Boards Of Directors

Businessmen Timothy Ashcroft, William Ellermeyer and Brian Schraff have been appointed to the Volunteer Center of Greater Orange County's board of directors. The members will serve two-year terms. The center, founded in 1958, serves more than 2,000 Orange County nonprofit agencies, schools, businesses, civic and community organizations. It coordinates more than 52,000 volunteers annually. Ashcroft is a human resource director for QLogic.

Despite a new law imposing the state's strictest limit on political contributions, some members of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's board of directors continue to accept contributions from lobbyists and contractors who do business with Los Angeles County's transit agency.

20th Century Industries is battling attempts by its largest investor to oust most of the insurance company's board of directors. American International Group Inc., which owns 51% of the Woodland Hills-based insurer and occupies two appointed seats on the 10-member board, demanded earlier this week that 20th Century call a special meeting to replace the other directors and increase New York-based AIG's representation.

Stanley M. Burke, a member of the board of directors of 20th Century Industries since 1982, has announced his retirement from the board. Burke, 62, a certified public accountant, served on several key committees, including audit and shareholder relations. The board will hold a special directors meeting to elect a new board member. Woodland Hills-based 20th Century Industries is the eighth-largest publicly held personal automobile insurer in the U.S.

Walt Disney Co. said it elected Judith Estrin, chief technology officer at Cisco Systems Inc., to the board of the world's second-largest entertainment company. Estrin, 43, oversees strategic technology planning, investments, acquisitions and Internet projects for San Jose-based Cisco, the nation's largest maker of equipment that links computers to the Internet. The appointment comes a week after Disney agreed to buy 43% of Infoseek Corp.

The custodians of the nation's largest public pension fund travel the world. To England, Japan and Australia. To Finland, Italy, Poland and France. And across the USA. But trips by trustees of the California Public Employees Retirement System, which controls $128 billion in assets, are often underwritten by those who do business with the fund, prompting questions about the independence of the board members.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. said it named film director and producer Francis Ford Coppola, whose credits include the "Godfather" trilogy, to its board. The addition of Coppola gives the board nine members. Coppola had been a director of MGM before its acquisition in 1996 by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, who controls about 64% of the company. Coppola, 58, is a five-time Academy Award winner as a director, writer and producer. He won his first Oscar for co-writing the screenplay for the film "Patton."

It may not make most people's list of dream jobs, but joining the board of directors of El Segundo-based Unocal Corp. can be a nice gig. A study by an executive search firm that specializes in the oil industry found that Unocal's directors, at nearly $64,000 a year, are among the best paid in the industry. But energy company directors in general made less than directors from other industries.

Valley College recently added seven members to the board of directors of its patrons association in an effort to diversify the panel. School officials hope the new members will use their diverse professional backgrounds and experiences to improve the school. "Diversity is definitely a key in selecting board members," said Dennis Reed, dean of the association. "This group will guide the school in the right direction."