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Chief financial officer to retire by Sherry Fisher - July 23, 2007 |
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| Lorraine M. Aronson, the University’s chief financial officer, will retire in May 2008. She says she is retiring for personal reasons, including a wish to spend more time with her family. “I’ve been in high pressure, high profile positions for 25 years. I’ve come to a point in my life where my priorities are changing.” Before coming to UConn in 1995, she held top positions under Govs. William A. O’Neill, Lowell P. Weicker Jr., and John G. Rowland. These include service as deputy commissioner of education, commissioner of the Department of Income Maintenance (now the Department of Social Services), and deputy secretary of the Office of Policy and Management. At UConn, Aronson was assistant to the chancellor, associate vice president of institutional advancement, and in 2000 became vice president for financial planning and management, assuming responsibility for the University’s budget and finance activities. In 2003, business/accounting functions were added to her portfolio as vice president. Of her decision to retire at the end of May, she says, “I want to do this in an orderly way. This timetable will allow me to assist President Austin for the remainder of his tenure as president, and will give his successor the opportunity to get to know the University and its financial operations. We’ve got a fabulous fiscal team, both at Storrs and at the Health Center, so I know I’ll be leaving the University in good hands.” In a letter to the University community announcing Aronson’s retirement plans, President Philip E. Austin said, “Lori’s contributions to UConn’s progress over these years have been highly significant. She has played a critical role in every important University advance in areas related to finance, facilities, and government relations, and has been a trusted and valued advisor in a host of other areas as well.” Austin cited Aronson’s role in the development and implementation of the University’s master plan for facilities, the roadmap for the implementation of UConn 2000 and, now, 21st Century UConn; the elimination of the structural deficit that was a fact of life here in the mid-1990s; the financial restructuring of the Health Center when external factors placed it at risk; and securing state support for the $1.3 billion 21st Century UConn program that continues the progress of UConn 2000. Aronson demonstrated her legendary quick wit in her letter of retirement to Austin: “As you in know, I long held to the belief that I was still 5’1”, but recent incontrovertible evidence points to the reality that I am now only five feet tall,” she wrote. “My rough calculations suggest that if I do not retire in the near future, I will disappear altogether.” She told the Advance that what she will miss most is working with her assistant, Deb Kapura: “She’s the only person I know who is shorter than I am.” |
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