Labh Hira addresses the audience at the dedication of the Gerdin Business Building in February 2004.
A UNIVERSITY CITIZEN UNTIL THE END Hira originally announced his retirement in October 2011, shortly after Steven Leath was named to succeed Gregory Geoffroy as Iowa State University’s new president. Hira had cochaired the search and planned to wind down his tenure as dean with a smooth handoff to his own successor and a return to the faculty. But duty called. When the ISU Foundation needed an interim president in March 2012, it was Hira they asked to fill the role. With his experience and success as a fundraising dean, it was a natural fit. Hira served until its new president, Roger Neuhaus, took over in January 2013. He transitioned back to the College of Business faculty, teaching and helping David Spalding, the new College of Business dean, transition into his new role. Finally this spring, he felt it was time to make the announcement. No more administrative roles. No more interim appointments. He was done. Retired. SUCCESS NO ACCIDENT FOR “ACCIDENTAL” DEAN When Hira took the reins of the College of Business as interim dean in 2001, he had two tough acts to follow. One of his predecessors, Charles Handy, was the college’s founding dean, and the other, Benjamin Allen, had, in a few short years, built it into a major presence on the Iowa State campus. By the time Allen left the dean’s chair to become Iowa State’s provost in 2001, so effective had his leadership been in building and securing the college’s reputation that the search committee tasked with finding his replacement felt it was time to conduct a national search. Hira, who had been an associate dean for several years, was encouraged to throw his hat in the ring.
That might have been the only wrong call Hira ever made with regard to the college. Hira agreed to serve as interim dean while the search committee spread its nets for the ideal candidate. And they thought they had found that person – until 10 days after accepting an offer, he declined the position. The committee turned its eyes once again to Hira. “Of course,” Hira says, “I graciously accepted.” While the circumstances of his rise to dean have led some (including Hira himself) to refer to him as an “accidental” dean, Hira’s selection was hardly a matter of mere convenience – he had a solid track record in administration, first as the chair of the accounting and finance departments, then as an associate dean. But this was the early 2000s. The bursting of the dot-com bubble and the 2001 terrorist attacks had ended one of the longest growth periods in U.S. history and signaled a rising budgetary crisis that would explode with the bursting of the housing bubble and economic collapse later in the decade. The strengths the search committee saw in Hira were precisely what the college would need when other programs were struggling just to stay in place. It also signaled an era of retrenchment in public support of higher education, as year after year state government slashed appropriations and left Iowa’s Regents institutions struggling to replace funding streams. “Even then we were going through some serious budget challenges, and that’s one of my strengths,” Hira says. “And I had developed a very good network of relationships with our alumni.”
The self-effacing professor of accounting would have none of it.
The strengths the search committee saw in Hira were, in fact, precisely what the college would need, not just to survive, but to thrive in a decade when other programs at Iowa State and across the nation were struggling just to stay in place.
“I decided it was a time to bring in somebody from outside,” Hira recalls. “We were at a stage where we could benefit from some outside experience and knowledge, and it was not the right move for me to be in that position.”
VISION STANDS ON BROAD SHOULDERS “Handy, Allen, and Hira – they’ve been phenomenal building blocks to achieve our vision,” says Cara Heiden, a 1978 graduate of the old Industrial Administration program.
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