New UMPI president nominated Chancellor selects former research chief of W.Va. college to fill post

PRESQUE ISLE – Following a recommendation by a local presidential search committee, University of Maine System Chancellor Joseph W. Westphal announced Thursday his nominee for president of the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

Westphal named Karl E. Burgher as the ninth president of the northern Maine university.

Burgher, one of three candidates brought to the Presque Isle campus in recent weeks for an interview, comes from Fairmont, W.Va., where since July 2004 he served as vice president of research and contracts and interim chief technology officer at Fairmont State University and Fairmont State Community and Technical College.

“Dr. Burgher will be a great asset,” Westphal said in a press release. “He brings great experience in building partnerships and in working with a diverse group of stakeholders. He brings a passionate interest in both the issues and potential of the university and northern Maine.”

Local officials also believe Burgher is the right person for the job.

“We’re very concerned about the direction the University of Maine at Presque Isle is going to go in,” Barry McCrum, chairman of the local presidential search committee, said Thursday. “We want to see it grow and see more community involvement. Burgher is the man who can help build that support.”

Burgher replaces Dr. William A. Shields, who served as acting president at UMPI since the departure of Dr. Nancy Hensel. Hensel resigned from the university in July 2004 to serve as executive director of the Council for Undergraduate Research in Washington, D.C.

Westphal’s nomination of Burgher is expected to be approved by the UMS board of trustees at its next business meeting on June 6 in Fort Kent. His proposed salary is $125,000, and he would start Aug. 1.

Burgher’s nomination comes after a several months-long search by a 12-member search committee. He was recommended from among 48 candidates.

In explaining the committee’s recommendation, McCrum said that Burgher was a very strong candidate.

When he visited the campus, “it brought forth a strong response from everybody that met him and had a chance to talk with him that he was the person we could bring on to move UMPI forward in a positive manner,” McCrum said. “He’s got a very broad background and community development has been a strong point of his. In fact, at one point during his visit, he stated that he wanted people in the area to wake up every day and wonder what they [officials] are doing at UMPI today. We believe he will be able to build excitement and make things happen.”

Burgher, a mining engineer and economist, received a bachelor of science degree in mining engineering in 1980 and an master of science degree in mining engineering with an emphasis in costing in 1982 from Michigan Technological University. He subsequently received a bachelor of science degree in economics in 1984 and a Ph.D. in mining engineering with an emphasis in natural resource economics in 1985 from the University of Missouri-Rolla, where he also received an honorary professional degree in economics in 2003.

Burgher previously has held various administrative and faculty positions at FSU and UMR and managed the Mine Waste Technology program at the University of Montana. He is a professional engineer and a licensed blaster-explosives engineer in four states.

The nominee also has facilitated development in communities faced with socioeconomic and environmental challenges, for which he was recently nominated for a Ford Foundation Leadership award.