Doug Brown said he was looking for a new project to take on when he got the phone call - he was appointed dean of UNM's Anderson School of Management.
Brown was interviewed on campus in January, along with two other finalists, for the position.
Brown said he hadn't applied for the job but that he was nominated for it anonymously.
Attempts to contact members of the selection committee that recommended Brown failed, because everyone signed a nondisclosure agreement barring them from comment, an Anderson spokesperson said.
Selection committees for deans in the past, including one for the College of Nursing last semester, have commented openly on their deliberations.
Brown will begin his term as dean in June. Salary information for the position was not immediately available, but the interim dean's salary was about $230,000.
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Brown has been involved with Anderson as a guest speaker in several of the school's courses on ethics, leadership, marketing and finance. He also served as chairman of Anderson's Foundation Board. He has been a member of the UNM Foundation Board of Directors for at least six years.
Gov. Bill Richardson appointed Brown to UNM's Board of Regents in 2003, and he served on the board until 2005, when Richardson asked him to take over as the New Mexico State Treasurer.
In April, Brown donated $1,000 to Richardson's presidential campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Brown has served as chairman of the United Way and Albuquerque Academy.
Brown said that before he makes a list of goals to improve Anderson, he wants to get to know everyone involved in the school.
"I've taken over quite a number of companies over the years, and the first thing you have to do is understand what's going on and talk to everybody and understand what the perceived strengths and weaknesses are and what we have that we can build upon," he said. "Together, we can refresh and resolve our direction and goals and work toward those."
Brown will replace Anderson's interim dean, Amy Wohlert, who was appointed in 2007 when Charles Crespy resigned after receiving a vote of no confidence from Anderson faculty.
Wohlert said finding funding is a problem Brown will have to face during his tenure. She said working with limited resources has caused students and teachers to struggle.
"I think that's especially acute for business schools because many business schools have many streams of income that allow them to do some really innovative things, and Anderson has been working on building those income streams, but we don't have a lot of those," she said.
Wohlert said Brown will also need to improve the visibility of the school and the programs it provides within the region.
"We always talk about what a well-kept secret we are, not from our own students or from UNM and our community, but I think from our region," she said. "There are plenty of people in Colorado, Texas, Arizona, California and just across the country that would be very interested in being students at Anderson if they were more aware of some of the programs that go on."
Student Kevin Todd said he would like Brown to recruit more trained professors.
"As a graduate student, I would like to see most of my professors be Ph.D., graduate-level teachers, rather than some of our courses that are taught by professionals from the local area," he said. "They definitely have the knowledge, but there's a drop off in their teaching ability, organizational skills and available time for students and things like that."
Todd said if more full-time professors taught at Anderson, the students would be better off.
Student Moe Alshammari said having a wide variety of professors to teach the classes would give students the option of taking a course from their preferred teacher.
"Sometimes, we have one class and we have only one option for one teacher, and I might not like that teacher," he said. "For one of my classes, I didn't like the way (the teacher) was teaching, so I took that class at CNM instead of at UNM."
Brown said he wants to be a bridge between Anderson and the business community.
He said that over the years, the relationship between the two hasn't been as close-knit as it could be.
"The connection into the business community is one of the particular strengths I think I bring to this job," he said. "It's very important for the business community to be closely tied into the business school for prospective jobs for students or internships for research opportunities.. All this speaks a great need for close relationships."
Brown said he will focus on collaborating between Anderson and other departments and schools at UNM.
"I hope there's opportunity to create some joint programs with other departments and disciplines within the University," he said. "We don't have very much going on there."
Brown has been the president and CEO of Talbot Financial Services, as well as president and CEO of Tuition Plan Consortium, which develops nonprofit educational-savings programs for private colleges. He has been the principal in Brown and Brown Ventures, LLC, which is a holding company for real estate properties.
Brown published a book in October called My Life in Stories: Putting Foliage on the Family Tree, which chronicles his family history.
Wohlert said Anderson will be in good hands with Brown.
"I can't think of anybody in whom I have more confidence than Doug," she said. "I'm sure Anderson won't miss a beat, and it's going to go forward in really exciting new directions."
