Education- Senate and House

Sometimes that have a little fun broadly mellow of. Anyway. Good call this meeting to order good to have everybody here today and if I don't hear you make sure you yell at me because my I got one here that is stopped up really bad so I'm not hearing that well but that's normal for me so good to have everyone thank you for being here in preparation of our day before we start a special session and ready to go madam chair. Thank you represent I've Cozart I just wanna thank everybody that came to Christmas in the capital today and we collected I think it grows bigger and bigger every year and I'm just grateful to the Legislative orders to all of our folks that we work within the lobbying groups and higher ed and all the agencies that come at the Supreme Court justices a couple of them were there as well so all three branches of government were represented very well and so we just really thank you it's really so important that we share the love of Christmas and the love of Christ with those children that are in our state care in our state custody so there's forty eight hundred children right now in foster care and then we also have all the use that are in our adjudicated system and facilities and they were with us there today as well so again just thank you for that and look forward to the meeting hope everybody has a merry Christmas. All right IDM see reconsideration approve the November ninth meeting minutes I have a motion. And second. So okay I have a motion second all in favor say aye. Of any those on that C. nine ocean carriers are losers down to a presentation by the Arkansas research alliance president if you guys want to come for. We have with us today of Mr Gerry Adams. And he's president A. R. eighty and Mr brine Barnhouse chief executive officer they are a. If you has just take a seat find your Mike that the pulled up to you there and press those buttons and introduce yourself and who you're with for the record please and we'll let you guys get started. When you get that red light you should be good. The red lights on okay. First I want to thank you for the invitation to speak this one may have to settle it up a little closer to you it should stretch on out there okay seven better all right. I thank you again for the invitation to that this afternoon my name's Gerry Adams Ryan Barnhouse I'll do a quick introduction will get into the presentation hopefully you have a packet of information from us which includes our presentation in three of our Arkansas money in politics articles as well. again my name is Gerry Adams I'm a native our cans and born in Fort Smith but actually raised in Saint Louis I returned the state in nineteen seventy three to help start action corporation there were about twenty people that action when I started. Thirty four years later when I retire from action we to seven thousand did you by chance provide some information for us somewhere. We are we just going to see it on the we believe that we provided that to you okay online or there is an email okay we had on the bill so we don't have the paper to hand out so this I'm sorry we were no less fun if we don't if we had a previous email that's going to just make sure we did everything in front of us so okay continue wall sorry okay that's our. Now I spent thirty four years and acts and Twenty people start with we had over seven thousand when I retired about a billion half and revenue and was extraordinary part of my life I retired in two thousand seven and started the research alliance and able to thousand Hey the last three governors of a point to meet a Blue Ribbon committees governor Huckabee was higher ed governor Beebe was health care and governor Hutchinson was that analytics and data science we'll talk more about a or a a raise in its fourteenth year of operation I started it a month before I turn sixty five not sure what I was thinking about but it was a great idea at the time and we'll talk more about that in a minute I'll let Brian introduce himself thanks J. nine okay all right so thank all of you for giving us the opportunity to present our work for you today I before we do just a little introduction about myself from our house CEO of Arkansas research alliance. I'm gonna doctor cans and I'm a native of St Louis raised in Houston school out on the west coast in southern California were probably spent too much of my twenties and thirties but I got a good couple degrees one in international relations and a masters in public administration I worked in the private sector in LA for a while before relocating to DC where I got involved in economic development early on with a group called the international city county management association doing a lot of business development for city and county officials who are seeing their military bases being closed down or realligned and we help them develop plans for higher and better uses of those properties so that took me all over the country it's also where I met my bride to be on the mall playing softball highly encourage it she she could not me just getting and brought me down to Arkansas for career opportunity where I began a position with the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and it has been wonderful attainted foreign direct investment community development some trade work site selection work it took me all over this beautiful state I fell in love so much so that I then took a position doing regional strategic planning and Southeast Arkansas where I work for the economic development alliance for Jefferson County and that's where I met Gerry I was found around at the national center for toxicological research and you