The ISU Foundation has named an interim president and has begun a search for a permanent replacement.

The search began after President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Mitchell said he would be leaving for the University of California-Irvine, said John Lawson, Foundation Board chairman.

Interim position

As of June 1, Peg Armstrong-Gustafson’s new full-time job is interim CEO and President of the foundation.

Before being named to the position, Armstrong-Gustafson was active in the Foundation in several different ways. She began as one of the 150 Governors who are “ISU alumni and friends serving lifetime appointments as volunteers and advocates,” according to the Foundation fact sheet. She also served as the investment committee chair and on the Foundation board.

However, her first experience with the Foundation was as a donor. She and her husband worked with the foundation to create the LuVern Gustafson Scholarship to be given to an agriculture student in honor of her husband’s father.

Armstrong-Gustafson does not expect serving as CEO of the foundation to be much different than serving as CEO of the company she and her husband started, Amson Technology.

The main difference is that there are “just a lot more people,” she said. The primary focus will still be on the customers – students, faculty and employees of Iowa State and all of the “surrounding concentric stake-holders,” Armstrong-Gustafson said.

The people are the best part of her interim position, she said. She is looking forward to meeting the people she’ll be working with and learning from, as well as the students. She wants to “listen to stories” of the students, the parents and the many investors and find out “why they’re so passionate” about Iowa State. Armstrong-Gustafson feels outreach is important.

In August, she plans to meet with students “when all the energy returns to campus.”

The foundation serves as the “steward” for a “long-term vision,” she said. Armstrong-Gustafson is looking forward to being able to “meet the vision and mission of the foundation.”

The only other true downside would be the “rigor of the detail,” but she’s confident that she’ll adapt.

Most of it will be fun, Armstrong-Gustafson said.

“The challenge will be to learn,” she said.

Armstrong-Gustafson is active in community and state activities, Lawson said, and “very involved in Iowa State.”

A permanent replacement

The search for a new president and CEO is headed up by an 11-member committee spilt between volunteers and those connected to the administration, Lawson said.

Co-chairing the committee are College of Agriculture Dean Catherine Woteki and local businessman Roger Underwood.

The search committee has decided on job specifications and finalized the advertisement for the job.

According to the duties and responsibilities outlined by the board, “The president’s responsibilities fall into three general categories: leadership of the Foundation enterprise, personal participation in fund raising and the management of Foundation assets.”

The committee has also enlisted the help of Dennis Barden of EMN/Witt/Kieffer, a search firm, Lawson said. The foundation has worked with the firm before, he said.

It is the committee’s job to narrow down the field to six to eight individuals to be interviewed.

The top two or three finalists will be narrowed down to one by the ISU Foundation Board of Directors, Lawson said.

The committee is planning to meet on June 24 to “review candidates that have submitted credentials,” Woteki said.

If applications are submitted later than that date, the committee is willing to consider them, she said.

Lawson hopes to have a successor in place by Labor Day. However, he suspects the new president will be in place sometime in November.

The position should attract individuals from smaller schools in similar development and fund-raising positions, Lawson said.

The position is also a move up for those in senior development positions in larger schools. Yet, the foundation “could very well get other types of people” applying for the position, Lawson said.