides. We, we, I didn't achieve total parody, but we made some strides
in that area. And there are a lot more chicano administrators now than
there were when, when we started.
We've talked about west and downtown without issue East. Um, there must be
a story with that. Well, my, my career, okay, my career was pushing the
envelope. Okay, that's what I was good at june knows I wasn't the greatest
administrator at this university if you mean by administrator keeping the
paperwork flowing, but I was smart enough to get bob Ellis to help me at
that. So he kept the paperwork flowing. I perceived my job as pushing the
envelope and to push it out there so that people would have to make
decisions that I thought were beneficial for the university. That was kind
of maybe egotistical of me to think that I knew what the university needed.
But I felt like I had a good feel politically for the Valley and the
state. And I came from a political family long time I had good
relationships with the Legislature so I thought I could feel what had to
happen much like A. S. U. West, we had to have an S. U. East
laddie arrived on campus a month later he went out to talk to the issue
partnership. The I. S. U. East Partnership, not a issue East Valley
Partnership. I'm sorry East Valley Partnership. He'd been here maybe a
month, maybe two months. And I had been telling him that at that speech,
he had to say he supported in east campus
and he did it. But later on he told me he thought I was crazy, he thought
I was absolutely crazy
and but he did it and that kind of kept the ball rolling and then the
campus
base air base closed out there. And that became an excellent opportunity
for us to to move in and and it became a reality. But laddie had to do it
on our our say so. And he did did he did he tell you why he thought you
were crazy? He thought I was crazy because he thought that there wouldn't
be an a sus campus out there for years and years, he didn't think the
political support was there.
It seems like it's really just getting started to true campus. Well, I
don't think anybody could have anticipated the growth that this valley had
, but I think we're very well positioned now with west east downtown and
I think I'm part of that legacy. So that's, that's what I left at the
university.
You've talked a lot, a lot of interesting events. Is there anything
special that stands out of your career that you wanted to be sure and
mention to us today? Well, I didn't get fired and I didn't go to jail. So
okay. When the, when the, when the Super Bowl was here, that is an event
that, that probably hastened my going back to the faculty. That was a very
tough, very tough thing to have because you have the NFL that is held in
stadiums that are owned by the owners and this was one of the few times
that was held in a, in a university setting. I don't want to brag. But I
don't think that if I hadn't been the vice president, that probably
wouldn't have happened because you had to do a lot of things without
getting border regions approval. Mhm jim Steeg and I who was the person
from the NFL on a handshake agreed on a half million project at the
stadium with neither one of us knowing where the funding was going to come
from. Exactly. And that's some of the things you had to do because you
couldn't put it out to bed. You couldn't, you know, you had to, you know,
bypass all the bidding procedures and get approval to do that. And it
drove the legal counsel absolutely crazy. But it happened, it came off
there were not any major glitches. We made improvements to Sun Devil
Stadium and I'll tell you how we made the money. I didn't endear myself
with the coaches and the athletic director because we moved everybody off
the 4th and 5th floors over there, the 5th and 6th floors,
all of the offices we cleared out. And this is at the height the
recruiting season and all of this. And, and you must understand that that
they were not happy campers, but we made a half million dollars by selling
those for game day as sweets.
I mean, it's just, it's such a big event that it just boggles the mind.
You know, you could sell those sweets for, for that kind of money. Did you
realize that going in that you would be able to do things like that?
That's what we were hoping. We didn't know if we could or not,
but that's how we got the money for the improvements that we had to have
for, for Sun Devil Stadium.
And you say that hastened you're going back to teaching, you did sort of
leave. I mean, you could have stayed, I suppose. Well I, yes, yeah. I
think it was my choice to to step down. I've been An administration for 20
some years and I I taught a class all those years though I kept my, my
hand in teaching. So I always thought of myself as a teacher on a short
term leave to push some things across the table. And you know, in
retrospect, I probably one reason that I was able to push that envelope
with a little more authority than than somebody else as I had tenure and I
could do those kinds of things. You could put your, you know, here career
on the line and say, hey, if it doesn't work out, I'll go back to the
faculty. So it's, it's a nice thing to have. You know, when you, when you
can do that in administration,
anything that you guys are sitting there thinking I should be asking. I've
learned some things that I was right in the office, some of this stuff
happened. And I haven't told some of these stories
stories, stories, you could probably do another hour and some more stories
, especially down at the legislature. I'm sure there's a lot of skeleton.
You got time for one more Engineering Excellent story.
That was a big thing for free issue. We were trying to promote this
engineering excellence
and we,
we, we just had to have some crucial support in the legislature for it.
And one of the things that I had done when I had taken over as a lobbyist
is that I had made my contacts and and the chairman of our subcommittee on
appropriation was a gentleman by the name of Jack Taylor. Excuse me? And
Jack Taylor was an old whack referee. He was a former mayor of Mesa, but
he was an old whack referee had refereed games for the whack and I found
out that he had never been invited to an A. S. U. Football game.
He was probably the most crucial guy in the legislature as far as our
budgets were concerned. And this was before the days when legislators
could accept tickets
and Jack, can I get a drink? Oh
and so I invited Jack to a football game and I took him down in the front
of the box and I said, Jack, these two seats right here are yours as long
as you want them, just let me know anytime you want to come to a football
game and he will, we'll take care of you.
