Members of the state Board of Regents announced Gregory Geoffroy as the 14th president of Iowa State Tuesday night. The decision came after more than 12 hours of deliberation in the West Des Moines University Park Holiday Inn.Geoffroy is senior vice president for Academic Affairs and provost at the University of Maryland, College Park. He will take the office of president July 1 with a salary of $275,000 in addition to moving expenses, fringe benefits and residency in the Knoll. Geoffroy will also be granted full professorship with tenure in the chemistry department.”I’m just delighted to have this opportunity to lead this wonderful university,” Geoffroy said. “I’m really glad that the board has the confidence in me to choose me for this position, and I look forward to joining you this summer.”The board began interviewing each of the four finalists at 8 a.m. Monday. The other three were Sharon Stephens Brehm, provost of Ohio University; Cora Bagley Marrett, senior vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and provost at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and James Melsa, dean of engineering at Iowa State.Board of Regents President Owen Newlin said the regents chose Geoffroy for his experience with academics at land-grant universities.”Dr. Geoffroy has experience as a professor, a department head, a dean, a provost and an acting president,” Newlin said. “Some of this experience occurred at two different land-grant institutions, so he understands the complexities of the land-grant university.”The ISU Presidential Search Committee provided opinions on each of the candidates to assist the Board of Regents’ decision, said Benjamin Allen, chairman of the committee and dean of the College of Business.”We are very pleased to have Dr. Geoffroy,” he said. “We had a strong set of finalists, and we thought we couldn’t go wrong.”Geoffroy was also one of three presidential finalists at University of Kentucky at Lexington. He called Kentucky before the formal announcement to inform them of his acceptance of Iowa State’s offer. The Kentucky board was to vote on their new president tonight.George Herring, member of Kentucky’s presidential search committee, said Geoffroy was his favorite candidate for the position on Monday.”I think he is a very strong candidate,” Herring said. “I hope you don’t take him and we do.”Geoffrey said he picked Iowa State over Kentucky because of the people he met while visiting the campus and because of his scientific background.”Both are fine universities, and I just think that Iowa State is a better match for my own background and interests,” he said. “As you know, I’m a scientist, and Iowa State has great strength in the sciences and technology, and it just felt right.”