Mr. Robert Walton has served as Chief Executive Officer of Claremont University Consortium (CUC) since July 2007. As CEO, he oversees all aspects of operations for the Claremont University Consortium, the central coordinating and support organization for The Claremont Colleges, a highly regarded cluster of seven independent colleges and universities located in Southern California. The member institutions of The Claremont Colleges include: Pomona College, founded in 1887; Claremont Graduate University, 1925; Scripps College, 1926; Claremont McKenna College, 1946; Harvey Mudd College, 1955; Pitzer College, 1963; and the Keck Graduate Institute for Applied Life Sciences, 1997.
Mr. Walton’s duties include oversight of academic, student, and institutional support programs and services for the consortium, facilitation of planning for the future of CUC, coordination of selected intercollegiate cooperative activities, and support of consortial activities including land-use planning and community and governmental relations.
Mr. Walton earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, and spent a decade teaching information management and technology strategic planning at the Graduate School for Information at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1990, Mr. Walton became President and CEO of CLSI, Inc., a higher education related software firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, concluding in the successful sale of the company on the Toronto stock exchange. In 1992, Mr.Walton moved to California where he took over as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Innovative Interfaces, Inc., an international library and information management software firm, expanding its base of operations to 33 countries during the 1990s. Mr. Walton moved in 1998 from Innovative to Ohio where he took the position of Vice President for Finance and Business at The College of Wooster, and served there for eight years before assuming the role of CEO of CUC.
Mr. Walton has served on a number of high technology company boards, and currently serves on the boards of the Seaman Corporation, an industrial fabrics manufacturer, as Chairman of iPost Corporation, an internet-focused high technology company based in San Francisco, California, on the Executive Committee of the Association of Independent California College and Universities, and the Association of Consortium Leadership Board of Directors. Mr. Walton also serves as one of three Endowment Trustees overseeing the investments of the endowments of the American Library Association, and on the Advisory Board for the Graduate School for Information at the University of Texas at Austin.