and you need to learn not to confuse start dates with hire dates. Both the searches for the President and AD were running concurrently with two independent committes. Do not recall all the members of each committee, however, the President search included Mike Quillen, a BOV member and the AD committee included Ray Smoot, who held multiple upper level leadership positions during his career at VT. No AD is going to take a job without knowing who their ultimate boss is which is why the committees while working independently coordinated activities. Sands was identified first in late 2013 and he signed off on Whit who was then offerred and came aboard early 2014. Sands wrapped his duties at Purdue and joined mid 2014 but, as with most executive transitions he was doing some double duty between his actual hire date and his start date.