Trustees to pick Yoh successor

Four months before current Board of Trustees Chair Harold "Spike" Yoh will retire, the Trustees will likely pick his successor at their meeting this weekend. Yoh will step down in July after three years of directing the Trustees, and speculation has focused upon vice chair and Campaign for Duke co-chair Peter Nicholas as a leading contender to take the reins. Robert Steel, also a vice chair, has also been discussed as a potential chair. "[Nicholas] would certainly be a strong possibility," said Nan Keohane in an interview last month. "We don't know until the Board votes. He's been a very effective vice chair. He'd certainly be a possibility. But we don't have a formal assumption that the vice chair succeeds the chair. Although it often happens, it doesn't always happen. So that's one of the things we have to decide." In addition, the 35-member Board will discuss who will serve as vice chair and of the Board's various committees. "They will be talking about it," said Allison Haltom, vice president and University secretary, who handles much of the planning and organization for the Board. "The actual election takes place at the May Board meeting. But that is certainly on the agenda to discuss." But Yoh said everything will be voted on in this weekend's meeting and everything will be in place. "We want to do it early enough, because although it doesn't stray until July, the important thing is to stay ahead of the power curve," said Yoh, who would not speculate on who would succeed him, however. "It depends on what the Board decides," he said. "We have two great vice chairs." Haltom said the vice chair has historically succeeded the chair, and indeed, Yoh served for three years as vice chair prior to his ascension. Randall Tobias, who served as the Board's chair from 1997 to 2000, also served as vice chair for three years before taking the chairmanship. Nicholas, Trinity '64, a Boston resident and Board member since 1993, currently serves as vice chair with Robert Steel, who has been a member of the Board since 1996. Nicholas became the namesake of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences after providing it a $20 million gift in 1991. He serves as co-chair of the successful $2 billion Campaign for Duke with his wife Ginny, Woman's College '64. At last count, the campaign has raised $2.022 billion, with 10 months remaining until it ends. The Nicholas family has been one of the most generous to Duke, having given over $56 million to the University through the years, making the family Duke's largest individual donor - in absolute dollars - in Duke history. Last year, they provided $25 million to endow university professorships and provide funds for faculty research and equipment support. Also a member of the Trinity College Board of Visitors and Reunion Class chair, Nicholas co-founded the Boston Scientific Corporation in 1979 and is the company's chair. Steel, Trinity '73, also serves as chair of the Duke University Management Company board and has served as national co-chair of the Duke Annual Fund. He is a vice chair of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., and is a member of the New York Stock Exchange. Yoh's departure will come after three years of rapid expansion at the University, which saw the capital campaign's goal raised from $1.5 billion to $2 billion. During the Yoh chairmanship, the Board approved the University's academic strategic plan, a new residential life plan and a slew of new facilities from the engineering plaza and Perkins Library renovations to the West-Edens Link dormitory and the Nasher Museum of Art. Dave Ingram contributed to this story.