McTeer is confirmed A&M System chancellor
By BRETT NAUMAN
Bryan-College Station Eagle
November 5, 2004
The board unanimously voted to install Robert McTeer during a meeting conducted by telephone at the Memorial Student Center. Two of the nine regents, Lionel Sosa and Susan Rudd Bailey, did not participate.
Regents selected McTeer last month as the sole finalist for the post. By law, the board had to wait 21 days before it could offer McTeer the position.
McTeer, who had led the Dallas Fed since 1991, resigned that post Thursday to begin overseeing the A&M System’s nine universities, seven state agencies and Health Science Center.
“I’m basically through here today. I just haven’t cleaned out my desk,” McTeer said Thursday from his Dallas office, adding that it feels strange to end his 36-year-career with the Federal Reserve.
Regents also hired Elsa Murano to take over as vice chancellor and dean of agriculture and life sciences and director of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. She replaces Ed Hiler, who is retiring.
McTeer, 62, replaces the late Howard Graves, who retired in August 2003 while battling cancer. Benton Cocanougher, former dean of the Mays Business School at A&M, had served as interim chancellor until McTeer’s hiring.
While the hiring is effective Thursday, McTeer will not begin working full time at system headquarters in College Station until Nov. 10, he said, adding that he would come to town Friday to meet with employees and attend Saturday’s football game.
Regents approved a contract that will pay McTeer a $450,000 annual salary. Additional salary and benefits will be finalized in the next month, said Ann Kellett, acting system spokeswoman.
Mark Yudof, chancellor of the University of Texas System, makes a base salary of about $468,000 a year, with an additional salary of about $175,000 coming from gift, grants and endowment funds, UT System officials said.
Graves was paid $400,000 a year in his final year as chancellor, with another $100,000 in salary coming from institutional funds, such as gifts, grants and endowments, Kellett said.
In the three weeks since regents selected him as their finalist for the chancellor’s post, McTeer has visited all but one of the nine university campuses, he said.
“I’ve been meeting with people and trying to get comfortable with them and letting them get comfortable with me,” McTeer said. “I’m finding out all kinds of new things.”
Regents Chairman Lowry Mays said he was impressed by the fact McTeer has started meeting system employees.
“He’s already hit the ground running, anticipating we would formalize his hiring,” Mays said. “I think Dr. McTeer will be a strong leader for this system and I look forward to working with him.”
McTeer said he has not had time to evaluate any changes needed at the system level but that he doesn’t “have any reason to think there’s anything terribly broken.
“We’ve got good people at the top,” he said.
Brett Nauman’s e-mail address is bnauman@theeagle.com.
Reprinted with permission of Bryan-College Station Eagle