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POWELL, Wyo. — Northwest College will bring candidates from Wisconsin and Maryland to campus the last two weeks of June to interview for the NWC vice president for administrative services position.
The first candidate is Michael Pieper who, since 2008, has been vice president of finance and operations at Western Technical College in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Three of Pieper’s 18 career years were spent in the private sector as an account executive with Johnson Controls Inc.; the rest were all served in Wisconsin and Minnesota public schools as chief financial officer and director of business services.
At Western Technical College, Pieper serves as both the chief financial officer and chief operating officer. His previous responsibilities at public school systems in Rochester and Hastings, Minnesota, and the Sparta Area Public Schools in Wisconsin supported student populations ranging between 3,000-17,000 students in kindergarten through grade 12.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in general management and a master’s in school business management, both from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. His education doctorate in leadership at Saint Mary’s University in Minneapolis is in progress.
Pieper will visit campus Monday and Tuesday, June 16 and 17, followed the next week by Richard Mestas.
Currently a program manager at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s National Intelligence University in Bethesda, Maryland, Mestas has worked 16 years for the federal government in higher education and defense positions, plus six years in higher education at public institutions, and two years at a private-sector occupational rehabilitation center.
Prior to the NIU, Mestas was an associate dean and assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture.
A Persian Gulf War veteran, he holds a doctorate in public administration from the University of Baltimore in Maryland. His master’s degree in national security and strategic studies was earned at the United States Naval War College and his bachelor’s in mass communications at Colorado State University-Pueblo. He completed additional graduate coursework at the University of Wyoming and undergraduate coursework at the University of Mississippi.
Mestas will be on the NWC campus Thursday and Friday, June 26 and 27.
Northwest anticipates the new vice president for administrative services will be in place by the beginning of fall semester. NWC Finance Director Sheldon Flom is currently filling in as interim in the position, which opened when Kim Mills retired in October 2013.