Q&A With Rick Hurley

Rick Hurley never aspired to be a college president. University of Mary Washington’s vice president for administration and finance said he was always content to be “behind the scenes, making sure the trains run on time.”

Now that he has unexpectedly ascended to the role of acting University president, Hurley is surprised by how much he is enjoying himself. Although he defies the mold (“I don’t carry a Blackberry with me, and I don’t expect people to jump when I speak.”), he believes he can give the Mary Washington campus community something it needs: a sense of stability.

This personable man with an unconventional career path can also offer a beacon of hope.

In what he describes as a “rags-to-riches rise,” Hurley has gone from attendant at a gas station on the New Jersey Turnpike to providing leadership at one of Virginia’s premier institutions of higher learning.

“It just took me awhile to grow up,” said Hurley, 60, who spent his childhood in a blue-collar neighborhood in Penns Grove, N.J., and had no intention of going to college. He enlisted in the Army after high school, served in Germany and Vietnam, came home, and married Rose, who has been his wife for 38 years. 

One November day, as he was pumping gas at the service station in a freezing rain, Hurley – then 25 and with one child – had an epiphany. “There’s got to be a better life,” he said to himself.

Within two months, he was enrolled at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. “At that time,” Hurley said, “they had an open enrollment policy, or I might not have been accepted since I had been out of school for so long. My status as a veteran also helped.”

His classes initially were intimidating, Hurley said. “But I quickly realized it’s really all about studying and doing what you’re asked to do in class.” After making two As and a B his first term, Hurley said, “I caught on fire. I said, ‘I can do this.’”

He graduated with a degree in environmental studies. “My goal was to be a forest ranger,” Hurley said. “I loved everything related to the outdoors.”

However, college administration beckoned. Recruited immediately upon graduation for a student activities position at Richard Stockton, Hurley made a favorable impression on the college president. When the president was tapped to be head of the state college system in Vermont, he took Hurley with him as his top assistant. “He wanted someone who would roll up his sleeves and get things done,” Hurley said. “He thought I had good common sense and was a logical thinker.”

Though an excellent training ground for a career in higher education, Vermont proved too cold for Hurley and his family. Armed with a master’s degree in public administration earned on weekends, he headed south to become director of administration for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

While there, he met Janet Greenwood, then-president of Longwood College (now Longwood University). She asked about his career aspirations; on a lark, Hurley said he would like to be Longwood’s vice president for administration and finance.

Six months later, he had the job.

Fifteen years after that, his middle daughter helped bring him to Mary Washington. A television reporter in the Fredericksburg area, she was assigned to interview former president William Anderson Jr., about a hot topic at the time: condoms in campus vending machines. During the interview, she mentioned her father, an acquaintance of Anderson.

The next day, Bill Anderson called Hurley and told him he wanted him to apply for a position opening up at Mary Washington for chief financial officer. Hurley got the job.

Now – seven years later – working out of the president’s office and living in Brompton, Hurley serves not only as the school’s top administrator, but also its chief cheerleader. Recently, while speaking with a visitor in his cherry-paneled office, he had this to say: “I want the University to be the best at whatever it does, whether filing a report with a state agency, conducting student orientations, teaching students, playing sports, or just meeting day-to-day responsibilities.”

Q. What do you love most about Mary Washington?

A. The people who work here. They work really hard and do the best job they can every day. And they take great pride in the institution.

Q. What would you change about Mary Washington?

A. I would work harder to create a more diverse student body
and staff.

Q. What, to you, is the significance of Mary Washington’s Centennial Celebration?

A. It’s a real achievement. It speaks to the quality of all the people who worked here before us. I couldn’t imagine being here at a better time. It makes me very proud.

Q. How would you describe yourself?

A. I am easygoing and even-tempered. I don’t change much from day to day. I pay a lot of attention to detail. I’m a good listener and I am responsive. I care about people. I do whatever I have to do to get a job done and get it done well.

Q. What matters most to you?

A. That I have integrity in everything I do. In terms of priorities, my family ranks right up there. I love being with my wife and kids and grandkids. [Hurley and wife Rose, administrator of Mary Washington’s Department of Informational Technology, have three children and three grandchildren.] Oh, and very little beats a day on the river with my boat.

Q. What motivates you?

A. I am motivated to be successful. Challenges are motivators. I always want to find ways to get things done as opposed to saying “no.” I am also motivated to make this institution the best at what it does.

Q. Who inspires you?

A. Two people. The first was Richard Bjork, former president of Richard Stockton and chancellor of the Vermont state college system. He saw promise in me, and he taught me quite a bit about how to be a successful administrator. I was a sponge around him, and his lessons have stuck. I learned a lot from him not only about practical matters, but also about the politics of higher education.

The second was George Healy, former provost at the College of William & Mary and acting president at Longwood for one year. He was a wise and seasoned administrator, and his leadership style as acting president has been a model for me. One thing he tried to teach me – and something that I still struggle with – is not to be in too big a hurry to make decisions, to leave time for rumination.

Q. What do you enjoy doing?

A. Although I have little time for reading, I like a good mystery. More than anything, I like spending time cruising in my boat on the Potomac River and around the Chesapeake Bay.

Q. What would people be surprised to learn about you?

A. That I used to have hair down to my shoulders and that I love doo-wop music. Also, many people would be surprised to learn that I never had an accounting course in my life.