A. P. B. and stop in the halls and I ran into Jerry six years later we're in this world of innovation based economic development we're excited to tell you about right so what we're going to share with you today of our basically five things try to be clear about who we are what we do how we do it. Why we consider it very important to the state and then provide some examples of our work. So before we jump into the who what and how here's some questions that are being answered by our ARE academy members our researchers and at different universities here in the state so it's just a sample the types of these questions they're exploring and why they're important to Arkansas so how do we grow bone to replace damage from traumatic injury injury. How do we understand childhood brain development and the effects of childhood trauma. How do we sustain an increase rice yields with higher night time temperatures. And how do we increase the safety and efficiency of high speed conveyor systems for companies like Amazon and fed ex and how can we make more catfish grow faster and healthier and thereby enhancing our cassation street here in the states. I'm hungry already But who are we you were private public partnership any ground of Division of accelerate Arkansas sorry Arkansas may not be a household word but it has but it was a nonprofit very active in two thousand about twenty twelve that was responsible for most of the knowledge economy vision for the state and it produced a strategic plan in two thousand seven from which A. R. A. you've all. Areas focused on twenty first century economic development for the state to the lands of university research. Like you we care about the future of Arkansas and the future of Arkansas is talent its focus it's collaboration and results in a array is committed to increase the economic competitiveness of Arkansas my understanding where we have research competencies then focus research resources to recruit retain and recognize strategic research talent to grow the state's innovation and discovery. And from the beginning we've been very fortunate to have a strong board of trustees and we'll talk more about that in a minute but we're in our fourteenth year of operation. So the what we do Jerry touched on it and we talk about recruit recruitment retention and recognition and focusing resources to help our chances of our five member universities here's what we mean those five member universities represent over ninety percent of all the federal research dollars that flow into the state and our work with these talented researchers who come from both out of state and already resident here we try to elevate their collaboration and focus them on results results such as research productivity bigger awards and connecting them to relevant industries across the state and as we focus these research leaders to accelerate their impact on the economic future of our state we do it through partnership with these universities you can see him up here it's your University of Arkansas UAMS Arkansas state university are to University of Arkansas little rock and you a pine bluff. We also manage a strategic collaboration with the US food and drug administration's national center for toxicological research and we do this through a twice renewed five year and you between the FDA commissioner and the governor and you know as long with a companion partnership intermediary agreement with as a mouthful between A. R. A. and and CTR. So and CTR is the state's largest federal lab with over six hundred employees a hundred and fifty P. H. D.'s a million square feet of under roof and over seventy million dollar annual budget and their campus and Jefferson Arkansas produces the tools and technology that's needed by the regulators and the product reviewers at the headquarters in Maryland and we treat them like our sixth research university. As I mentioned from the beginning we've had a very strong area board of trustees the five chances of these research universities are on our board by definition but we have a corporate right currently we have five cancers and eighteen corporate leaders and just recently we've added Chris barber head of same barber St Bernards healthcare and Curtis Barnett came along Bob shopped is on our founding board and stepped away and was was followed by Curtis Barnett the current active CEO for Blue Cross blue shield. sign Hubbard is our board chair has been for a while out of Texarkana you can see the other board members are active right now. From the beginning we've had a total of fifty six members of our board. You can see here we've had nineteen chancellors from five institutions in the last thirteen and a half years in more private colleges it's a ten year term or published State University is it seems like it's a shorter shorter tenure but these folks have invested time and money today in a and the Arkansas research alliance and all of them are focused on the future of Arkansas. And. So how do we do this with our programs A. R. A. has involved to operate six programs we're not the same organization we were we were founded in two thousand eight we've matured but we are staying in our lane on talent we've grown a portfolio of programs and services that really are high impact we started with the scholars program as a recruitment tool for the chancellor's to incentivize strategic researchers to come to their universities from out of state and the scholars award takes the form of a five hundred thousand dollar grant paid in one third of Solomon's over three years. We supplemented this program in twenty fourteen with by introducing a retention program and started recognizing ARE fellows now