Iowa Regents pay $180,000 for Iowa State University presidential search

In scouring the country for its next Iowa State University president - who ended up being on the very campus she now leads - the state Board of Regents spent $180,246.52, according to board records.

That total includes $122,789.16 paid to AGB Search of Washington, D.C., which facilitated the search for Iowa's State's 16th president. The AGB payment includes both expenses and the $110,000 fixed fee the board agree in May to pay the firm.

After the monthslong search, regents in October chose longtime ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Wendy Wintersteen to succeed former ISU President Steven Leath, who left to lead Auburn University.

Wintersteen, 61, first arrived on the ISU campus four decades ago and is the school's first female president.

Wintersteen landed the dean post she just vacated in 2006, and she told The Gazette now felt like the right time to go for the presidency. Although she didn't apply immediately, she opted against serving on a 21-member presidential search committee - as she was weighing a bid for the job.

The committee worked with AGB to facilitate the search, which netted 64 applicants. The search committee narrowed that pool down to seven semifinalists and then four finalists - all of whom visited campus and participated in public forums.

The board went with AGB as a facilitator after using that firm in its search for a new University of Northern Iowa president in 2016.

AGB's fixed fee of $110,000 for the Iowa State search was more than the $85,000 fixed rate for the UNI search. This year's search consultant fee also was higher than the $95,000 fee the Board of Regents paid Parker Executive Search in 2011 to bring Leath to campus.

The fixed rates don't include expenses for things like travel, lodging and food. For the UNI search last year, for example, the board paid AGB a total $129,214.

When combining this year's total $122,789 payment to AGB with other search-related costs for 'catering and hospitality,” transportation, candidate travel, and other services, total ISU search costs reached $180,246.52.

That is well below the more than $300,000 the board paid Parker Executive Search in 2015 to find a new University of Iowa president. That hunt landed former IBM businessman Bruce Harreld and sparked widespread criticism - including campus protests and faculty and student votes of no confidence.