Adam Adair’s management style is simple: Hire the right people, set high expectations and standards of excellence and then get out of their way and let them do their jobs.
Adair also challenges everyone to ask “how does this decision better the lives of our students?”
Since January 2012, Adair, 39, has been vice chancellor for finance and administration at Arkansas State University-Newport. Before that he was comptroller at the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville.
A first-generation college graduate, he has a degree in accounting from Arkansas State University and an MBA from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He plans to someday pursue a doctorate in higher education. He has completed the Next Generation of Chief Business Officers Institute program presented by the Southern Association of College & University Business Officers and is a graduate of the Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges Leadership Institute (now Arkansas Community Colleges Leadership Institute).
Adair is involved in the Newport community through volunteer efforts and memberships in the Kiwanis and the Newport Area Chamber of Commerce.
“I just believe in the mission of the community college,” he said. “We really are able to take people where they are and get them to where they want to be in their life. … We are actually changing lives. Every day what we do impacts the lives of not only the students we serve, but their families, their children and their children’s children.”
Since he arrived at ASU-Newport, Adair said, he has developed a comprehensive master plan and a new zero-based budgeting model that has led to significant cost savings, including $500,000 the first year. He also has managed a number of construction projects, including energy-efficiency upgrades that have resulted in annual decreases in utility consumption.
“It’s about passion,” Adair said about his job. “It’s about helping and really changing lives. That’s why I love what I do and am honored to be doing this.”
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