Mercer President-elect and former Baylor Interim President William D. Underwood announced Tuesday the appointment of Larry D. Brumley as senior vice president and chief of staff at Mercer, effective June 1.
Currently serving as interim vice president for marketing and communications at Baylor, Brumley was associate vice president for university relations at Mercer for six years before joining Baylor in 1997.
“Larry Brumley is among the brightest young leaders in higher education today,” said Underwood. “He has provided wise and effective leadership as a member of the senior executive staff of three presidents at Baylor. He has led a major communications effort at Baylor that has contributed to significant improvements in student enrollments. I am pleased that he has agreed to return to his home at Mercer.”
As senior vice president and chief of staff, Brumley will provide executive leadership as a senior adviser to the president and will work closely with other Mercer executive staff to facilitate overall marketing strategies, direct presidential initiatives to enhance and expand Mercer’s relationship with Baptist constituencies and manage the operations of the Office of the President.
“I believe this appointment by Bill Underwood is outstanding,” said Mercer President R. Kirby Godsey. “We look forward to having Larry and his family associated with the University again.”
While at Baylor, Brumley instituted an annual strategic planning process in the Office of Public Relations and implemented a national media relations
initiative that resulted in a significant increase in coverage of the university by major print, Internet and broadcast media outlets. He also led Baylor’s acquisition of local PBS station KCTF (now KWBU-TV) and established National Public Radio service on KWBU-FM in 2000. He served as executive producer for the award-winning “Christmas at Baylor,” a one-hour HDTV holiday special that aired on PBS stations across the nation and was viewed by more than 10 million
people over the last three years.
Brumley has also played a significant role in Baylor’s bid for the George W. Bush Presidential Library and served as the university’s liaison to the White House in planning and staging President Bush’s August 2002 Economic Forum and the president’s March 2005 trilateral meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Both events were held on the Baylor campus. He also led a major marketing effort at Baylor that established new branding guidelines and contributed to record student enrollments.
His community involvement includes serving as chair of the Brazos Valley Public Broadcasting Foundation and president of the Midway ISD Education Foundation. He is also vice president of Friends of Big Bend National Park.
A 1982 Baylor graduate, Brumley earned an M.A. in mass communications from the University of Oklahoma. He and his wife, Emily, also a Baylor graduate, are the parents of two daughters: Laura, a Baylor freshman, and Amy, a Midway High School sophomore. They are members of First Baptist Church, Waco.
