Ga. Tech Chief Selected As Head of Smithsonian

Clough said the challenges he faces are similar to those he inherited at Georgia Tech. "This institution is far too important to let these things linger."

Walter Massey, a former regent and member of the search committee, is a former president of Morehouse College in Atlanta and knows Clough from serving on committees together. "Wayne is really a people person," Massey said. "He really has mastered the art of being able to inspire, energize and bring out the best in people."

A native of Douglas, Ga., Clough graduated from Georgia Tech and received a doctorate in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He has taught at Stanford and Duke universities and held academic posts at Virginia Tech and the University of Washington. Clough's research interests are in geotechnical engineering, earthquakes and soil structure.

Clough will be paid $490,000 a year, much less than his predecessor and a pay cut from his Georgia Tech salary. He will resign from the boards of Noro-Moseley Partners, a venture capital fund, and credit-card processor TSYS of Columbus, Ga.

His 2006-07 Georgia Tech compensation was $551,186, including a $400,000 base salary, $133,000 in deferred compensation and $18,000 in retirement contributions.

Small's compensation jumped from $333,000 in 2000 to $916,000 in 2007. Clough will not receive a housing allowance, a benefit given to Small though his home was paid for and he did not often use it for Smithsonian entertainment near the end of his tenure. Small also had served on two corporate boards, a fact that came under attack by an Independent Review Committee that found that from 2000 to 2007, Small missed 400 days from the office. The committee and some members of Congress considered Small's salary excessive.

A Washington Post investigation last year showed that Small spent Smithsonian money on personal expenditures and had unauthorized expenses. The expenses and outside income of other senior executives were questioned, and top executives, including the deputy secretary, undersecretary of science and others, departed. Investigations were initiated by Congress, the Government Accountability Office and the Smithsonian inspector general. The regents appointed an outside panel to look at what had gone wrong.

The board of regents spent almost a year searching for a permanent leader. In recent weeks, the list had been narrowed to three, but the third candidate, from a major U.S. university, backed out, considering the requirements of the job too onerous, people familiar with the search said.

The regents were divided between Samper and Clough. The selection process also became a discussion about what direction to take the institution, which includes 18 museums, a 19th museum in the planning stages, an astrophysical institute co-operated with Harvard University, a tropical research center in Panama and the National Zoo in Northwest Washington. The Smithsonian is the keeper of some of the nation's most prized treasures, such as the Star-Spangled Banner and the Hope Diamond.

According to people familiar with their discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the process, some regents favored appointing Samper, a biologist, because he had some success raising morale and was considered a favorite of many of the institution's 6,000 employees. He was well received among some on Capitol Hill, had taken steps to implement the regents' governance changes and supported bolstering the institution's scientific mission.

But other regents worried that he was too much of an insider's choice and ill-equipped to reform the Smithsonian's sometimes secretive administration. Those regents also had been disappointed with Samper's judgment and considered him at times politically naive.

Samper came under some public criticism last year over his handling of the appointment of Kevin Gover to replace W. Richard West Jr. as director of the National Museum of the American Indian: Most of the museum's governing board was kept in the dark on the selection process, and some opposed the selection. Samper said he would keep the board more informed in the future. He also had been in charge when the institution spent $124,000 in farewell activities for West.

Some government scientists criticized Samper for his role in playing down climate warming in an arctic exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, and others criticized his lack of political sensitivity regarding the solicitation of a donation from the American Petroleum Institute for a new Ocean Hall exhibition and Web site.

As provost at the University of Washington, Clough in a year had "built a sizable fan club," according to a profile in the Seattle Times in 1994, when he got the Georgia Tech job. "Professors saw him as a friend. Students saw him as an advocate."

In an interview after the news conference, Clough said he had been planning to start a new chapter in his life. The regents have asked him to commit to at least five years. "I was thinking of doing something else. In my family, everyone worked until their 70s," he said.

The regents had planned to discuss the matter Friday and wait until Monday to vote, but when a consensus emerged, they picked Clough, who had already departed and was traveling to New York on a train late Friday. When Sant reached him and told him he got the job, "I was in a car with a gaggle of young girls. There was lots of noise," Clough said. "And Roger Sant calls and says 'This is Roger.' I asked, 'Who?' I was surprised and gratified."