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BONITA SPRINGS — One of Florida Gulf Coast University’s founding leaders is retiring.

Richard Pegnetter, founding dean of the Lutgert College of Business and the university’s interim president in 2007, will leave his post in September but remain with the university as an advisor to President Wilson Bradshaw.

A letter from Provost Ronald Toll announced the retirement to FGCU faculty and staff on Wednesday.

“This is a big loss because he is the dean of deans at the university,” Hudson Rogers, associate provost and vice president for academic affairs, said Wednesday afternoon. “At the time when he retires, he will be the last of the initial group of deans.”

Pegnetter came to FGCU in 1995, two years before the school opened its south Fort Myers campus. He was previously dean of business at Colorado State University.

The Lutgert College of Business currently has approximately 3,000 students studying in five undergraduate and four graduate tracks.

Under Pegnetter’s leadership, the business school earned accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business faster than any other business school in the country.

“He was able to put together a team, and he had a vision, that allowed the college to move and grow very quickly,” said Rogers.

Pegnetter became FGCU’s interim president in January 2007, after former President William Merwin abruptly announced he was retiring after an affair with a female faculty member.

That spring, several gender discrimination complaints against the university surfaced, with at least two resulting in lawsuits against the university. Pegnetter served as president through November 2007, when Bradshaw took over.

As dean of the business school, Pegnetter established the Center for Leadership and Innovation to reach out to area business executives and support economic development.

He also helped establish the university’s Whitaker School of Engineering, which has been developed within the college of business.

Richard Botthof, executive director of the Regional Business Alliance of Southwest Florida in Naples, said Pegnetter has helped the young university shape its programs around the needs of the region.

“Dr. Pegnetter and the other early leadership of the university recognized how important it was to outreach, to find out what the community needs to prosper and grow,” said Botthoff. “The engineering program, the Center for Leadership and Innovation and the executive MBA program all arose from that.

“I personally believe the university has become the catalyst for the Southwest Florida region to become a real, sustainable community and he has definitely been a big part of that.”

According to Toll’s letter, after retirement Pegnetter will serve as a special consultant to the president in the area of regional economic development.

E-mail Pete Bishop at lpbishop@comcast.net