Leary to head building management at USC

After working for 40 years in Las Vegas, Thomas Leary was officially appointed Monday to oversee all of USC’s Capital Construction, which coordinates building and renovation used with university funds.

Experienced · Thomas Leary was appointed the new Vice President of Capital Construction and Facilities Management at USC. - Robin Laird | Daily Trojan

Leary will also oversee Facilities Management, which maintains the buildings on both the University Park and Health Sciences Campuses.

“It’s a beautiful, beautiful campus,” Leary said. “I come from the Philadelphia area, and they have Drexel and Penn and Temple, and I can tell you now that none of those campuses are as nice as this.”

Leary will be in charge of making sure the buildings run properly in terms of heating, cooling, electricity and other safety aspects. He will also make sure that there are enough funds for earthquake remediation and overseeing the construction of new buildings.

“The complexity of running this campus and the medical campus is quite a significant responsibility,” said USC Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer Robert Abeles.

Abeles also hopes that Leary will be able to bring new ideas from his past experiences on how to run the university.

“I have certain ideas on how the design process and the construction process should be conducted,” Leary said. “I’ve seen the wrong way to do things and the right way to do things. I don’t know how they do things here — I’m just getting my feet wet.”

Leary has worked in the construction and renovation industry for about 40 years, spending the first 20 years mostly in construction and the past 20 working on the development, managing design and legal aspects of renovation and construction projects. He spent the past 12 years working for the MGM Mirage in Las Vegas, and was one of four primary project managers on the City Center, a $9 billion complex with hotels, residences, dining, shopping and spas.

“The university has significant expansion plans on both the campus here and the medical campus,” Abeles said. “He’ll be involved with those decisions and how to get those buildings built over time, because of his background, Leary will provide a different perspective on the way the University is currently operated.”