The University of Hawaii has selected four finalists for the director’s position at the embattled UH Cancer Center.

The candidates are scheduled to participate over a two-day period in department discussions, meetings with senior administrators, faculty, staff, students, and internal and external constituents. They also will make public presentations.

UH initiated a search for a permanent director for the financially struggling center in November, a year after its former director, Michele Carbone, stepped down amid growing fiscal concerns. The job posting for the position does not list a salary range. Carbone, who was hired in 2009, earned $412,000 a year as director.

The center’s money troubles stem from a faulty business plan that assumed UH’s share of the state’s cigarette tax would remain steady at roughly $20 million a year to fund operations. But as fewer people smoke, revenue has dropped off.

Under Carbone’s leadership, the center built a $100 million state-of-the-art facility in Kakaako using that business plan, leaving the center with an $8 million annual mortgage payment it can’t afford.

The center has narrowed its operating deficit this year to a projected $5 million shortfall under Dr. Jerris Hedges, dean of the John A. Burns School of Medicine, who has been serving as interim director.

Lawmakers are considering bills that would give the center a larger share of the cigarette tax as well as a new tax on e-cigarettes. UH also has requested a $4 million appropriation.

“The committee did a terrific job in identifying these finalists, and we are fortunate to have such (a) caliber of finalists visiting our campus,” UH Manoa Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman said today. “We invite faculty, staff, students and the public to come out and meet the candidates, and look forward to receiving input that will assist in hiring the best person for the position.”

Campus visits have been scheduled at the UH Cancer Center Sullivan Center:

>> John Cowell, visiting March 28-29

Associate center director for basic sciences, Georgia Regents University Cancer Center

Professor, Department of Pathology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Graduate Studies, MCG School of Medicine

Public Presentation: March 29, 3-4:15 p.m.

>> Anthony Shields, visiting March 31-April 1

Associate center director for clinical sciences, Karmanos Cancer Institute

Professor of Medicine and Oncology, Wayne State University School of Medicine

Public Presentation: April 1, 3-4:15 p.m.

>> Edward Gelmann, visiting April 4-5

Deputy director, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center

Professor of Medicine and Pathology, Columbia University and New York Presbyterian Hospital

Public Presentation: April 5, 3-4:15 p.m.

>> Randall Holcombe, visiting April 7-8

Chief medical officer of Cancer, Mount Sinai Health System

Deputy director, Tisch Cancer Institute

Medical director, Ruttenberg Treatment Center

Director, GI Medical Oncology

Professor, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Public Presentation: April 8, 3-4:15 p.m.

For more information go to manoa.hawaii.edu/executivesearch/uhcc.