Contact: Joe Farris
C. Ray Hayes
Former Mississippi State University budget and planning officer C. Ray Hayes is returning to MSU as vice president for finance and administration after more than 12 years in a similar position at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Hayes, 50, is a Mississippi State graduate who spent the first 16 years of his career at his alma mater before moving to the Corpus Christi campus, which is a member of the Texas A&M University System.
He will assume his new duties as MSU's chief financial and business officer no later than April 1. His appointment was approved Thursday (Jan. 15) by the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning.
Since 1992, Hayes has been executive vice president for finance and administration at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, serving as chief fiscal officer and overseeing a $300 million capital building program. During that time, TAMU-CC has changed from an upper-division university to a comprehensive doctoral degree-granting institution and seen its budget quadruple.
"Ray Hayes brings not only a passion for Mississippi State and the state of Mississippi, but also a firsthand understanding of our legislative and governing board processes in Mississippi," said MSU President Charles Lee. "He also brings new ideas from his Texas experiences that can be applied to moving our university forward in a responsible and efficient manner."
Hayes currently serves as liaison with the financial and facilities divisions of the Texas A&M University System, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Legislative Budget Board, federal offices, and the state's congressional delegation. He served on the advisory committee that recommended different funding formulas used by the higher education coordinating board and chaired a system-wide review of Texas A&M's information management system.
At TAMU-CC, Hayes has overall responsibility for campus units and auxiliary services that include fiscal affairs and other business functions, physical plant, human resources, computer services, the bookstore, and dining services.
He currently is chairman of the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corp., a member of the Texas A&M University System Investment Committee, and a member of the editorial review board for Advanced Management Journal.
During the last four years of his previous employment at MSU, from 1988 through 1991, Hayes was budget and planning officer for the university and its separately budgeted units including the MSU Extension Service, Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, College of Veterinary Medicine, and Forest Products Lab.
In that role he worked closely with MSU vice presidents, IHL staff, the Legislative Budget Office, and the state Fiscal Management Board in coordinating the university's state appropriations request and operating budget cycles. Hayes also had oversight of campus services that include the bookstore, laundry and telecommunications.
Earlier, he had served MSU as assistant to the vice president for agriculture, forestry and veterinary medicine; coordinator of support staff and budget for the College of Veterinary Medicine; and personnel manager for the vet college.
Hayes, a Louisville native, began his career with the university as an admissions counselor in 1975, the year he earned a bachelor's degree in business at MSU. He continued in that role until 1978, when he also received an MBA. from the university's College of Business and Industry.
The appointment of a vice president for finance and administration will return MSU to essentially the same organizational structure that was in place prior to early 2001. At that time, the position of vice president for business affairs was discontinued and its responsibilities divided between the two newly created positions of chief budget and financial officer and chief administrative officer.
As vice president for finance and administration, Hayes will have overall responsibility for MSU units that include the Office of the Controller and Treasurer, Procurement and Contracts, Accounts Payable, Property Control, Receiving, Human Resources Management, Physical Plant, Mail Services, Office Supply Store, Bookstore, Campus Landscape, Custodial Services, Dining Services, Facilities Use, and Transportation Services.
Hayes was named following a national search and on-campus interviews with three finalists for the position. He and his wife, Kathryn, also an MSU graduate and a former staff member in the alumni and development offices at MSU, have two children, Nicholas and Sarah.