The Arkansas Teacher Retirement System’s trustees will interview eight of the candidates for its permanent executive director post, the trustees decided Saturday.
The trustees voted to narrow the field of candidates for the job after they spent about 75 minutes in a closed-door executive session that Board Chairman Danny Knight called to discuss which candidates to interview.
Fourteen applicants applied for the post before attorney Bud Cummins, who is a former U.S. attorney, withdrew his application.
“While I would relish this challenge if given the responsibility, upon reflection I have determined the timing is not good for me,” Cummins said in an email dated Thursday to the system’s Human Resources Director Vicky Fowler.
The trustees will interview seven of the candidates for executive director May 22 and the eighth candidate, who had a scheduling conflict, on June 2, said trustee Susannah Marshall.
If the trustees decide to schedule a second round of interviews with candidates for the executive director’s job, those interviews will be held June 5, she said.
The eight candidates the trustees decided to interview for the executive director’s job include:
• Former Arkansas Rep. Michelle Gray, R-Melbourne, who is the executive director of transformational practice at the White River Health System.
• Arkansas Department of Commerce Chief of Staff Jim Hudson.
• Arkansas Tech University governmental affairs director Gina Lockwood, who is a former chief operating officer at the state Department of Education.
• Arkansas Treasurer Senior Investment Officer James Pulley.
• Arkansas Department of Human Services Chief of Staff Mark White, who is a former staff attorney at the state Department of Education.
• Arkansas Teacher Retirement System Information Systems Manager Michael Lauro Jr.
• Arkansas Teacher Retirement System Real and Alternative Assets Investment Manager Jerry Meyer.
• Arkansas Teacher Retirement System Associate Director of Information Technology Mullahalli Manjunath.
Hudson will be interviewed June 2 and the other seven candidates will be interviewed May 22, Knight said.
In mid-March, the system’s executive director, Clint Rhoden, announced his resignation after four and a half years in the post, citing personal reasons. Rhoden left the system April 28. The system’s deputy director Rod Graves serves as interim executive director.
Knight said he hopes the system’s trustees can hire a permanent executive director to start work in July.
The teacher retirement system is state government’s largest retirement system with about $20 billion in investments and more than 100,000 working and retired members.