Contra Costa Community College District Announces Three Finalists for Chancellor

MARTINEZ, California – The Contra Costa Community College District (District) has announced the selection of three finalists for the position of Chancellor.  The finalists are: Eugene Huff, Dr. Kindred Murillo, and Dr. Fred Wood.

Public forums have been scheduled at each college and the District Office on Monday, October 31, 2016, beginning at 8:30 a.m.  The three finalists will make statements and answer questions from attendees. The public forums will be 50 minutes each and are open to the community, students, faculty and staff.  A detailed schedule of the public forums is available on the District website at www.4cd.edu.

Chancellor Public Forum Schedule

For those who are unable to attend the forums, links to a videotaped public forum will be available on the District website at www.4cd.edu .

The Governing Board will interview all three finalists on November 1, 2016, and conduct additional deliberations as needed. It is anticipated that a public meeting will be scheduled within a couple of weeks following the interviews at which time the Governing Board will take action on the Chancellor search.

Gene Huff has been with the Contra Costa Community College District since 2001. He has served as Executive Vice Chancellor, Administrative Services, since 2013, overseeing the fiscal services, human resources, information technology, police services and risk management areas for the District. He first served as a contract administrator, Vice Chancellor of Human Resources, in 2004 and has been the District’s chief negotiator since that time. Prior to joining the District, Huff worked for Whirlpool Corporation in operations and human resources for eleven years. Huff serves on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors for the Contra Costa County Schools Insurance Group, and chairs the District’s Retirement Board of Authority. He is best known for training and presenting on collective bargaining, and interest-based bargaining in particular, to human resources and other groups for almost a decade. He graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in management.

Dr. Kindred Murillo is a passionate college educator serving for twenty years in the California Community College System. Serving for the past five years as the Superintendent/President of Lake Tahoe Community College, Kindred has worked with the campus and the local community to financially stabilize the college through Measure F, transparent and accountable budgets, and a focus on scheduling for “student access and success.” Before arriving in Tahoe, she served as the Vice Chancellor of Administrative Services for Contra Costa Community College District. Kindred also served as the Vice President of Administrative Services at Pasadena Area Community College District. She was promoted to Vice President of Finance and Administrative Services when Copper Mountain Community College became a separate district. Kindred was hired as an adjunct faculty at Desert Community College District in 1996, served as a full-time faculty member, and moved into college administration in 2000. She brings a unique background to community college with 13 years of business and six years of governmental relations experience. Kindred is a product of the community college system, graduating from Barstow College with a liberal arts degree.  She completed her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at Redlands University and earned a Master of Science in Organization Development and a doctorate in Organizational Leadership at Pepperdine University. Kindred enjoys spending time with her family riding bikes, hiking, and paddle boarding. She loves to read and is an avid seeker of knowledge.

Dr. Fred Wood presently serves as Chancellor at the University of Minnesota Crookston (UMC). UMC, which was a two-year technical college beginning in 1966 and transitioned to a baccalaureate granting institution in 1993, is a work-force focused campus of the U of M system of which half of the degree seeking students are on-campus students and the other half are on-line. UMC offers an experiential learning based curriculum where on-campus students are required to complete an internship and currently offers 14 degrees fully on-line. Chancellor Wood joined UMC after a 26-year career at the University of California, Davis, where he served as vice chancellor of student affairs from 2007 to 2012, leading one of the largest student affairs portfolios in the nation. His career at UC Davis included other leadership positions, as well, such as interim vice provost for undergraduate studies and associate dean of the College of Letters and Science, while concurrently serving as a faculty member in chemistry. He began both his college education and professional career at the community college. Prior to UC Davis, Dr. Wood was a faculty member at North Idaho College and his first teaching assignment during graduate school was at Diablo Valley College. A first-generation college graduate, Chancellor Wood earned an A.A from Diablo Valley College, and B.S. and Ph.D. in chemistry from UC Davis. He is married and has three grown children. He enjoys hiking, biking and skiing with his family.

The Contra Costa Community College District (CCCCD) is one of the largest multi-college community college districts in California. The CCCCD serves a population of 1,019,640 people, and its boundaries encompass all but 48 of the 734-square-mile land area of Contra Costa County. The District is home to Contra Costa College in San Pablo, Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, as well as educational centers in Brentwood and San Ramon. The District headquarters is located in downtown Martinez.