this is another tool in the hands of the chancellor's where they recognize researchers already resident on their campus and performing at the highest levels and again this takes the form of a seventy five thousand dollar grant payable over three years. So in our history we've had just under forty scholars and fellows and with the you know retirement transfer center we're currently at thirty two members which we've assembled into the A. R. A. academy several years ago we started bringing the area cattery members together once a year to meet and learn about each other science and engineering and over the years I've really grown into a community research leaders so you can imagine now when a potential scholar candidate from out of state sees it there's a ready made peer group to tap into and how that can jump start their work here it's a pretty powerful enticement. In twenty nineteen we had on a way to fuel the researchers and launched an impact grant program as a pilot as impact grant program has proven to be enormously successful will share those results with you in a minute the truck competitive RFP process we made up we ordered up to seventy five thousand dollars with matches from universities across fifteen projects for twelve month durations that really enabled these academy members to do one or more of three things. One it could better position them to compete for future extramural funding by letting them gather data that will allow them to go after larger research awards. To give them opportunities to explore industry collaboration and engagement by conducting commercially oriented proof of concept and prototype development or let them didn't generate data specifically requested by prospective investors or research sponsors. The impact grant program also allow them to pursue scholarly advancement in terms of publications and really accelerate their discovery process especially those that are in the high risk high reward categories and as we get into a moment this program's really paying off. Most recently we started to develop something we called a are a core facilities exchanger CFE it's a public facing online platform think of it just as a database really on steroids that shows researchers where the high end research instrumentation and equipment is in the State and with those accompanying services are it's important fact that where they are at the university laboratories and at and CTR this resource really is just designed to create awareness among the Arkansas research community about the presents the capabilities and availability of this high value equipment the state and and and C. T. R. and we hope that it will really facilitate access and let more people use this equipment that some don't even know is right down the hall from and we envision several other benefits more competitive grants new collaborations reducing redundancy and capital expenditures increasing utilization but ultimately we want to create incentivize a thriving well networked research enterprise across the state and plans to go live we plan for to go live in the first quarter of next year. Now the final program that we hope you'll find interesting is a communications campaign call Arkansas voices for research it's a one two punch where in one month we work with an individual academy member to spread the word about their work in one of two ways first we curate an article in Arkansas money in politics it lets them showcase their research and more layman's terms about how it's impacting society other communities in the world we live in and the column is called discovery economics and we do hope that you look for it and I'll make sure madam chair Mister chair that you guys have a package of that information. Then with that same academy member we organize a one hour webinar for them to share a deep dive into some of the technical aspects of their science and it really is intended for a scientific audience I tend to get lost in the weeds being liberal arts major that I am but the web in our series called project scope and we'd be happy to invite you to attend these are programs as they stand today but we have even bigger ideas and hopper and at the right time we can't wait to share them with you. So well why is what we do important to the state recruiting and retaining research talent talent is the key to the twenty first century competitiveness and Arkansas it's a crucial ingredient in the knowledge economy and not only getting in here but retaining them is critical to the future success increasing the collaboration between institutions and researchers we're very focused on connecting the dots between institutions not within the institutions so area gathers the top research please in the state help connect to connect the dots between the institutions researchers and also corporate Arkansas I think that's the key important bridge at A. R. A. provides as well. Supporting important organizations like in C. T. R. and C. T. R. is an extraordinary organization but it is probably the most undervalued asset this state has and we've embraced it is almost R. six research university because it really does have an academic perspective it's also very complicated to deal with the federal research lab that is a regulatory institution and one that has kind of a. Difficulty of embracing corporations per se but it's helped us develop an annual event call the Arkansas bioinformatics consortium that this last year we brought together about two hundred plus bioinformatics folks from around the state we're in our eighth eighth year of this and is creating a great deal of important community around Bilingue for. So we understand the importance