Well, we got involved in this engineering excellence and they passed a
budget without the engineering excellence money in it because of the U. Of
a strength in the in the legislature. We weren't able to do it, but we got
Jack Taylor and Tony West who were senators over there to agree that we
can try and amend it on the floor.
That's never done. You usually don't do it that way. And
excuse me. And so we we got them to do it. And every time they would bring
it up on the floor to pass it. Tony West would stand up and Jack Taylor
was supporting him. And sane, I've got an amendment I'd like to offer. And
they'd have to close it down because they knew that Tony West had the
votes.
I got called by Burton Barr over to his side of the house and he put me in
a room right next to their caucus,
a dark room and he would leave me in that dark room and he would go to his
caucus and then he would come next door and the conversation went,
something like this.
Brown, you're dead. Don't even show your face around here next year. You
know, you are dead meat. You know, don't even think about coming down here
next year. We will bury you so deep. I mean, only Bar could express
himself like this. And then he would leave me there sitting in the dark
and go next room and visit his caucus and then he would come back in and I
kept telling Mr Barr, there's nothing I can do because I have made
commitments and I will not back off until my people say to back off and
they're not backing off. Anyway, it went like this for two or three days.
And finally, Mr Barr came up with a solution where you gave it to you a
little bit more money, You have a a little bit more money but we got our
engineering excellence money in the base and the other two didn't get it
in the base. And so that was a major, major victory for Arizona State
University. And right after the session, Bert Bar came out to visit us,
which illustrated that we had become players. He had never had to pay
attention to a S. U. Before. And that was the first time that he
recognized that we were players in the process because we stopped the
budget process called.
I may have, there may have been other instances that that has happened.
I'm not aware of them ever stopping it on the floor of the house when the
subcommittee's had agreed to the budget and we did it because Jack Taylor
and Tony West and others took a strong stand.
Mm hmm. An interesting legislative lobby story of how those things work
behind the scenes. Did Burton Barr have allegiance to you? No, Burton Barr
was a in fact Jack Feaster and I are riding a a book on not a buck a
pamphlet on Burton Barr, but
he was one of the legislators that really had the interest of the state at
heart. The reason he didn't pay attention to the issue is that we never
exercised any muscle. He was not necessarily at U. Of a. He played ball
with the U. Of A. And the legislature because they had power and they
exercised it. We had never done that before. I was the first lobbyist for
the university and from what I've heard to the legislature worked
differently back then. Um It wasn't as partisan. Everything that now seems
to be down partisan lines. It's very very partisan now very much more. So
they traded back and forth a lot more. And Burt Barr was was a real
majority leader. Now they don't have the power that he had.
When you started out, you talked about economic planning and development.
Governor Castro state agency. The name frank. Saxton. You you must have
had some strong connection there. Well frank. Okay Frank is a three star
general. He came out and sent somebody, he was working for governor
Williams and he sent somebody out to talk about getting into the program.
And finally he revealed himself that it was him that wanted to come to the
program. So he started in my budgeting class as a student. Okay we got to
the P. B. B. S. That's planning, programming budgeting system. He was a
controller of the army under McNamara and he implemented that program in
the defense department and I was trying to lecture on it. And here was a
guy that had implemented it. So the first semester he took the class from
me the next semester he was my graduate assistant and since then he's
taught the class every year.
So an interesting experience to have him as a student anyway. Well he's a
very gracious individual. He was he was very kind when I started trying to
explain about it.
Very kind. Good questions like that. There's been a history of a issue
written by Mr Thomas went through 1960, Gee Homer wrote a book the
described his era of course from his viewpoint. But there hasn't been
anything written since then. It sounds like you'd be the man.
I really like the stories I may be too close to. Some of them are very
interested in this. They are probably too close to the to the trees, but
somebody should write it. I think one of the tragedies of the centennial,
if I have any little criticism of Russ is that they didn't do a history,
they let it pass without doing a history and they should have done
something. But there was kind of a controversy of
I think Russ wanted a more professional historian to do it and they never
happened.
Do you have any particular dean's or leaders on campus who you consider
visionary? I think, I think Roland Hayden was a very visionary Dean
because he he was the driving force behind the Engineering Excellence. I
just helped get it through the legislature. But without his vision it
wouldn't have happened and that was a very important step for issue. We
got that new building. You know, we started to get in grant money and all
of these things were needed to push us to research one status. And so
without that kind of vision, it wouldn't have happened.
So I think growing Hayden was was crucial person during those those years
and some of the other deans don't ask me to come in.
Well,
you already have another area that it seems like you've gotten a lot of
the recognition, recognition and research statuses through the MArs
research that's been going on. The martian is to mars mars right, space
involved. I wasn't well, I was I was not directly involved sports
activities. Oh, pain, pain, lots of pain and continues to be pain,
lots of pain. Were you involved with kush! I became kush. I took over as
Director of community relations Under kush. No. And kush was a coach in
july and he was fired in october disaster. Okay. Yes. Disaster. I took
over as
assistant vice President. You know, I moved up the ladder a little bit. No
, as vice President. I think I took over as vice President when Winehouse
was fired. That was another unmitigated disaster.
But those stories are too long. Probably for you to tell. There's there
are stories there though, probably almost, yeah, we're actually, we're out
okay. We have to talk about the story another time. I think you're much
too young to beretiring