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Saturday, Feb. 15
The Indiana Daily Student

Trustee Reilly provides focus on finance issues

Thomas Reilly will chair the Finance and Audit Committee next Thursday during the IU Board of Trustees meeting.

According to the meeting’s agenda, items such as 2013-2014 residence hall rates will be discussed.

Reilly has financial experience as the president and chairman of the board of Reilly Industries, as well as the president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, according to the board’s website.

Reilly’s experience in trusteeship and higher education is also extensive.

“Tom has been a wonderful trustee to The Children’s Museum over many years,” said Jeffrey Patchen, president and CEO of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. “Tom’s expert advice and counsel, especially with the Museum’s Investment Committee, is strategic, thoughtful and greatly appreciated.”

Reilly was also selected to chair Butler’s Commission on the Future in 1984, according to George Waller’s book “Butler University: A Sesquicentennial History.”

“I had been on the board maybe a year, and they said they wanted to form a commission to make people with a lot of money feel like they were a part of Butler and then spend on it,” said Reilly. “I raised my hand and said, ‘It’s not going to work because it’s a mediocre program you’re running.”

This prompted James Baker, co-chair of the Indiana Government Efficiency Commission, to invite Reilly to serve as chair of the commission’s Subcommittee on Higher Education, Reilly said.

“We got some grants and I hired the best gurus on higher education and economics,” Reilly said. “We had all the presidents in and legislators and consultants, and we wrote a report about higher education in Indiana, which we thought was going in the wrong direction.”

Reilly said he believes his time spent on the subcommittee is why former Gov.  Mitch Daniels asked him to become a trustee at IU.

After he began his retirement back in 2004, the challenge of being an IU trustee sounded like the perfect next step, Reilly said.

He  said he spends a lot of his time reading about governance and how to manage the IU Foundation’s money.

“I think Mitch sort of liked the idea of having someone on the board who had no knowledge of IU, had no emotional contact,” Reilly said.

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