of impact how do you quantify it and one way to measure it is to grant activity and we want to be very transparent here we are not taking credit or responsibility for all of the federal grant activity of our academy members but we do want to give you a sense of this productivity productivity so in twenty twenty when we had only twenty six members in the area kadam me they were responsible for a hundred twenty three active federal grants that totaled almost seventy four million dollars coming into an circulating around the state's economy. No mention the impact grant program it has been a boon and the pilot round like I said invested a million dollars across fifteen research projects and even given the pandemic slow down they've these this one million dollar has returned thirteen million dollars in federal follow on funding to the state plus the investigators are reporting to us that they have another thirty six million dollars in the proposal pipeline because of their impact grant awards so it was so successful were no dummies we launched round two earlier this year same sort of metrics and structure we can't wait to see the results and share this with. We mention this and city are partnership it also has produced two research contracts worth five million dollars and time permitting at the and be happy to share one of those with. Let's meet the area academy I think we first on and knowledge I am an English major. Brian is international relations we are administrators not scientists and we've dealing with high functioning research leaders and I've learned over the years to nod my head. At certain times and they think I understand what they're saying. I do not have a clue but these guys are incredible force for this state these are the face of our area active academy members over the lifetime we've we've recruited help recruit and retain an approximate thirty nine Katamon members with lost some through attrition right now and again the scholars are recruited the fellows are recognizing talent that's already here I think one of the more seminal issues of the academy is that each one of these academy members have been nominated by their acting chancellor as a strategic force on their campus so this is not come from a chair from a dean or from whatever it's come from the chancellor and I think that actually enriches the group. And so this commission and these are nominated by their chance or that they're vetted by an external organization outside this state and then approved by our our corporate portion of of our board. Let me try to talk a little bit in this is the current AMP and there's an article in there's a segment in here called discovery economics and this year it hi this this month that highlights March Meltzer who's one of the two gentleman pictured here the other is Alex veris Alex is a nano materials genius at the university of Arkansas at little rock and marks mills or is it is I thank in his lifetime as it received over fifty million dollars in an S. of funding but he's at U. M. the University of Arkansas med school focus on anti might microbial issues but put these two together Alex is able to grow about two centimeters of bone highly highly funded right now by DOD with all or injuries but with his partnership without with mark Smeltzer he is per prop for providing bacteria free bone growth and they're in a very xcelerated effort to create an organization of coke commercial impact of Central Arkansas I'd say over the next three to five years. Secondly for those and you of that foreign fishermen and your APP has really a nationally recognized aquaculture program and Rebecca block men like men runs that program and their focus is on a. On fish and fisheries and so on but the catfish industry has taken a blow and and twenty in nineteen ninety eight I think it was it was fifty five million dollar industry now about in twenty twenty thirteen it was at twenty eight million but she's really focused on running alongside the fishing fisheries industry in Arkansas and really focused on production performance focused on dietary and iron and related dietary improvements to be made in that thing but she is really a strong research later from you a ping pong ball. So the researcher feature here's Dr Alan into that the University of Arkansas he's an airy fellow he and his team make the tools software the circuits the controls for advanced power electronics he's been the news quite a bit lately and I'll touch on that a second the primary applications of his research really involved. Yeah outer space electrified transportation whether it's planes trains automobiles or heavy equipment and the power grid really power electronics are everywhere as he's fond of telling us but this light is showing how his group is addressing an industry need for companies like caterpillar that are relying on more clean energy electrical systems basically electrification of these big heavy motor graders and whatnot but when you put more electronics in it you get more heat and you get when you get more heat you get more weight for the cooling systems so Allen's designing a special inverter system to electrify the vehicle without the extra equipment needed to cool it and that's pretty powerful work. It also was just announced that his group won an eighteen million dollar grant from NSF to build and operate a national silicon carbide research fabrication facility you have a and hot on the heels of that was another five million from the army that'll go towards additional equipment that facility and overall according to Allen his contributions to the State of common to the state's economy has been estimated over one billion