Executive Officer Biographies

Fred L. Poston

Fred Poston serves as vice president for finance and operations and treasurer for Michigan State University and president of the Michigan State University Foundation. He served as interim vice president of the foundation for one year before being named vice president in December of 1999.

His responsibilities include oversight of 11 administrative units, including Business Operations (Contract and Grant Administration-post award, Controller’s Office, University Services, Risk Management, University Licensing, Surplus Store and Recycling Center, and Investments and Financial Management), Campus Planning and Administration, Campus Sustainability, Residential and Hospitality Services, Human Resources, Land Management (including on- and off-campus properties), Police and Public Safety, and Physical Plant. The areas of Libraries, Computing, and Technology, Office of Planning and Budgets, and the University Physician jointly report to the provost’s office.

During his tenure, Poston has led the development of an overall financial plan and framework that ensures for the long-term health of the university, despite declining state resources and a depressed economy. He has kept student housing costs among the lowest in the Big Ten while pursuing an aggressive plan to update its facilities, reduce energy consumption, and revitalize campus development over the long term. He has directed efforts which have made Michigan State University a leader in environmental stewardship, building a state-of-the-art Surplus Store and Recycling Center and achieving a marked reduction in waste destined for the landfill. Poston reduced significantly the deferred maintenance of campus infrastructure and established an ongoing process that directs timely corrective action on development and future needs. He has also facilitated the enhancement of the university’s financial and human resource systems through the Enterprise Business Systems project.

With experience as an instructor, bench scientist, and administrator, Poston understands the land-grant principles necessary to manage the multiple facets of MSU’s finance office. Prior to his current position, Poston was vice provost and dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. In that role, he guided the $74.2 million Revitalization of Michigan Animal Agriculture project to completion, created the $6.2 million Project GREEEN (Generating Research and Extension to meet Economic and Environmental Needs—a program to revitalize Michigan’s plant agriculture industries), and developed the Partnership for Co-System Research and Management with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. He also oversaw the construction of seven new facilities and raised more than $47 million for the college.

Poston received his bachelor’s degree from West Texas State University and his graduate degrees in entomology from Iowa State University.

J. Ian Gray

Ian Gray began his tenure as vice president for research and graduate studies in September 2004. In this position, he is responsible for overseeing the research programs of the university, assessing research compliance, and enhancing the reputation of Michigan State University as a research-extensive university. He is strongly committed to President Simon's strategic research imperatives, particularly measuring research opportunities and expanding international reach through academic, research, and economic development initiatives and global, national and location strategic alliances. Gray's responsibilities include working with the graduate school to ensure the excellence of graduate research and training at MSU.

Gray, a food scientist expert in the formation of toxic compounds in foods resulting from processing and cooking, came to MSU in 1978 as an assistant professor of food science and human nutrition. Gray has been an active bench scientist with a body of research that contributes to safer, more healthful food, who also assists in developing Michigan products. He work has resulted in 170 scientific journal publications and 120 papers presented at scientific meetings, and involves many high-profile projects, including MSU's findings that tart cherries possess healthful antioxidant properties.

Gray became the associate director of the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES) in 1988 and the director in 1996. MAES conducts strategic research to enhance agriculture, natural resources, families, and communities in Michigan. In that position, his primary responsibilities included managing the multistate research program, and developing and maintaining strong ties between MAES researchers and the state's commodity groups. He promoted multidisciplinary efforts to address problems identified in state assessments of Michigan agriculture and natural resources. Gray also worked to facilitate special U.S. Department of Agriculture grants on fruit quality, sustainable agriculture, and potato breeding and quality. Gray expanded the mission of MAES to include more research in the social science areas and helped bring the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center to MSU. Gray assumed the additional duties of interim vice provost in 1998 and assistant vice president for research and graduate studies in 2000.

Robert Groves

Robert (Bob) Groves began his tenure as vice president for university advancement on January 1, 2009. University Advancement was created in 2008 to integrate University Development and the MSU Alumni Association as a means to mobilize, channel, and serve effectively MSU’s alumni and donor constituencies around the globe. Alumni and friends advance the mission of the university through advocacy, student recruitment, career advice and placement, ambassadorship, and financial support.

Prior to his appointment at MSU, Groves was associate vice president and campaign director for University Development at the University of Michigan (U-M), a position he held since April 2004. He provided the day-to-day direction for U-M’s recent campaign, The Michigan Difference, which raised $3.2 billion and is believed to be the most successful fund-raising campaign ever at a public university.

