A former University of Arizona president who quit UA to lead a Phoenix-area sports organization is returning to Tucson in a new role.
Robert N. Shelton resigned from the Fiesta Bowl on Tuesday, 2 years into the four-year contract he signed when he left UA in 2011 to become the bowl’s executive director.
His last day there was Monday.
His departure dovetailed with an announcement Tuesday from the Tucson-based Research Corp. for Science Advancement that Shelton, a physicist by training, would be its new president.
He’s expected to assume that position in March.
Leaving the Fiesta Bowl’s top job ahead of schedule “was a mutual decision” between him and the organization’s board, Shelton said in a phone interview.
He was hired to help turn around what was then a troubled organization racked by allegations of corruption and lavish spending. Much of that work – the “heavy-lifting part” — has already been accomplished, he said.
Fiesta Bowl Board Chairman Brian Hall said Shelton was instrumental in turning around the organization.
“He was the ideal person at a crucial time in our history and we are deeply grateful for his contributions,” Hall said in a news release .
Shelton, who earned a base salary of $455,000 a year plus incentives at Fiesta Bowl, said he expects to receive a separation payment.
“I wouldn’t call it a buyout,” he said. “They are fulfilling the agreement of the contract for early departure.”
The head of the science foundation, meanwhile, said he’s thrilled to have Shelton as its new leader.
“He is a highly accomplished scientist with very broad experience in top executive positions,” Patrick Osmer, chair of the organization’s board of directors, said in a news release.
Shelton’s new salary was not disclosed by the private foundation. He succeeds interim President Jack Pladziewicz, who is retiring.
The foundation, established in 1912, provides grants for innovative scientific research and is one of the oldest entities of its kind in America.
Shelton and his wife of more than 44 years, Adrian Shelton, never really left Tucson in one sense.
They held on to their home in the Catalina Foothills and will be returning there to live after the last few years of renting in Scottsdale, he said.
“Our primary residence has been Tucson all along and we feel blessed to be returning,” he said.
Shelton was the UA’s president from 2006 to 2011.