dollars his group is built atop five program in the US in the top ten program in the world that's something for us to be very proud of and since we've been harping on fish let's talk about race. This is our Healy a Lawrence she's a biochemist and is an airy fellow at the Arkansas state at Arkansas state university and her work is helping rice farmers prevent lower yields from higher night time temperatures the stresses are a looming industry. Challenge because every degree increase in temperature equates to a ten percent loss in yield which in the six hundred million dollar raise industry in Arkansas would mean a sixty million dollar a year lost even an English major could do that but one good thing next Monday I think we're converging with riceland upon her lab up at our open Jonesborough to have a meeting early further their discussion with Jonesborough and Arkansas state on this important issue so she so how she grows rice that can withstand the higher nighttime temperatures very important conversation with racial. The last thing I'd like to touch on is. This project with the FDA one of these re to research contracts I talked about lung cancer is a problem that is literally killing our country town two hundred fifteen thousand Americans every year and in Arkansas unfortunately the death rates are higher than the national average. and one of our FDA research contracts is tackling this problem and the project has to do with finding an alternative to a very invasive procedure to diagnose lung cancer in the first place which is essentially cracking open the patient's chest and taking a sample of tissue and then putting it back together. Instead researchers at all six of areas member institutions partnered and used three million dollars in FDA funding to demonstrate how that very painful and risky procedure could be replaced with what amounts to a blood draw a liquid biopsy with better results and they're showing that liquid biopsies more accurately diagnose the cancer and lead to more percent more precise effective treatments. So and sorry that's the value of research and that's the power of collaboration as a are a season for the future of our state. So if you would please take out of plain white sheet of paper I want to talk to you about Arkansas research alliance no summary we've tried to give you a quick update on who we are. What we do. How we do it and why it's important Arkansas and we shared some examples the research so I hope this provides you a level of insight we have time for questions and so on but we do we do appreciate the support we receive from the state it's an integral to our funding we also have a very strong DO structure from our board and those two are the elements for our funding. At that and we have contact information which should be in your packet but since you don't have a factor right here on the screen okay we'll provide that information to you as well we're open I'm retiring at the end of this month I think that's been announced and Brian Clark houses been approved by our board to step in and I'm. Very proud of a are a and excited about its future thank you. We are going to get the presentation out everyone so what I couldn't find it online but we will get that out of questions for you before we start that I have something that I missed early this morning or early this afternoon on wrecking some recognizing someone this in the room with us today and open messes up but we have with us today Liz Lee Liz would you stand up loses a Arkansas state teachers association advocacy fellows the correct and she was recently published in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and impressed Mr key so much that he actually went and bought her her favorite sonic drink and to get to school she is a elementary resource teacher a wall elementary in Rogers I just like to recognize you today thank you for being here. All right let's get started representative Meeks you are. Thank you okay Sir saw that the chairman's already warned me only get half a question today so I'm gonna try to be. So I'm I'm a science guy love science and I know that there's a lot of great things happening in Arkansas on this front that we never hear about and so I appreciate you bringing us some of these exciting. Research. Things are going on in Arkansas and highlighting those force and I'd love to see more of that in the future so that to we can keep up with all the great things are happening in our state in this front the one question I do have is how do you determine which activities or going to the fond I know you highlighted several of us some or all of them here for us but can you talk a little bit about how release or chosen it's a basic question when I started this thing before I. Really launched and I had to tell which is about a six and a half billion research group out of Columbus Ohio come in and do an analytical review of each of these five campuses and they did it in two ways they have technology that can look in the rear view mirror and say from the last five years what journal publications what patents and so on so they can give you a sense of what's happened in the last five years they also brought in a team and I ask each of the chances to identify their research talents so they went out and interviewed eighty two Kenny eighty to read researchers on these five campus and put those two together and a document that governor BV in April of two thousand nine help to press hold a press conference at identified nine strategic focus areas heavily hard science these or engineering or life science or is and it's in those categories that we accept nominations for research talent and we are