Like other states, Virginia has faced serious economic challenges. In recent years, the state has had to close $6 billion in budget shortfalls. Early in Governor Mark Warner's administration, he and his administration came to an important conclusion: while money matters, the quality of higher education depends on the quality of its leaders--its professional educators, of course, but also its citizen trustees who voluntarily serve on its governing boards. They realized that the governing board members appointed to Virginia's public university boards were enormously important and that the process of identifying candidates needed to be given great attention and care. In this article, the former governor makes the case for selecting public higher education board members based on qualifications instead of politics by describing the process his administration used to find the best board candidates.