Groves brings with him a valuable understanding of the Big Ten, the land-grant philosophy, and higher education. Prior to his U-M appointment, he was vice president for development at the Minnesota Medical Foundation at the University of Minnesota. He also was executive director of university development at Pennsylvania State University and has held similar fund-raising positions at Wright State University and at his alma mater, Ohio State University.

Mark Burnham

Mark Burnham began his tenure as vice president for governmental affairs in February 2011. He had served as MSU’s associate vice president for governmental affairs in Washington D.C., since April 2006.

Prior to joining MSU, Burnham was the director of federal relations for research for the University of Michigan. From 1998 through 2003, he was a member of Lewis-Burke Associates, a lobbying firm representing universities and scientific consortia. In addition to his career as a higher education advocate, Burnham worked as an attorney for the law firm JonesDay.

Burnham has a bachelor of arts degree in political science from the University of Michigan and a law degree from the Boston College Law School. He is a member of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia bars.

Robert A. Noto

Robert Noto has been the vice president for legal affairs and the general counsel at Michigan State University since April 1995. The Office of the General Counsel handles or supervises all legal work for the university, including litigation. The university usually has approximately 40 matters in litigation, of which the Office of the General Counsel handles about half in-house. The Office of the General Counsel selects and oversees all outside counsel providing legal services to the university.

Before coming to MSU, Noto worked for 15 years in the Office of Legal Counsel at New York University, last serving as associate general counsel and deputy secretary to NYU's Board of Trustees. Noto was also adjunct associate professor in NYU's School of Education, where he taught higher education and the law. Noto is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.

Heather C. Swain

Heather C. Swain was named vice president for communications and brand strategy at Michigan State University in April 2012. Swain, who joined the university as assistant vice president for university relations in October 2006, served as interim vice president for university relations from August 2010 until she was named to the vice presidency. Her responsibilities include overseeing the university’s branding initiative, strategic communications planning, media relations, marketing communications, web and new media, and photo and video operations. 

Prior to joining MSU, Swain spent six years at Ball State University in the university’s senior communications position where she led a major rebranding effort that tied into the institution’s strategic planning and governmental relations strategies. Swain also spent five years at Indiana University (IU) in a variety of communications roles culminating in the position of associate director for university-wide marketing, working with IU campuses across the state on individualized marketing plans and alignment with the overall IU brand. 

Swain received her bachelor’s degree in English from the College of William & Mary.

Paulette Granberry Russell

Paulette Granberry Russell joined Michigan State University in 1998 as senior adviser to the president for diversity and serves as director of the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives. She is responsible for facilitating efforts and collaborating with various departments and colleges to develop effective strategies to advance a diverse university environment and for assessing the effectiveness of such efforts. Granberry Russell also leads various all-university committees responsible for diversity support programs and directs efforts to ensure university compliance with federal and state nondiscrimination laws and regulations.

A 2000–01 Committee on Institutional Cooperation-Academic Leadership Program fellow, Granberry Russell has made numerous presentations on equal opportunity, affirmative action, best practices in recruiting, strategies for retaining a diverse faculty, and diversity and inclusion efforts in higher education. She was invited to the Durban Institute of Technology in South Africa to present workshops on affirmative action and diversity programming in postapartheid higher education and served as a panelist on affirmative action and diversity initiatives in U.S. higher education at an international conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Granberry Russell is an integral part of the National Science Foundation ADVANCE—Advancing Diversity through the Alignment of Policies and Practices—Program at MSU, which aims to increase the participation of women in the scientific and engineering workforce through their increased representation and advancement in academic scientific and engineering careers.

A licensed attorney in the state of Michigan, Granberry Russell also consults on labor and employment law matters.

William R. Beekman

Bill Beekman has served as the secretary of the Board of Trustees and executive assistant to the president at Michigan State University since January 2008. He works with the Board of Trustees and the president to implement their institutional agenda. Additionally, he is administratively responsible for university policies and ordinances and other actions of the Board of Trustees. He is the president’s liaison to various groups and organizations both on campus and in the community.

Prior to assuming his current post Beekman served as executive director of the MSU Alumni Association. He joined MSU in 1995 as an administrator with the MSU HealthTeam. He was the assistant dean for planning and finance in the College of Human Medicine and has taught health policy and health finance in the College of Human Medicine and the College of Law. He also has served as a senior consultant to the provost and the vice president for finance and operations.

Beekman earned a bachelor of arts degree in justice, morality, and constitutional democracy from Michigan State’s James Madison College, an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a law degree from Wayne State University Law School.