By Alec Rosenberg

Law firm partner, city attorney, farmer. Dan Dooley doesn't have a typical background for a university administrator.

Yet with his broad experience, leadership and consensus-building approach, Dooley fits right in as the University of California's new vice president of Agriculture and Natural Resources -- a division with nearly 1,000 faculty, specialists and advisors and an annual budget of $300 million.

"Dooley's expertise in the complexities of farm practices and policies should serve the region well," wrote the Fresno Bee in an editorial. "UC has made a good choice to help prepare students and professors to meet unprecedented challenges of balancing air quality, water quality, supply issues and global warming."

With the state facing a $14.5 billion deficit, addressing the budget is an immediate challenge. But Dooley is also focused on the future. His priorities include developing a long-term plan for ANR, increasing advocacy efforts for its county-based personnel and optimizing the relationship with ANR and the three agricultural campuses of UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC Riverside.

An early riser, Dooley got an early start on his new job, which officially began Jan. 2. The week after his Nov. 15 appointment by the UC Board of Regents, he met with staff in Oakland. Over the next several weeks he held more than 30 interviews with people in the state from farm advisors to chancellor. The sessions gave him valuable feedback.

"It validated a lot of my thinking," Dooley said. "There seems to be a lot of energy and excitement about taking a fresh look at what we do."

As a farmer and attorney, Dooley has been on the receiving end of ANR's services, which range from campus-based researchers to county-based farm, 4-H and nutrition advisors.

As ANR's vice president, Dooley wants to enhance the connection between research and real-world problems.

"We need to find ways to connect the science to the needs of real people," Dooley said.

Increasing grassroots advocacy efforts, for example, should help show the public the significance of the Cooperative Extension, he said.

Dooley also wants to enhance collaboration between ANR and the campuses with more projects such as UC's efforts to address Pierce's disease, a fatal bacterial infestation of grapevines that has threatened California's wine industry.

"This division brokered a multicampus collaboration," Dooley said. "We need to look for more opportunities. ... The opportunities in bioenergy are enormous."

Dooley is in the process of talking with stakeholders inside and outside the UC system from county-based personnel to the college agricultural deans at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC Riverside to UC Office of the President leadership and the natural resources community.

"Dan Dooley's leadership and experience will help reinvigorate this relationship between California agriculture and the University of California," Provost Wyatt R. Hume said.

Dooley hopes to develop long-term plans over the next few months.

"My style is to engage with people and get as much information as possible and try to synthesize that information into a cohesive strategy," Dooley said.

Dooley himself has had a long relationship with UC and the agricultural community. He has served on numerous boards and committees, including the California Water Commission, UC President's Advisory Commission on Agriculture and Natural Resources, the UC Agricultural Issues Center's advisory board, and the U.S. Trade Representative's Agricultural Technical Advisory Committee for Trade.

Dooley, who is married with two adult daughters, most recently was a partner in Dooley, Herr and Peltzer, a Visalia-based law firm emphasizing agricultural, environmental, business and water rights law. He also served as Visalia city attorney and from 1980-2002 was a partner in family-owned Dooley Farms in the San Joaquin Valley. Previously, he was chief deputy director of the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

And now he is following in the footsteps of another Hanford High School graduate, W.R. Gomes, who retired as ANR vice president in 2007 after 11 years of service.

"I was interested in looking for a new challenge," Dooley said.

Alec Rosenberg is content coordinator in UCOP Strategic Communications.