Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 13, 1994 TAG: 9407210064
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Clough is being recommended for the new post by Georgia Tech's chancellor and a search committee. The school's Board of Regents is expected to confirm the choice today, said David Arnold, director of media relations at Georgia Tech, formally called Georgia Institute of Technology.
"They sent a search committee through here two weeks ago," said Paul Torgersen, president of Virginia Tech. "I think those interviews went very well."
Clough moved quickly through the ranks of academic administration after spending 20 years as a professor. He taught at Duke and Stanford universities, then came to Virginia Tech where he headed the Civil Engineering Department.
It's been just four years since Clough was named dean of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering.
Acknowledging that his tenure in Seattle indeed has been short, Clough said Tuesday that the Georgia position was the right job at the right time.
"It just depends on what opportunities are out there. This is a situation where my alma mater had a job open, I have some strong family and emotional links to the institution, and it came along at a pretty good time," he said.
Clough, who will earn $145,000 plus a foundation supplement, replaces John Patrick Crecine, who encountered some controversy during his seven years at the school.
Clough said he expects to launch his tenure in early September, spending his initial days figuring out who the players are and what the people in the state want.
During his tenure at Virginia Tech, Clough was a strong backer of the so-called "smart road," the proposed Blacksburg to Roanoke route that will be a testing ground for intelligent vehicle test systems research.
Besides shortening the drive between the two towns, the road is expected to provide Tech with high-profile, cutting-edge research projects.
Torgersen said members of the search committee seemed pleased that Clough was both a Georgia native and Georgia Tech alumnus, having received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the school. Clough went on to earn a doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley.
He has worked as a consultant for a number of projects around the country, including being chairman of the board of consultants for San Francisco's $150 million Muni-Metro Project, which would extend a transit facility along the city's famed waterfront.
Georgia Tech, with 12,800 undergraduate and graduate students, is less than half Virginia Tech's size, and is focused on science and business study.
"We're very pleased," said Torgersen.
by CNB