Gov. Neil Abercrombie has named four nominees to serve on the University of Hawaii Board of Regents and fill vacancies triggered by the state’s new financial disclosure law.
The interim appointments are effective immediately but still require confirmation by the state Senate.
Abercrombie selected the following individuals from a pool of candidates recommended by the UH Candidate Advisory Council:
» Retired Hawaii Supreme Court Associate Justice Simeon Acoba Jr. will fill a Honolulu seat on the board.
Acoba, who earlier this year turned 70, the mandatory retirement age for judges, will serve out the remaining three years of former regent John Dean’s term.
Before being appointed to the high court in 2000, Acoba was an associate judge on the Intermediate Court of Appeals and a circuit judge before that. He now lectures at UH’s William S. Richardson School of Law.
Acoba earned his law degree from the Northwestern University School of Law.
» Peter Hoffman, a former Hawaii County Council member and retired Army colonel, will fill a Hawaii County seat on the board.
He will serve out the remainder of former regent Carl Carlson’s term, which runs through June 2016.
Hoffman served on the Hawaii County Council from 2004 to 2012, representing North and South Kohala. He previously served in the Military Intelligence Corps.
He holds a master’s degree in history from New York University.
» Helen Nielsen, a field representative for U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, will assume the board’s Maui seat. She will serve out the remaining year of former regent Saedene Ota’s term.
Nielsen co-owns and manages commercial properties on Maui and Hawaii island, and was a founder of the Maui Coastal Land Trust. She studied business at Kingsborough Community College and Pace University in New York.
» Dr. Dileep Bal, the state Health Department’s district health officer for Kauai, will fill the board’s Kauai seat and serve out the remainder of former regent Tom Shigemoto’s term, which runs through June 2017.
Bal has been with the state Department of Health since 2005. He previously worked as chief of the Cancer Control Branch within California’s Department of Health Services.
He holds graduate degrees in public health from Columbia and Harvard.
"With backgrounds in law, health, the military and environmental sustainability, these appointees bring a diverse spectrum of leadership to the University of Hawaii," Abercrombie said in a statement. "They each have a proven record of success in their respective fields of expertise and will help guide the university to a new level of excellence."
The four former regents resigned over the summer, citing privacy concerns tied to a new state law that added members of the Board of Regents to the list of public officials whose financial interests are disclosed to the public.
New board members are required to file the financial disclosure statements with the state Ethics Commission within 30 days of appointment.
