90 SEPTEMBER 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL RETIREMENT SUPPLEMENT committee in New York. Claire and I decided it was worth the trip to see if there was enough common interest on both sides. I was prepared for a committee decision that I wasn’t who they were looking for and for me to decide I’d rather wait for my next Foreign Service assignment. It turned out otherwise. They were intrigued with my unusual Foreign Service and international background. I had the glimmerings of a feeling that NMH could be a positive move for us. We traded a wide variety of ideas about international education and experience, leadership styles, and relationship-building with a community of students, faculty, trustees, alumni, and parents. I knew we might be in the ballpark of a match when one of the senior trustees started a question by saying, “If we were so fortunate to have you as our head of school …” The committee offered me a spot as one of three strong finalists. I would next have to visit and survive the gauntlet of 25 interviews in two and a half days. Claire and I arrived at the school some weeks later for an energizing but exhausting round of interviews. The questioning ran the gamut of my experience as a student, my international experience over the years, my involvement as a trustee and board chair at Hong Kong International School, how I might deal with controversy, and what kind of collaborator I would be. We explored what relationship I would establish with the faculty— namely, a partnership and not an autoAuthor Richard Mueller participating in a “pie race challenge” in 2002 while head of school at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts. He won a pie! COURTESY OF RICHARD MUELLER
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODIyMDU=