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A highly experienced researcher and administrator will serve as Kansas State University's interim vice president for research. After an internal search, K-State President Richard Myers has appointed Beth Montelone, the university's senior associate vice president for research, to the post.
Montelone's appointment takes effect on Jan. 3, 2021. Current vice president for research, Peter Dorhout, is leaving K-State to become Iowa State University's vice president for research in January.
Before joining the Office of the Vice President for Research, Montelone served as associate dean for research for the College of Arts and Sciences from 2004 to 2016 and was interim research director at the Biosecurity Research Institute from 2008-2011.
Pres. Schultz appointed a VP for Research who served < a year, before, prior to resignation, releasing a report that the Biosecurity Research Institute was taking 35% of KSU's sponsored research $$$$, $5 million annually, to pay for the $54 million Pat Roberts Hall. That was to continue for another 18 years.
When your recruitment pool is limited to candidates holding TS-SCI clearance, you institutionalize The Peter Principle states that, if you perform well in your job, you will likely be promoted to the next level of your organization's hierarchy. You will continue to rise up the ladder until you reach the point where you can no longer perform well. KSU's former VP for Research, Ron Trewyn is a prime example of this @ KSU => Trewyn assumed the positions of associate vice provost for research and professor of biology at Kansas State University in 1994. He served as president of the KSU Research Foundation from 1995 to 2011, vice provost for research and dean of the Graduate School from 1998 to 2007, and vice president for research from 2007 to 2014 (until removed by Pres. Schulz).
Here in KS, particularly in the "media" coverage of the NBAF coming out of Manhattan; we're continuously given "hunky-dory" updates on the progress of the world's largest BSL-4 lab; where researchers will be out-in-front of "emerging zoonotic diseases" (translation => diseases transmissible to humans with no known treatment or cure). Since 2008 the Dept. of Homeland Security has assured the nation that there's < 0.001 % chance of a release of say, foot & mouth disease (with an estimated $5 billion impact, should that happen, within 250 miles of KSU, for the 50 years lifespan of the NBAF).
As someone college-educated in the Sciences, this rosy propaganda lauding the capabilities of the world's most dangerous laboratory to never make an error, seemed overoptimistic. When KSU's Biosecurity Research Institute was exposed as having been placed under DHS "secret sanctions" for its inability to meet stringent aseptic laboratory standards while under the direction of Dr. Marty Vanier (daughter of KSU's largest donors), it alarmed me from a new angle: capabilities of local hires to work @ the NBAF. I had a KSU prof neighbor who bragged about one of his former grad students being an initial BRI hire (she couldn't talk about what she did).
As a former DoD personnel specialist, I was intrigued about the staffing of the NBAF, & skeptical that many of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center's staff would relish transferring to Manhattan. In 2008, I witnessed the Mahattan City Commission's meeting, where a citizen claimed an LGBTQ couple was ready to move to Manhattan to work @ NBAF. Within months, the Commission would rescind a recently-passed LGBTQ rental rights measure. I'm a native Kansan, but color me skeptical that Manhattan offers acceptance of the diversity of the New York coast. When I worked @ SW Regional Personnel Operations Center @ Ft. Riley, I thought it was amusing when staffing specialists would praise the Prairie Band Casino & Resort, as an incentive for recruitment.
Recent news regarding the staffing of the NBAF has glossed over the fact that few PIADC staff are accepting transfer offers. One KMAN article on the NBAF stated that newer PIADC scientists were from KSU. This would appear to indicate employees are hired for the NBAF, but given a NY duty station until their job is transferred. In these times when virologists are in demand for the Covid pandemic, every scientist, rocket or not, knows that private sector job opportunities are more lucrative.
So are NBAF hires the dregs of the petri dish? Danged IF I know. You certainly won't hear anything about the # of candidates for open NBAF positions. Since the arrival of Gen. Myers @ KSU, any VP hires have been from KSU faculty holding Top Secret - Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearances.
Just from recent news, I find it concerning that the NBAF will be opened in 2023 with little guidance from long-term researchers (think Dr. Fauci types), and employees whose first qualification was acceptance of working in Kansas (the same types who hire on @ Pfizer in McPherson). Oh, "tentative selections" translates to prospective hires who've yet to be investigated for a TS-SCI clearance.
More than a year after two U.S. Department of Agriculture research agencies were moved from the nation's capital to Kansas City, Missouri, forcing a mass exodus of employees who couldn't or didn't want to move halfway across the country, they remain critically understaffed and some farmers are less confident in the work they produce.
Pfizer’s management knew last year there was “a mold issue” at the Kansas facility now slated to produce the drugmaker’s urgently needed COVID-19 vaccine, according to a Food and Drug Administration inspection report.
The McPherson, Kansas, facility, which FDA inspectors wrote is the nation’s largest manufacturer of sterile injectable controlled substances, has a long, troubled history. Nearly a decade’s worth of FDA inspection reports, recalls and reprimands reviewed by KHN show the facility as a repeat offender. FDA investigators have repeatedly noted in reports that the plant has failed to control quality and contamination or fully investigate after production failures.
The 1970s-era manufacturing site has had persistent mold concerns over the years and been the focus of at least four intense FDA inspections since Pfizer took over its operations in late 2015, when it acquired Hospira. At the end of the January 2020 inspection, FDA investigators appeared to be growing frustrated.
There will likely be employees from all over the country working at the the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility when it is fully up and running.
“According to our demographic, we have like 32 different states that have people calling them as home within our USDA demographic,” Dr. Ken Burton, NBAF coordinator, said. “Just under 50 percent are Kansas residents and I think just over 50 percent are coming from other areas.”
