It's official. After 15 months as interim head of Cal State San Marcos' College of Business Administration, Dennis Guseman has been named permanent dean, it was disclosed Wednesday.

A 25-year academic veteran, Guseman's tasks include planning for a new business building, improving its academic credentials, recruiting more faculty and providing stability at the long-troubled college, said Bob Sheath, the university's provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Over time, Guseman, 54, said he hopes to do more for the business college, which educates the bulk of the university's approximately 7,700 students. This includes turning the business college into a major force for North County economic development.

That role has been tried before, including through a short-lived Economic Consortium based at Cal State San Marcos. But the efforts never gained traction, in part because the college has been repeatedly distracted by internal problems and a lack of continuity among its leadership.

The business college has had eight interim, acting and permanent deans in 11 years.

"We're in a good situation where hopefully we won't continue to see a revolving door for deans," said Sheath, Guseman's boss.

Last July, the college's MBA program was rebuked in a university report that said its leaders acted with "obvious disregard of laws."

This was a reference to findings by California State University auditors that teachers and administrators in the MBA program used state and student money to enrich themselves. The program was supposed to pay for itself, the report said, but used a combination of student fees and state funds.

In addition, the auditors' report found the MBA program had counted more students than were actually enrolled. State funding is tied to the number of full-time students on campus.

With Guseman on board, the expectation is that those problems are over at the business college.

Sheath said Guseman has earned respect on campus in his stint as interim dean, as well as bringing extensive experience in marketing, both in teaching and in working for companies such as Nabisco.

Guseman's previous post was professor of marketing at Cal State Bakersfield. Since arriving in February 2002, Guseman has plunged into campus and extracurricular activities, including writing a weekly business column for the North County Times.

"This is a personal commitment on my part," Guseman said, emphasizing he has been part of the California State University system since 1984. "When I came here, it was with a sense of building something, because you can see the potential."

Guseman said he intends to get the business college accredited by the American Association of College and Schools of Business. The college already has most of the requirements for accreditation, Guseman said, but those need to be documented.

Getting accreditation is important to the business college's reputation, and the university's. Business is the single most popular major at the university, and the college has an enrollment of 6,300 students.

Beyond securing basics such as accreditation, Guseman said he intends to build up the curriculum's quality.

"My goal in a longer-term vision is to have the college become a major player in economic development for North County," he said. "By that, I mean I want us to be able to supply quality managers and leaders, to train them, to engage the business community in terms of ongoing training, continuing education, and to do research that would help the area develop."

Guseman said he's also interested in developing a 'program of distinction' that would gain the business college national attention.

One of those programs could be "destination marketing," the field of marketing and building up a region or an attraction as an desirable locale to visit, Guseman said. This would play into Southern California and San Diego's strengths as major tourist attractions.

"SeaWorld, Disneyland, even La Costa (Resort and Spa) would all be destination places," Guseman said. Themed restaurants such as Medieval Times or the Hard Rock Cafe might also qualify.

"We could to a certain degree make North County a destination place, but also train others in that particular discipline," he said.

Guseman said he has not yet forged partnerships with the local business community to bring about these goals ---- but is ready to start now.

"That's one of the differences between being an interim dean versus being a permanent one," Guseman said.