On Feb. 1, Gerry Bomotti was officially appointed by UCR Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox as chief financial officer (CFO) and vice chancellor for planning and budget. Bomotti has spent more than 30 years in senior executive roles at public universities across the United States.
Most recently, Bomotti was the senior vice president for finance and business at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a position he held since 2004. At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Bomotti oversaw many of the same tasks he will oversee at UCR as CFO and vice chancellor for planning and budget. In an email interview with The Highlander, Bomotti stated that he believes his past experience will help him understand the functional areas of UCR.
Bomotti wrote that, as CFO and vice chancellor for planning and budget his “first goal is to make sure and fully understand the culture, policies and priorities of UCR, so that (he) can focus on supporting them.” Bomotti noted that while he has significant experience working in public higher education at other institutions, and knows the functional areas under his purview well, he does not yet know UCR and believes that he needs to take some time to focus on the unique aspects of the campus.
Bomotti wants to address improvements in facilities support for the campus and has advocated for improved campus lighting. He also expressed a desire to develop a strong administrative sustainability office that can coordinate with different academic units, including the Office of the Provost, and specifically with UCR students.
Bomotti wishes to support the new campus budget model by looking at adjustments that will allow it to better support the needs of the campus. He wrote, “I hope to look at existing policies and especially process steps to determine if there are more efficient and/or effective options available.” He also wishes to make himself open to anyone or any group that he can assist on campus whose issues or concerns are relative to areas of his responsibility.
A total of five offices at UCR (Financial Planning and Analysis, Facilities Services, Capital Assets Strategies, Architects and Engineers, Institutional Research and the Strategic Project Management Offices) will report to Bomotti.
The Capital Assets Strategies office helps UCR plan to include land use and new facilities in the future and also includes real estate support and space management for the campus. The Architects and Engineers is a group that supports the design and delivery of new campus facilities, campus renovations, and almost all campus facilities projects that are over $50,00 in total cost.
The Institutional Research office supports the campus with data and information on enrollments and other campus statistics fed into national and state databases. This office also manages data used and needed by the campus to understand UCR and help plan for the future. The Strategic Project Management is a relatively small office that helps support individual management projects, such as the new budget model that was rolled out in the recent past, and other areas where change management is occurring with new process steps and often with new automated administrative system implementations.
Bomotti earned a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Oregon State University and a master of arts in mathematics from Washington State University. He completed doctoral-level coursework in higher education administration at the University of Michigan.
Bomotti has worked at land grant institutions (institutions that focus on the teachings of agriculture, science, military science and engineering) for most of his career and stated that he is very happy to be working at UCR, which is also a land grant institution. He believes that UCR has a very strong agricultural operation and is learning about the vast aspects of it and how it provides critical support for food production and other related activities to the state and well beyond. He wrote, “I am very impressed with the campus, its students, its faculty and its staff. The future seems very bright for UCR, from my perspective, and I am excited about being part of (a) campus that is growing and serving this region and state.”
