Robert Manning

ULowell graduate Robert Manning, for the past 15 months a member of the 22-member UMass Board of Trustees, was elected its chairman in December.

Manning, named to the board by then-Gov. Mitt Romney in the fall of 2006, is CEO, president and chief investment officer of MFS Investment Management in Boston, a financial firm with oversight of  $204 billion in assets. He has been with the company 23 years, since joining it as a junk-bond analyst three months out of school in the fall of 1984.

He replaces Stephen Tocco as chairman; both men were appointed to the board by the outgoing governor in September 2006.

Among his priorities as board chairman, he says, will be a closer working relationship with the Legislature to augment funding for capital improvements, and an increase in annual giving through a more active promotion of the bond between alumni and their schools.

“There are a lot of others like us out there,” he said on a visit to the Lowell campus last year. “A lot of alumni with the means to help—who probably would even want to help. They just don’t realize how badly we need them.”

Manning, who lives today in Swampscott, grew up in Methuen, as did his wife Donna. The two met in high school, attended ULowell together—where he majored in management and computer science, she in nursing—married, and went on to their respective careers. She is today an oncology nurse at BU Medical Center, and serves on the advisory board of the UMass Lowell Nursing Department.  Together, the two have created the Donna and Robert Manning Endowed Scholarship Fund, which provides two $3,000 scholarships annually to UMass Lowell students, one each from the College of Management and from the nursing program of the College of Health and Environment.

UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan has been a strong backer of Manning’s elevation to the chairmanship. “I think Rob will be excellent,” Meehan told reporters in December. “He has a passion for the University.”