Former UC CFO Peter Taylor spoke yesterday at a program
arranged by the UCLA ERRC which took place at the Tamkin auditorium in the
Reagan Hospital. Got enough
abbreviations in that sentence? You know
what UC and UCLA stand for. CFO = Chief
Financial Officer. ERRC = Emeriti/Retirees
Relations Center. Since Taylor is now
the former CFO, he was freer to talk than when he was an UC exec. Probably, his most frank remarks involved his
opinion of fossil fuel (and other) divestment movements.
You could say that having resigned as CFO, he no longer has to hold his
views on that topic close to divest. :)
Taylor said that the Regents should just focus on the return on their money and avoid
“social” and “political” considerations.
The Regents have yet to act on the fossil fuel issue. But they previously divested from tobacco and
guns. Taylor was quite critical of the
tobacco divestment in particular. His
remarks came about during the question and answer period. Yours truly admits to asking the divestment
question that triggered the remarks.
Audio of the full talk (about 1 hour) is at
The divestment excerpt (about 6 minutes) is at:
We’ll see how the Regents react to these views at their next
meeting in July.
PS: You likely did not know that there was a fancy auditorium
in the Reagan Hospital. Now you do - and
you can add it to the list of alternatives to constructing a Grand
Hotel/conference center on the grounds that there is not enough capacity on
campus to hold conferences and meetings.
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