Dr. Olin Cleve McDaniel March 30, 1948 - August 12, 2024

Dr. Olin Cleve McDaniel, 76, died at Presbyterian Palliative Care, Albuquerque, NM, on August 12, 2024.

Cleve had a long and illustrious career in higher education and recently retired as Vice-President for Administration and Finance at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, New Mexico. He held the position there from 2016 to 2023.

He came to Socorro from Sharjah, U.A.E. where he was the chief operating officer at the American University. Prior to this, his academic positions included Administrative Vice Chancellor at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; Senior Vice-President for Finance and Administration and Chief Operations Officer at the Desert Research Institute of Nevada; and early in his career, Vice President for administrative affairs, Lincoln University, 1988-1995.

Dr. McDaniel received his undergraduate degree from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri; his Master’s Degree in behavioral sciences from Southern Illinois University and his Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri in 1997.

According to past President, Dr. Stephen Wells, of the Institute for Mining and Technology, Dr. McDaniel was skilled and successful in using a multi-tiered approach to developing non-traditional funding sources, throughout his career, and had extensive experience working with ethnically, culturally and gender -diverse campuses, having served in leadership roles at several universities and as a founding partner with a higher education consulting group.

Cleve was born in Bonne Terre, Missouri, on March 30, 1948.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Olin S. and Estella (Perrier) McDaniel; a sister, Carolyn McDaniel, of Bonne Terre, Missouri; a brother-in-law, Dr. Robert M. Heyssel and a nephew, Robert M. Heyssel, Jr., of Baltimore, MD.

He is survived by his sister, Maria M. Heyssel, Ellicott City, MD; nephews and nieces, James and Patricia Heyssel, Lisa (Heyssel) and William Rinaca, Kurtand Meg Heyssel and Helen (heyssel) and Werner Glaser, 11 grand-nephews and nieces and 5 great-grand nephews and nieces, all living and working throughout the US, Europe and Australia.

Burial will be with his family in the Bonne Terre Cemetery.

He will be missed, greatly.