Katie Pawlosky, NBAF communications director, says as far as hiring numbers go, over half of the positions have been filled.
“We’ve hired or made tentative selections for 232 of the 275 operations-team members, so we’ve come really far,” Pawlosky said. “We’ll have about 400 people on our team when all is said and done.”
While the NBAF completion timeline has experienced some delays, the mission transfer from Plum Island is expected to be completed by December 2023.
I would not anticipate knowing anything about the recruitment of a new KSU president. It did not take very long to replace WSU's president, when Koch pulled the plug after his cancellation of a virtual Trump daughter's speech to graduates. Wonder how that scenario was posed during the candidate interviews?
This is the first new VP of Research from outside of the KSU faculty since Schultz's 9-month appointee left after disclosing 35% of the RSO budget was obligated to retire the Biosecurity Research Institute debt for the next 18 years. I also wonder how that fact was posed during the candidate interviews?
KSU president qualifications?
Top Secret - Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance => necessary to oversee BRI & NBAF integration; & when the Board of Regents ask ?s about the BRI, president can again respond You don't have the necessary security clearance for me to share that information with the BoR.
Ability to oversee the formulation of a NBAF pathogen leak response SOP. Myers was always a week or 2 behind in launching KU's Covid protocols. The mortality rate of Covid will pale in comparison to those of the NBAF pathogens.
Glad-hander Extraordinaire. Alumni contributions; congressional appropriations for bioterrorism research; parceling out KSU land for NBAF spew-offs.
#1: Desire to come to Kansas/KSU with those credentials. I predict the applicant pool will be smaller than when Myers was secretly selected (One).
KMAN radio has a weekly NBAF update. The latest touted 50 positions yet to be filled. Applications @ USAjobs. The opening for GS-13-15 Veterinarians required only a SECRET clearance, but does indicate a background investigation must be completed. A SECRET clearance requires a National Agency Check with Local Agency and Credit Checks (NACLC). That is not a background investigation, which is necessary for TS-SCI clearance.
The Kansas Board of Regents (KBOR) today appointed 25 members to the committee that will assist and advise the Board in the search for the next president of Kansas State University (KSU). The search committee includes representation from university students, faculty, staff, alumni and the Manhattan community.
Federal officials say progress on a national bio-defense lab in Manhattan is being delayed. Earlier this year, officials said that the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility would be substantially completed this month.
Federal officials now say the construction is expected to finish next spring, with the laboratory commissioned in the summer. The Manhattan Mercury reports that the Department of Homeland Security says technology upgrades and equipment installation are taking longer than expected.
Once it’s completed, researchers at NBAF will study diseases that can be spread from animals to humans.
Some locals have begun to refer to the NBAF as Wuhan East. /sarchasm
One has to suspect that DHS drones are intently witnessing the "how not to do it" going on @ Wuhan. News reports indicate that all Wuhan lab employees were brought in to be lectured on speaking to what passes for media in China. That policy has been in effect @ KSU's Biosecurity Research Institute since Day 1. Witness how Kansans found out the BRI was under 2 quarters of DHS "Secret Sanctions" (can't get any more $ until you can prove you can safely do the work).
I read (w/amusement) Sen/Quack Marshall's medical expertise @ work => making unrealistic demands to know what viral enhancement @ Wuhan Uncle Sam has paid for. Reminds me of when KSU Pres. Schultz told the KS Board of Regents they didn't have the necessary security clearance for him to tell them about what was going on @ the BRI (secret sanctions?).
Pity Pres/Gen Myers won't be able to christen the NBAF before his retirement. He will likely be MoC @
Join us to celebrate Jerry and Nancy Jaax, Alumni Excellence Award recipients 11/12/2021
Jerry Jaax served as K-State’s associate vice provost for research compliance and the university veterinarian. Nancy Jaax served as special projects officer in the Office of Sponsored Research Programs at K-State. Both were instrumental in winning the national competition for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, commonly referred to as NBAF, and in the development of the Biosecurity Research Institute, or BRI, at Pat Roberts Hall. Both are College of Veterinary Medicine Alumni Fellows.
Jerry was so diligent in putting together Kansas'/KSU's proposal for the NBAF that he forgot to include the mandatory on-site electric power generation facility. So naturally, DHS let him redo the bid. I've suggested that power plant be named the Jumping' Jaax Flashlight Plant in his honor. /sarchasm?
The day AFTER Gov. Kelly's announcement of bringing Scorpion/Heat/NightHawk biologics production facility to Pottawatomie County, it was announced:
Richard Myers, who previously served as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before serving as President of Kansas State University, will become Chairman of NightHawk’s BioThreat Advisory Board.
The project is heralded by Governor Laura Kelly as the largest economic development investment in her administration’s history. The $650 million planned project will create a brand new 500,000+ square foot facility intended for biologics manufacturing. An estimated 500 high-paying jobs are anticipated to be available in Manhattan in the next seven years and the project is expected to have a billion-dollar impact* within the State of Kansas.*
*DHS's 2008 estimate of a release of Foot & Mouth Disease would have a $5 billion-dollar NEGATIVE impact on the beef production industry in the State of Kansas.
Where would ~ 500 highly-trained viral biologists come from the KS workforce? No mention. AFAIK, the NBAF has only hired 1/2 that many trained scientists; a figure repeatedly thrown out by USDA/DHS. Are there that many Wuhan researchers awaiting green cards? IDK
It will only take a "rumor" of a NBAF release of Foot & Mouth Disease to devastate Kansas' beef production sales. You can bet DHS has been studying "what NOT TO DO," should such an event happen in the lab's 50-year lifespan.
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"Pig In A Poke" OR "Jack And The Beanstalk" ?????
