Massey named to UGA search committee

ATHENS - University of Georgia President Michael F. Adams has appointed a search committee to begin the national search to fill the position of vice president for government relations.

Abit Massey of Gainesville, president-emeritus of the Georgia Poultry Federation, is among those named to the committee.

Tom Landrum, senior vice president for external affairs, will chair the committee whose members represent faculty, staff, administrators, students and alumni. The committee will conduct the national search to find a successor to Steve Wrigley, who recently left the university to serve as executive vice chancellor for administration for the University System of Georgia. Griff Doyle is serving as interim vice president for government relations.

"The vice president for government relations has become an increasingly critical position at the University of Georgia, as our relationships with our local, state and federal legislative delegations have been important to the successes we have enjoyed," said Adams. "It will be important to have this position filled as we enter the upcoming election season and 2012 legislative session. I am confident that this committee will recommend to me some very talented candidates for consideration."

In addition to Landrum and Massey, committee members include: Michelle Garfield Cook, interim associate provost for the Office of Institutional Diversity; Steven Gibson, vice president of Staff Council and a human resources coordinator in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Thomas P. Lauth, dean of the School of Public and International Affairs; Steve Stice, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Reproductive Physiology and faculty member in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Pat Allen, director of community relations; Ryan Nesbit, senior associate vice president for finance and administration; and, Kaitlin Miller, vice president of the UGA Student Government Association.

The committee will begin its work in the coming weeks with a goal of completing the search process during the fall semester.