Hogan's a hero? President Sullivan and BOV name new COO

A business executive with longtime ties to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia has been tapped as the University's new chief operating officer. The announcement of the replacement for short-serving Michael Strine, who resigned unceremoniously in the wake of the president's summertime reinstatement, came Friday after a vote by the Board of Visitors.

The new man is 60-year-old Patrick D. Hogan, a 35-plus-year veteran of Ernst & Young and a recently returned Charlottesville expatriate. Hogan, who reportedly spent his teenage years in Charlottesville, joined the operating board of the UVA Medical Center last year. Starting work next Thursday the 25th of October, Hogan will report directly to President Teresa Sullivan.

"He understands UVA's distinctive character," said Sullivan, who joined her former nemesis, Rector Helen Dragas in the October 19 announcement.

The presence of Dragas seemed at times to overshadow the joyous event. For orchestrating the removal of Sullivan in June, an action later overturned by the full board, Dragas remains a subject of a national accrediting investigation and a possible bi-partisan ouster by the General Assembly. On Friday, there were sign-carrying protestors huddled downstairs in the Rotunda while three uniformed UVA police officers complemented the Board's usual security detail outside.

At Ernst & Young, an accounting and professional service firm with over 167,000 employees and over $24 billion in revenues, Hogan was most recently posted in London where he oversaw the mammoth firm's "global quality and risk management function," according to a UVA release.

Right around the time that Hogan told the assembled journalists that his core values are trust, teamwork, and transparency– three things that many alumni asserted were missing from the UVA governance debacle in June– Dragas ducked out of the question and answer session.

Hogan himself initially ducked a question about what would happen if the Rector were removed or resigned in the coming months.

"I'll look for guidance from President Sullivan," Hogan said after the reporter asked again.

On a practical front, Hogan expressed an interest in assisting the search for a new chief financial officer, a position that's been vacant since Yoke San Reynolds retired from the post in the spring. Asked if he had a message for the students, Hogan was clear.

"Let's win a football game tomorrow," he said. "Let's start with that."