Forsee to take over Monday

By Elliot Njus

Published Feb. 15, 2008

On Monday, former Sprint Nextel executive Gary Forsee will take the reins of the UM system.

The Board of Curators selected Forsee in December, more than a year after former UM system President Elson Floyd announced his intent to leave MU.

Since then, Forsee has prepared to assume the new position, UM system spokesman Scott Charton said.

“I know he’s been doing a lot of phone calls,” Charton said.

Charton said Forsee had talked to UM system students, faculty and alumni to prepare for the new position, and that he had met with UM system campuses’ student leaders.

He said Forsee attended two meetings of The Missouri 100, the UM system’s advisory group, since the Board of Curators approved him. One was held in conjunction with the January Board of Curators meeting in St. Louis and the other was in Jefferson City. “Scores of lawmakers” attended, Charton said.

He said Forsee is scheduled to speak at the 2008 Governors’ Summit on Regional Economic Development today in Kansas City. Charton said Forsee first developed the two-state conference in 2006 while working for Sprint Nextel.

Forsee will also visit UM-Kansas City today, Charton said.

“He isn’t waiting until Monday to start immersing himself in all of that,” Charton said. “He started that back in early December.”

MU students will have a chance to meet Forsee later this month. From 3 to 5 p.m. Feb. 26, Chancellor Brady Deaton’s office will sponsor a reception for Forsee in Memorial Union’s Stotler Lounge. Charton said Forsee would attend similar events at the other three UM system campuses, but that the dates hadn’t been finalized yet.

Forsee attended his first regular Board of Curators meeting as president-designate Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. Interim UM system President Gordon Lamb addressed the board at his last meeting in the position. He said Board of Curators chairman Don Walsworth had asked him to take the position. He said he told Walsworth he wasn’t suited to “caretaker work.”

“Don said, ‘That’s not what I want.’” he said. “’I want a president of the university. If you’re going to be president, you take over the responsibility and the authority.’”

Lamb’s UM-system career has only included interim positions. From February 1999 to March 2000, he served as interim chancellor at UMKC. Then he worked as a private education consultant until the Board of Curators appointed him interim president.

As interim president, Lamb toured the state to promote the university, formed The Missouri 100 and issued a statement to defend academic research involving somatic cell nuclear transfer, a type of therapeutic cloning.

Lamb said he was confident in the board’s choice for his replacement.

“The board has designated a new leader in Gary Forsee, and I’m excited about that,” Lamb said. “Gary’s going to do a great job. I’ve worked with him somewhat, as we’ve talked about some of the issues, the challenges and the opportunities, and I know that he has a vision for this university that I think is going to be extraordinary.”

Forsee has requested that Lamb return as the UM system’s executive vice president.

Forsee will receive an annual salary of $400,000. Floyd was paid more than $382,000 annually.