Spring Hill College, the oldest Catholic college in the southeast, named its new president Thursday.

Spring Hill alum Christopher Puto was announced as the 37th president of the renowned institution in west Mobile and will start the job June 1.

Puto succeeds the Rev. Gregory F. Lucey who will continue to work as an administrator with the college.

Puto graduated from Spring Hill in 1964 before going on to receive his MBA from the University of Miami. He was the first person to ever receive a Ph.D in business administration from Duke University.

He was a member of the college's board of trustees from 2003 until 2012.

Puto has served at St.Thomas University as well as The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University where he designed a comprehensive strategic plan for the school that raised $80 million in three years.

He told AL.com that part of that imitative involved assessing the program's current state of affairs with and then identifying weaknesses and strengths.

"How are we different than everyone else? What are we delivering to the educational marketplace that others can't?" He said that they also identified key financial leaders who supported the university's mission and involved them in the process.

Identifying unique assets is not new to Puto.

Puto is credited with assisting Burger King in formulating its "Have it Your Way" advertising campaign when he started his career there as a sales manager.

"This happened in 1972," Puto recalled. "We found out that fast-food customers don't like mass-production," he said. "We found out that we could make a special Whopper just as fast... if you didn't want onions, just as fast as a regular Whopper. So we said let's take advantage of something else no one has."

He's also spent time at the University of Arizona, University of Michigan and Appalachian State and done consulting work for companies such as General Electric and Bank of America.

Spring Hill College is consistently recognized as one of the top colleges in the south by U.S. News and World Report.