Mesalands board chooses president

Mesalands Community College has a new president.

The college's board of trustees announced Friday afternoon after a brief executive session via videoconference it voted unanimously to offer educational consultant Gregory Todd Busch of Tucson, Arizona, a contract.

Busch begins his duties May 1 and will work remotely for the first few weeks. Details of Busch's contract will be finalized later.

Board Chairman Jim Streetman read from a prepared statement: "We feel Dr. Greg Busch's educational background and his experience make him a very good fit for our college. ... We are very excited to welcome Dr. Greg Busch and his wife, professor Mary Beth Busch, to our college family."

Busch thanked the board "for this wonderful opportunity."

"My wife joins me in sharing how excited we are moving to Quay County," Busch said. "We look forward to becoming involved in the community, working together with this board and our community partners to increase student success and help move the college forward into the 21st century and build upon the many successes we've had in the last several years."

He added: "We'll be there as soon as we can."

Mary Beth Busch, also a part of the videoconference, said: "I'm looking forward to how I can become an asset to the college and community."

Streetman expressed satisfaction with the board's choice.

"I'm very happy with what has happened today, and I'm very happy with our decision," he said.

Speaking to the Busches, he added: "I can't wait for y'all to get here and get this thing moving."

After the board voted to approve Busch's hiring, members individually congratulated Busch and praised several Mesalands officials who facilitated the videoconferences with candidates. Counting Friday's session, Mesalands held 10 special meetings since late March on the matter.

"You guys went above and beyond the call of duty," board member Tom Sidwell said of the videoconference crew.

"They have been a tremendous amount of help through all this," Streetman agreed. "It had been quite a chore."

"It took a lot of hard work, but I think we got it," board member Jimmy Sandoval added.

In addition to being founder and executive senior consultant of The Busch Professional Group consulting firm, Busch stated in his biography submitted to the college that he has served as an adjunct instructor, full time assistant professor, discipline coordinator, program coordinator, dean of academic and student affairs, lead for accreditation and strategic enrollment management, chief diversity officer, dean for articulation and transfer, dean of the honors college, chief academic officer, vice president for instruction, vice president for dual enrollment, vice president for guided pathways and an elected member of the board of trustees of a community college. He was serving as an adjunct faculty for St. Leo University in Florida.

Busch, a native of a small town in West Virginia, holds a master of science degree from West Virginia University, School of Medicine, where he specialized in epidemiology, pandemic studies, and crisis management. He and his wife have a son, Nicholas, a tenured community college political science professor, and daughter, Grace Faulkner, a coordinator of infectious disease and epidemiology. They have three grandchildren.

The other presidential finalists the board considered from an initial list of 67 candidates were:

• Todd M. Ecklund, Ed.D., of Pueblo, Colorado;

• Laura L. McCullough, Ed.D., of Hurricane, West Virginia;

• Melanie Jones Owen, Ed.D., of Hanford, California;

• Anthony R. Petroy, D.M., of Overland Park, Kansas;

• Randy Smith, Ph.D., of Holdenville, Oklahoma.

Mesalands had been without a permanent president for about a year. The college's previous leader, John Groesbeck, was placed on indefinite paid administrative leave in March 2020 for undisclosed reasons and fired the next month. Groesbeck had been president for less than two years.

Groesbeck later filed a whistleblower and retaliation complaint in Quay County against Mesalands. The lawsuit is pending.

Natalie Gillard, the college's vice president of academic affairs, served as acting president after Groesbeck's dismissal.