URBANA — The campus will probably be gaining another administrator when Phyllis Wise becomes chancellor Oct. 1.

Her partner of nine years, Richard Meisinger, will be moving with her, though he's not sure what role he'll play in Urbana.

"My whole career has been with university administration," he said.

Meisinger said he is proud of his University of Illinois ties. He studied nuclear engineering in a doctoral program here before that part of his career was cut short by being drafted to Vietnam.

Meisinger, 66, has served as a dean and the University of Washington's top planner in charge of new initiatives.

He met Wise when both were at the University of California-Davis, she as dean of the College of Biological Sciences from 2002 to 2005, and he as associate vice chancellor from 1986 to 2005.

He said that he's proud of his work at Davis at a time in the 1990s when the state of California was in an emergency fiscal situation from which it has never fully recovered.

"We were able to work with ongoing budget deficits with the least amount of acrimony among the state universities," he said.

He also was heavily involved with campus planning, both at Davis and in the University of Washington system.

"Another professional accomplishment I'm proud of: initiating a process improvement project and creating a forum for continuous process improvement for clinical research proposal submission and review at the University of Washington," Meisinger said.

He also has extracurricular activities.

"As a photographer, I am proud to have images in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the California State Library," he added.

But he is also very proud of his Illini career. He said he had a wide choice of universities for his doctoral research, but was sure that Urbana was the best possible choice.

"Everyone knows the UI's reputation," he said, adding that it was also a good choice for Wise to move administratively.

He describes his life partner as a remarkable person.

"She has incredible energy and an incredible value system," Meisinger said. "She is honorable in her dealings with everybody and ethical down to the bone."

"She's also a very tough person," he said.