Louisiana’s new commissioner of higher education has been on the job for less than a week, but Joe Rallo is out of Baton Rouge and traveling around north Louisiana meeting with college presidents and business groups for what he calls a “listening and learning tour.”
“Everybody has good ideas. At the same time, we all learn from each other,” Rallo said, during a stop at Red River Radio Wednesday. “But, what I think more importantly, it’s also the fact that people sometimes in the areas outside of the Louisiana State Capitol with large cities perhaps feel neglected sometimes. That’s not a good feeling. So, we want to make sure they feel connected.”
Rallo, 65, is a New York native whose family emigrated from Italy. He speaks French and Italian. His resume includes work as a Navy intelligence officer, an Air Force colonel, and a college professor and administrator.
Rallo says he applied for this job because he’ll be able to help the Board of Regents navigate higher education policy and trends, territory he knows and loves.
“I am a very goal-oriented person. I set goals probably 25 years ago that I wanted to be a university president and I wanted to retire as an Air Force colonel. I achieved both of those. But I’m still young enough at heart and I wanted to do something else. I was looking for something with a little more of policy implications, a little more of a jigsaw puzzle,” Rallo said.
Rallo oversees a patchwork of systems that lead the state’s two-year and four-year colleges and universities. He formerly worked as a special adviser for global engagement at Texas Tech University. He’s held administrative roles at the Texas Tech System level, was the president of Angelo State University, and held posts at Western Illinois University and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
He was in Shreveport Wednesday for meetings. Thursday, he’s traveling around Monroe before returning to Baton Rouge.
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