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Region Visits Aquaculture Center
Region Visits Aquaculture Center
Waynesville, MO – October 12, 2004 ---- Waynesville Technical Academy (WTA) hosted the monthly meeting of the Fort Leonard Wood Regional Commerce and Growth Association (RCGA). It was held at the Pippen Aquaculture Center near Waynesville. Academy director, Dr. Bob Chapman welcomed the board and those attending the meeting. Colin Long, vice chairman of the RCGA, thanked Chapman for WTA’s hospitality and thanked all who came out for the meeting.
Executive director Ron Selfors reviewed some of the key RCGA events that happened during the last month. H said that robotics has been a very active area since the visit last month of the director of the Joint Robotics Center and the executive directors of the Robotics Foundry and the National Center for Military Robotics. Rick Prugh, LWI executive director, will brief the Robotics Foundry in Pittsburgh this Thursday on regional robotics initiatives. This will be the first time the region has briefed in this national forum. Robotics has a great potential for the region – especially in the advanced manufacturing of these systems which need rapid development and fielding.
On September 30 Selfors was in San Antonio at the annual conference of the Association of University Research Parks. Rick Finholt, the University of Missouri general manager of tech parks for the university asked Selfors to join him and Dennis Roedemeier, Business development director for Southeast Missouri State University, in presenting a panel discussion of the university tech park at Fort Leonard Wood. They had a large interested audience for the panel. The university paid for his participation. Selfors said “We got some great regional recognition, and Rick was recognized with a prestigious, lifetime career award from the association. The Tech Park continues to get us good national interest.”
As a follow-up, Selfors said that after the conference he got a call from city planners in El Paso, Texas, who are working to establish a tech park at Fort Bliss. They are adopting a model much like ours to include university and state participation. They have a 1,000 acre location targeted for the development.
On October 8, Bob Kreuter, Chairman of the RCGA, and Selfors went to Rolla and participated on Richard Cavender’s Viewpoint Program on KUMR. Cavender is the executive director of the Meramec Regional Planning Commission. They talked about the region, the RCGA and the regional marketing program. Selfors said “KUMR is a good forum for the RCGA since it covers the whole region.”
Sue Halter, Deputy Garrison Commander for Fort Leonard Wood, provided the FLW update. She said that the Chemical Corps World-Wide Conference begins this week.
Halter said that all the major construction projects on post continue to be on-track or ahead of schedule. The West Gate Road should open for traffic on November 1st with operating hours 24/7. The ribbon cutting with Representative Ike Skelton is scheduled for 3PM on November 10. The new front gate should also be open for traffic in early November.
The Residential Communities Initiative for transfer of all existing family housing from the Army to American Eagle has been delayed to February. Completion of the instrument landing system is funded but award of the contract to complete the work may slip past January 2005.
Each of the communities provided a short update on community activities. Of special note, Bruce Harrell, city administrator for Waynesville, stated that Cliff Hammock, the mayor, was back from reserve duty in Iraq. Luge Hartman, chairperson for city planning, said that Waynesville was pursuing funding for a major downtown facelift. .
Dr. Ed Musgrove, superintendent of the Waynesville School District, said that groundbreaking for the new Freedom elementary school in St. Robert will be on October 25. It will open in the fall of 2006. Bids were recently opened for the construction and the bids were too high. The cost of materials has skyrocketed this year. Action is now underway to size back the school from 1,000 to 750 students.
Bob Chapman reported that the upgrade of the old Powell building as the new home for the Waynesville Technical Academy is underway. The cost estimate is $4 million. This is up from $3 million just one year ago because of the rise in material costs.
Steve Tupper, University of Missouri Rolla, reported that UMR was recently rated in the top 50 engineering schools for undergraduates. It is already rated high for graduate studies. Chancellor Gary Thomas has announced his intent to retire next summer, and the search is underway to find his replacement, The opening of the new Havener student center has been delayed until January.
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