Following a nearly yearlong search, the University of Hawaii has identified two finalists in the running to be the next president of the 10-campus system: the university’s longtime information technology executive, who is serving as interim president, and the retired commanding general of the U.S. Army Pacific.

The Board of Regents’ presidential selection committee, which first began meeting in June, recommended the finalists — David Lassner and retired Lt. Gen. Francis Wiercinski — to the full board at a special meeting Thursday.

Neither of the candidates attended the meeting on the UH-Manoa campus, but Regents Chairman John Holzman spoke highly of both men.

"He’s been a highly successful leader of one of largest and most complex organizations in our country,"Holzman said of Wiercinski. "He has enormous capacities as a leader, as a manager, as a communicator."

He said Lassner, meanwhile, has "had a very, very successful career at the university. He’s done well as interim president. He’s collaborative, he’s open, he loves Hawaii, he’s been here a long time, knows our state."

Before the candidates were announced, several students and a new regent who has yet to join the board urged the board Thursday to hold off on hiring a new president until after the semester to give student and faculty groups more time to research the finalists and engage in meaningful dialogue.

"The board must never allow the faculty and students to be disenfranchised in providing input in any critical UH decision," said Stanford Yuen, whose appointed term on the Board of Regents starts in July.

Yuen, an engineering consultant and former special assistant to the Navy, added that the search committee didn’t fulfill its original plan to come up with a shortlist of five or six candidates.

The presidential selection committee voted in late January to conduct the search itself, without the help of an outside consultant or executive search firm. The group had said it would provide at least five candidates to the board, but UH said some candidates chose to withdraw from the process because finalists would be made public and invited to make campus visits.

Holzman said a potential finalist dropped out because Lassner, as the incumbent, is believed to have an advantage.

Four university students also asked the board to delay a hiring.

"Right now I don’t think a lot of the student body … are aware of what’s upcoming from the Board of Regents," said UH-Manoa senior Claire Yakabe. "Their focus right now is on finals."

But Maenette Ah Nee-Benham, dean of the Hawai’inuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge at Manoa and a nonvoting member of the presidential selection committee, urged the regents to move forward.

"I have to honor the comments made by the students and by soon-to-be-regent Yuen about time, but I would also like to urge you to move forward because we are in deep need of having leadership to help us take us into this 21st century and meet this transformational opportunity that we have right now," she said.

Holzman said the board expects to make a decision in the first half of June and that students and faculty will have opportunities to engage with the candidates.

"This was a long process. … So now we’re down to the finalists, and we appreciate their need to want to hear about them, and before the end of the academic (year), we’ve going to make every effort to provide them with an opportunity to hear the candidates, to get to know them and, we hope, provide feedback to us,"Holzman said.

He said the regents discussed in executive session the possibility of reopening the search process to attract more candidates, but concluded, "We’re pretty comfortable where we are. We have two people to choose from, and they’re both very, very good."

Lassner, who has worked at UH since 1977, is considered a stronger candidate within the university community because of his seniority and ability to get along with others.

He was tapped to serve as interim president last summer and assumed the post in September after former President M.R.C. Greenwood announced she was retiring to spend more time with family and deal with health problems, leaving with nearly two years still on her contract.

Greenwood’s departure came about a year after UH became embroiled in the so-called "Wonder Blunder," a botched Stevie Wonder concert that tarnished public confidence in the university.

Lassner is credited with helping smooth over relations with lawmakers, who took UH to task over the concert fiasco.

For example, he helped UH secure big-ticket items in its budget request at the Legislature this year, including controversial construction projects and more than $30 million for faculty pay increases and salary restorations.

With the interim appointment, Lassner received about a 30 percent salary boost to $325,008 a year — less than the $475,000 salary Greenwood was paid at her hiring in 2009.

Wiercinski is seen as an unconventional candidate, given his purely military background.

But some regents during the search process expressed a desire to consider candidates outside academia, including business and military executives. The search group also sought a leader with close ties to Hawaii.

"He, like David, although he hasn’t had a firsthand opportunity to be in higher education in Hawaii, is passionate about higher education in Hawaii and feels strongly that the future of this state is absolutely linked to the success the university has in educating our children,"Holzman said.