He came from a highly political and finance-centered background, and she had spent the past two decades in an academic atmosphere at MSU, but President M. Peter McPherson's and Provost Lou Anna Simon's worlds converged in 1993 when they became the No. 1 and 2 ranking officials at the university.
Both had tried for the top executive position, but McPherson won out.
"I was hopeful, but uncertain, how it'd work to have someone who had been such an important candidate as the provost," McPherson said. "But it worked out very well.
"We got right into a problem-solving mode and that was really the experience we had throughout these 11 years."
The MSU Board of Trustees voted Friday to name Simon the university's 20th president, effective Jan. 1, when McPherson leaves MSU. Simon and McPherson share the longest president-provost partnership in the Big Ten.
McPherson said over the years he and Simon have worked through a lot of problems together, including a meningitis outbreak that killed two students in 1997.
"We decided one Sunday afternoon that we should vaccinate anybody who wanted to for free," McPherson said. "We lined them up. (Simon) was involved, even though it was outside of her area."
Confident in Simon's capabilities, McPherson said he recommended her to the MSU Board of Trustees for the presidency because of all the activities going on at MSU: The university is in a tough position with budget difficulties, there is a planned moved of the medical school to Grand Rapids and attempts are still being made to obtain $1 billion in federal funding for the Rare Isotope Accelerator project.
While he said Simon is the right one to take over his job, that's not to say they haven't had their differences.
"There were a lot of things we didn't see eye to eye on, but they weren't fundamental," McPherson said. "We agreed on a basic vision for the university.
"We come at it from different worlds."
These different worlds were apparent to Roger Wilkinson, a former vice president for finance and operations, who sat with McPherson and Simon from the time they entered their posts until 1998. He is now retired.
"Lou Anna is extremely knowledgeable about all the internal aspects of the university," he said. "Peter, coming from the outside, had ideas that we should explore.
"They had styles that complemented each other."
Wilkinson said the one example showing the dynamic relationship was the inclusion of the MSU College of Law in 1995.
"I believe that President McPherson had the external relations and the politics," he said. "Dr. Simon assisted and worked on all the academic aspects."
Current Vice President for Finance and Operations Fred Poston said McPherson and Simon had a productive relationship, but there was a lot of heated debate. He wouldn't elaborate on which topics.
"A lot of things they felt different about and passionate about," he said.
"Really, he wasn't an academic, yet he really believed in setting some stakes out there and driving the university toward that."
The university is better off than is has been in the past, Poston said.
The college of education wasn't on the map 10 years ago and now it's one of the best in the nation, Poston said. "I think a large part of that is due to the relationship."
