Updated march 18, 2019

After a four-month search process, Tennessee Board of Regents Chancellor Flora W. Tydings is recommending appointment of Mike Whitehead as the next president of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology in Pulaski.

The Board of Regents will consider and act on the recommendation at its Thursday quarterly meeting  in Nashville.

Whitehead has been vice president of TCAT Pulaski since August 2015. If the board approves his appointment, he will become president effective April 1, succeeding Tony Creecy who retired Jan. 2 after more than six years as president and a total of 33 years of service at the college.

Whitehead has a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Tennessee Tech University and a Master of Education from Tennessee State University. Before his arrival at TCAT Pulaski, he was a high school math educator in the Marshall County school system from 2006 to 2015 and previously worked for 13 years in manufacturing industries.

He was one of two finalists for the TCAT Pulaski presidency selected by a Search Advisory Committee in February. The committee was chaired by Regent Joey Hatch and included as members Board Vice Chair Emily J. Reynolds and representatives of the college’s faculty, staff and students, and local community and business leaders.

The committee received and reviewed 31 applications before submitting the two finalists to the chancellor for final interviews. The finalists also visited the campus separately earlier this month for meetings with faculty, staff and students. The chancellor reviewed input from those meetings before making her final recommendation.

The College System of Tennessee, governed by the Tennessee Board of Regents, is the state’s largest public higher education system, with 13 community colleges, 27 colleges of applied technology and the online TN eCampus serving more than 110,000 students.