SUNY-Stony Brook Official Named Head of Finance, Administration
Posted on Oct. 23, 2006Richard Mann, vice president for administration at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has been named Carolina’s new vice chancellor for finance and administration.
The UNC Board of Trustees approved Mann’s appointment, effective Nov. 27, via a mail ballot. He will succeed David R. Perry, the interim vice chancellor since July following Nancy Suttenfield’s move to Wake Forest University.
“Richard Mann has a tremendous reservoir of higher education and business experience that will bear directly on some of the most important administrative challenges facing Carolina today,” said Chancellor James Moeser. “He is smart, savvy and exceptionally well-qualified to assume a major leadership role at a time when we are working hard to make excellent progress toward the University’s strategic priorities.”
The chancellor emphasized Mann’s 36 years of experience in financial affiliate program and information technology. He has held comparable jobs at SUNY-Stony Brook and the University of Kansas since 1976 and oversaw a multi-campus administrative information system at the University of Illinois.
Moeser said that Mann’s experience correlated directly with key opportunities facing UNC: completion of an ambitious capital construction program, the development of Carolina North, the enterprise resources planning process, participation in the Advisory Committee on Efficiency and Effectiveness (PACE) initiated by UNC President Erskine Bowles ’67, and enhanced town-gown relations.
Mann has helped oversee enterprise resource planning efforts – which combine to help a university effectively integrate and manage administrative data and business systems – on two different campuses. UNC is in the early months of that multi-year process and at the stage of evaluating proposals from software vendors.
Mann’s candidacy resulted from a national search conducted by a committee chaired by Dr. William Roper, vice chancellor for medical affairs, dean of UNC’s School of Medicine and chief executive officer of the UNC Health Care System.
Moeser said Perry would remain with the administration through next May to help with the transition and continue coordinating the campus response to PACE.
As vice chancellor for finance and administration, Mann will serve as the University’s principal finance and business officer and report directly to the chancellor. Duties include oversight of financial planning, budgeting and management; facilities planning, construction and operations; human resources; and general accounting. UNC’s total operating budget is about $2.2 billion.
At Stony Brook, Mann was responsible for an annual budget of $1.3 billion at a campus with more than 13,000 employees and 22,000-plus students, as well as fiscal and administrative operations, capital construction, a health sciences center and a hospital.
He played a key role in the university’s efforts to create a research and development campus and worked with legislative and community officials to negotiate a 50-acre gift from the Town of Riverhead to build a business incubator to promote economic development. He helped lead efforts to purchase an 81-acre campus from Long Island University and establish an academic presence in Manhattan.
Mann was a member of a university team awarded the contract to manage the Brookhaven National Laboratory, one of 10 national laboratories funded by the federal government. It conducts research in the physical, biomedical and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security.
In addition, Mann was the executive sponsor for the campus administrative information technology systems in human resources and finance and was involved in the work for the student system. He served on State University of New York system steering committees evaluating new information systems. He also advised the president on university hospital issues.
Before coming to Stony Brook in 1997, Mann was university director of administration at the University of Kansas, where he reported to the chancellor, the senior administrative and financial officer for the Lawrence campus and medical center campuses in Kansas City and Wichita. His duties there from 1993 to 1996 included managing business and fiscal affairs, information technology, human resources, institutional research, police and facilities management. He was also involved in a wide range of areas including endowment business, real estate, athletic finances related to NCAA certification review and hospital governance.
Mann was the university’s director of information resources from 1976 to 1993, serving as the senior information technology, human resources and planning officer for the university, as well as chief information officer for the university hospital.
Previously, he was director of the University Office of Management Information Systems at the University of Illinois system for six years.
Mann has held leadership positions in national professional organizations including EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association that promotes the intelligent use of information technology in higher education. He was on that group’s board of directors and vice president. He has taught business, information technology and higher education administration courses at every degree level.
Mann graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business management from Long Island University and a master’s degree in industrial administration from Purdue University. He earned a doctoral degree in higher education administration from the University of Illinois.
