Gureghian named to two boards

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Vahan H. Gureghian, a lawyer, Republican fund-raiser and Delaware County charter school chief executive, was named to the University of Pennsylvania board of trustees and the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority Board.

The two-year appointments were made by Pennsylvania House Minority Leader Samuel H. Smith (R., Jefferson) this month. Both positions are unpaid.

Gureghian is CEO of Chester Community Charter School, the state's largest charter school. He has been a political player in Delaware County, where he used to live, and in Montgomery County, where in June he became finance chair of the county Republican Committee.

He and his wife, Danielle, have contributed $763,929 to candidates and committees since January 2000, mostly to Republican efforts, records show.

At Penn, Gureghian becomes one of four state-appointed trustees on the 62-member board, which met in Philadelphia yesterday.

The four minority and majority leaders of the Pennsylvania Senate and House were given the appointments in 1994 as a condition of Penn's continuing to receive state funds for its veterinary school and other projects.

This year, Penn received $47.1 million from the commonwealth, the vast majority of which went to the School of Veterinary Medicine, Penn officials said.

State appointees currently serving on the Penn board in addition to Gureghian are Mark Alderman, a lawyer and chairman of Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen L.L.P., appointed in May 2007, and Robert A. Gleason Jr., chairman and CEO of Gleason Inc. of Johnstown and a member since 1998.

The fourth slot is vacant following the resignation in December of Lisa Crutchfield, who moved out of state. That seat will be filled by an appointment from the Senate minority leader.

The Philadelphia port authority is a state agency responsible for operating and developing the Philadelphia port area.

Chester Community Charter - with 2,350 students in kindergarten through eighth grade - enrolls almost half the Chester Upland School District's elementary and middle school students and is larger than half the school districts in Pennsylvania.

In December, The Inquirer reported that Gureghian and his company, Charter School Management Inc., were being paid $14 million in salaries and rent by the school this school year. That brings the total he has received since he began running the school in 1999 to $60.6 million, according to school records submitted to the state.

In January, Gureghian filed a lawsuit against The Inquirer, alleging that failed business talks between him and publisher Brian P. Tierney motivated the articles. The suit claimed that the stories made false, misleading and defamatory statements about the charter school and Gureghian.

William K. Marimow, editor of The Inquirer, defended its coverage, which included three stories and an editorial, and said it had nothing to do with any dealings Tierney might have had with anyone.

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