Regents select Atlanta firm to assist with presidential search

The Northwest Missouri State University Board of Regents has selected an Atlanta, Ga., search firm to assist in recruiting the University’s tenth president.

Board President James W. “Bill” Loch announced early this week that Jon McRae & Associates Inc. has been retained to assist the regents and a local search committee in finding candidates and hiring a new president.

Northwest’s current president, Dr. Dean L. Hubbard, will retire July 31, 2009, after serving 25 years as Northwest’s chief executive.

“We have an agreement with the firm pending a signed contract which we expect by mid-week,” Loch said, explaining that the regents interviewed three firms in early November.

“They (the firms) represented a vast area of the United States, from Florida to Chicago to Washington D.C.,” Loch said. “The board was faced with a difficult decision at the end.”

“The first and second phases of the succession plan have now been completed (naming a search committee and hiring a firm).” Loch said. “Our search partner, Jon McRae & Associates, will provide the professionalism and guidance our process will require in the months ahead. I believe the committee will be comfortable with our search firm selection.”

Among other tasks, Jon McRae & Associates will gather input from the campus search committee and others involved in the process, manage advertising, screen candidates, set up interviews and arrange campus visits.

“We are working with a framework of 26 weeks,” Loch said. “Our target is to have a president named by the end of this coming April.”

Judith Lunsford, a spokeswoman for Jon McRae & Associates, said the firm was established in 1968 and focuses on presidential searches conducted by colleges and universities and non-profit organizations connected to higher education.

“We are delighted to be working with Northwest. The University is widely known and respected,” Lunsford said.

She said her firm will place advertising in national publications, such as “The Chronicle of Higher Education,” and on various Web sites. It will also use professional connections with individuals across the country to seek candidates.

“Our senior staff members have extensive lists of contacts,” Lunsford said.

Kenny Daugherty, a senior vice president for the firm, will head a four-person Jon McRae & Associates team that will work with Northwest during the search and hiring process, Lunsford said. She and Loch said firm representatives will meet soon with the regents and the search committee, perhaps before the start of the University’s holiday break.

For more information, please contact:

Mary Ann Lowary
Vice President for University Relations
Phone 660.562.1119
Fax 660.562.1900

Northwest Missouri State University
219 Administration Building,
800 University Drive
Maryville, MO 64468

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