A committee charged with the search for a new president of the University of Hawai'i system is operating under a tight timetable, with President David McClain expected to leave the post at the end of July.

Donna Tanoue, vice chairwoman of Bank of Hawaii and chairwoman of UH's selection advisory committee, said the group wants to begin evaluating potential candidates by Feb. 20 and have a new president installed by the time McClain leaves office.

But Tanoue admits that it's likely that a new president may not be found by the time McClain's term ends July 30.

"When you start to work backwards on the time frame, we're actually under a really tight schedule," she said.

"The regents want to name someone by the time (McClain) goes on sabbatical. ... It all depends on the caliber of the candidate pool. This is the timeline that we're working under but it is possible that the search could take longer. It depends, again, on the candidate pool that we see in February," she said.

McClain has made it clear that he has no intention of staying on past the end of his term. After serving two years as interim president of the 10-campus UH system, McClain in 2006 was asked by the UH Board of Regents to be the permanent president. However, he committed to just three years.

The new president will inherit a public higher education system facing record enrollment in the midst of some of the most severe budget cuts in recent memory. The new president will also have to oversee the building of the new UH-West O'ahu campus, though officials are unclear on where the state will the get money to construct it. And, he or she will also have to be able to interact with constituents from 10 campuses, dozens of lawmakers and the governor.

"One of the common things we've heard is people want someone with very strong management skills and strong communication and interpersonal skills," Tanoue said. "The president has to work with so many different constituencies."

The committee is expected to finish work on its search criteria within the next few weeks.

If a new president is not found by the end of July, "a lot of things are possible," including naming an interim president, said Al Landon, chairman of the Board of Regents.

"I think we've got lots of flexibility," Landon said.

Virginia Hinshaw, chancellor of the UH-Manoa campus, said the timetable for finding a new president is tight, but not impossible.

"Personally, I've always moved fairly quickly after accepting a job offer," she said, adding that she arrived at UH-Manoa just about four months after she was offered the job.

Tanoue said the search committee has made progress since it began meeting in November. National search firm Storbeck Pimentel & Associates has been working with the university for several weeks. Advertisements in local and national publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education will start running soon. And a series of meetings seeking public input on the search criteria are wrapping up.