President Robert R. Lindgren is pleased the announce the appointment of Dr. John McManus ’84 as Executive Assistant to the President.

In the role of Executive Assistant, McManus will provide executive strategic leadership and communication guidance to the president, including helping to set the agenda for the President’s Cabinet on which he will serve. He will also work closely with Board of Trustees leadership including staffing the Board’s Committee on Trustees, and represent the president and the College with a variety of on and off-campus, state and local constituencies.

In assuming this role, Dr. McManus will transition from his full-time responsibilities as Associate Professor of Computer Science, a position he assumed in 2020, following 6 years as Assistant Professor. He will continue to teach on a limited basis.

Dr. McManus brings to this role a unique pairing of substantial government and private sector experience, as well as nearly a decade of teaching and mentoring at Randolph-Macon. Before joining the RMC faculty, McManus served as the Deputy Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer at NASA. He spent two years as the Vice President of the Software Technology Center at Lucent’s Bell Labs, and twelve years as a Research Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center developing intelligent flight control systems for commercial and military aircraft.

McManus’s tenure as a professor has been marked by his outstanding commitment to RMC and our students. A two-time recipient of RMC’s Thomas Branch Award for Excellence in Teaching, he traces his deep devotion to the College to his own Randolph-Macon experience as an English major. He went on to earn an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from The College of William and Mary. When he returned to RMC as a professor, he brought a dedication to integrating his technical subject matter into the liberal arts and to hands-on learning for students. In addition to his classes, he has been a perennial mentor for student researchers through SURF and throughout the year.

McManus has demonstrated able leadership and exceptional commitment to college service through work on faculty committees, as the College’s faculty athletics representative, and with three years as Faculty Representative to the Cabinet. He and his wife Mary, also a 1984 Randolph-Macon graduate, are regulars in the stands of Yellow Jacket sporting events, as volunteers at Boot Camp, and in attendance at nearly every type of event on campus.

“I first met John and Mary when they were active alumni living in Washington state,” recalled President Lindgren. “His agreement to join the RMC faculty has been a consequential decision. His strong knowledge of the full breadth of college life, his steady temperament, and his exceptional judgement have already made him an invaluable part of our RMC Community.”

Dr. McManus will step into the role on March 4, having returned from a sabbatical where he was conducting research at the United States Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division. Among his early priorities will be project manager for the College’s on-going strategic planning process, working together with the Strategic Leadership Planning Committee.