Dr. Alan Merten ______

Dr. Alan Merten _________________ The Amplification of Impact Upon taking the helm as the fifth president the Air Force Data Services Center, then as a of George Mason University in 1996, Dr. Alan military aid to President Johnson. Later he would Merten contemplated the many successes of his take on more responsibility, working in the White predecessor, Dr. George Johnson. Prior to Dr. House as a social aid. Over three years these Johnson, Mason had already seen three presidents fascinating and demanding positions led him to in just six years of existence as an institution become friends with Brian Lamb, founder and independent from the University of Virginia. Over Chief Executive of CSPAN; Edward Mathias, his subsequent 18-year tenure, Dr. Johnson Managing Director of the Carlyle Group; and cultivated an environment of what Alan describes others. as “academic and institutional entrepreneurship”, “Not much more can be said about my bringing the university to the brink of the 21st time at the Pentagon and the White house other century as a leading institution in northern than that it was a great experience, unlike any Virginia, known for feeding top other I have had,” he says. “But while candidates into the science, working there I found myself getting business and technology sectors in more and more interested in various that region and beyond. aspects of computer science and Alan's challenge was now statistics.” Following his four years in to take Mason to the next level. the Air Force, Alan returned to school, “Dr. Johnson's approach starting a PhD program in computer had created a situation where any science at the University of Wisconsin. flower could bloom,” Alan While academic life as a career remembers today. “He created the path was not something he had entrepreneurial George Mason planned on, it became possible as he University, and we had to keep finished his PhD studies. Considering that spirit, but we also had to career options such as computer create a certain order out if it.” vendors, research groups and defense Alan asked himself not just, “How do we contractors, he ultimately chose academia and took survive?” but, “How do we thrive?” an offer from the University of Michigan to teach In 1996, Mason had approximately 21 there in Engineering and Management. It was not thousand students. As of 2011 that number has long after that he made the decision to take on grown to over 32 thousand, and the number of more academic administration responsibilities, applicants continues to rise steadily each year. becoming an Associate Dean for Executive During Alan's tenure the university has built over Programs at Michigan. After being at Michigan for twenty buildings across three campuses, and $5 sixteen years, he became dean of the business million in sponsored research has grown to $120 school at the University of Florida for three, then million. “It's a different place,” Alan allows today. accepted a similar position at Cornell for seven. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, With mounting experience in higher Alan earned his undergraduate degree in education administration, Alan came to a point mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, where where he found he had to decide whether to go he was Air Force ROTC. After graduating, his first back to the faculty, or to take the natural next step assignment in the Air Force was to obtain a in his career as an administrator to become a master's degree in computer science from Stanford. university president. The decision would soon Armed with this degree and still in his early become much easier, as opportunity knocked in twenties, he was first assigned to the Pentagon in the form of a search firm looking to fill the Dr. Alan Merten presidency of George Mason University. grow the university with uncertain support from “It was exciting,” he says. “I got involved the state assembly and governor, and how to in the Mason search, and as I went through the enhance the university's capacity for high-quality process it became clear to me that it was something research. I wanted to pursue... And that became possible.” Despite these innumerable responsibilities, Alan quickly realized that he was well- Alan is committed to being remarkably present in suited to the position. The search firm initially the lives of students, faculty, administrators, and showed interest in him due to his background in university staff. In addition to understanding all computer science and his experience as a business aspects of a modern university, even those various school professor and dean. Together, these aspects that may differ from the academic features made him a perfect fit for the northern programs he has experienced himself, Alan Virginia environment and particularly Mason, stresses that a university president must also have with its reputation for producing highly qualified an appreciation for the interests and demands of individuals in science and business who often the students and for the communities that the found great success in Washington and beyond. university is a part of. “And that appreciation Further, Alan had government and military- must be genuine,” he adds. Those individuals related experience even beyond his time in the Air who become academic administrators without that Force from consulting for the military and other appreciation, who may try to fake it—those people government bodies during his time as a professor. will have failures.” As the process progressed through the end The students at George Mason love that of 1995 and into 1996, and the number of finalists Alan is so visible. He models this leadership narrowed to ten and then four, Alan became quality after a central theme of a particularly confident that his academic background was influential book in his life entitled, In Search of consistent with the needs of the next level of Excellence, by Tom Peters and Robert H. George Mason University. “I had already begun to Waterman, Jr. To Alan, it is of the utmost feel the synergy between what I wanted to do and importance to be visible among the students, to what George Mason and the greater Washington talk to the students, to listen to the students, and to area had to offer,” he says. In June of 1996, George be a part of their lives, with them an integral part W. Johnson retired after eighteen years as of his in return. To this end, he participates in the University President, and Alan was inaugurated two-day-long freshman move-in every year, the following month. introducing himself to parents and students alike, Now, for President Merten, there is no and he relishes their reactions. He attends as such thing as a normal day. Indeed, every day, many basketball games as he can, both home and every hour looks different from the one preceding away, and as he sits at half court with his wife, a it. He describes his job by saying, “I am stadium of raucous students will regularly chant responsible for a $900 million organization every his name. year. With an approximately $700 million Though many academic professionals have operating budget, and a slightly less than $200 to learn the importance of such integration over million capital budget, things start to get a little time, it has remained a cornerstone of Alan’s complex. In fact, we're spending $4 million a week philosophy since the beginning. “Through my on capital projects.” academic career I always felt a need and an While Alan and his team say Mason is not interest in getting to know the students outside the a business and therefore isn’t operated as such, classroom,” he says. “When I was dean at Florida, they do run it in a “business-like fashion” to my wife and I would invite students to our home. ensure stability, efficiency, and strength. In When I was dean at Cornell, it was the same. addition to the day-to-day responsibilities We've always believed that students' experiences presented by thirty-three thousand students, six should extend far beyond a series of classes.” thousand employees, over one hundred buildings, In his duties managing faculty and staff, and one hundred and forty thousand alumni, Alan Alan can be found implementing the same must still envision strategies to address the greater philosophy of “management by walking around,” challenges his university faces: how to manage a although he tends to take a more hands-off constantly increasing number of applicants, how to approach with those who work for him. He Profiles in Success: Inspiration from Executive Leaders in the Washington D.C. Area believes in giving people responsibilities and Though Alan’s journey with Mason is far getting out of the way. “I try very, very hard not from over, it is already undeniably apparent that to micromanage,” he notes. “I may have to bite he will be remembered for his unique capacity to my lip or other parts of my body, and I'd love to build institutions, not just in terms of the number tell them how to do it, but I've learned over the of buildings he has constructed or the amount of years not to, and to trust people.” fund-raising he has directed, but more so in the Looking at the university community as a very legacy of the entity itself. Having invested so whole, Alan says it is important to him to have much of his focus, energy, and self into the respect for and a belief in people's abilities at all institution, his individual impact is read in the levels within the organization.

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