we are in the process of the tension Lee renewing that evaluation we've put in an EDA grant that we've submitted last week. And and after written update that seminal publication but but we we only allow nominations within those categories that have been deemed economically valuable to the future of Arkansas thank you but may I just add to that so it's basically yes how we make the war what we decide to fund and really so it's on a cyclical or basis so one year will do at round of A. R. A. scholars and the following year we'll do around areas fellows we had upon the impact grant program that had to. The stars aligned unfortunately we lost one of our strategic scholars to another state who double their salary and gave her a building but we were able to claw back the funds that we already awarded and so we had that money to invest in the impact grant program and so you know once we were able to demonstrate pilot proof of concept we thought is no brainer to try to set aside to build toward continuing Maddox. Awesome thank you thank you for the work you guys do thank you. Represent McKenzie. Thank you Mr chair thank you for the presentation and I'm not a science girl and try to pay attention as best I could if you could if my constituents or ask me after this to just give them a little summary of what you all do I think I would struggle so could you just just to get some highlights here prawn that brought down a low shelf as far as how much because of is is a private public partnership and I have a hard time so what what's the state's investment so I can tell my constituents right now we get one point three million a year from the governors from the governor on an annual basis and we raise about five hundred and fifty thousand from our board which we consider private so that is what we run this on thank you and you've been with us how long is and is the funding stayed pretty steady or out we're in discussions right now about raising it it the governor signed a dog a report called the state science and technology report of twenty eighteen. Yeah twenty eighteen where he recommended that I hire our state funding be moved to two million dollars over the next five years were in year three of that five year period and it remains at one point three and we're in discussions right now about moving that up to what that the two million and one more question for me sure I am I may not be the arbiter. and I lost my train of thought here okay other states are pretty much all states doing using utilizing the similar yeah it has been tried and others it's very and we modeled after a very successful program in Georgia the Georgia started this almost thirty five years ago and it's been hugely successful. Alabama trident but they could not get Auburn and university of Alabama in the same building and failed Mississippi fail for other reasons and I think in some way it. It should work in every state but there are mascots and early on when I brought my chances together I laughingly said one of my objective is to kill the mascot because the mascot is not necessarily a collaborative tool and and they kind of smiled and kind and and said don't say that again what I you know I'm I'm a state focused person so we're connecting the talent regardless of the campus and so the re ality is that Well I mean it's just very important for us to look progressively you and it's working very very well in Arkansas and we are referenced for other states that are evaluating this. I'd like to just add personal story under that when I was down in Jefferson County I was at a job fair for a group and I just happened to be next to it little boy probably late nine ten years old and I guess is there with his parents somewhere but he said forty doing here said well I'm just look around a lot and I civil what do you want to be when you grow up and he said. Pizza delivery guy. I said well stop right there so that has stuck with me and part of the reason I do what I do is because we're showing our Kansans how to live into a potential career in science and that's important research is important to the state it's important to our industries so we remain competitive and we have to have the brain cells and the talent to do that and that's what we're all about so I hope that answers some of your questions thank you thank you Mr. Representative office. Thank you Mr chair ever hear tier level gentlemen thank you so much for your presentation for your work and I was hoping that you can actually do not even a little bit further and to just in general what research is and why it's important I am in my sixth year had a PhD program and definitely still consider myself a novice researcher and know how in depth and sophisticated an important the work is and and I think that that those of us in this room are making policy you want to make policy that is research based that is proven to have the impact that we want it to but I also think that there is a tendency of some of us in this room and also some of our considers to kind of misunderstand Research or or overly simplify and or or not maybe trust the credibility of a true scholarly and. Credible research and how important that can be as a foundation for policy making and decision making so I'm hoping you can just talk to speak a little bit to that especially kind of in a time where folks are doing their own research or wanting to kind of push back on institutions of research and it kind of established and research practices if you could just tell us in your perspective what research is and what research is not and also how and why we as policymakers should utilize scholarly credible research and the work that we do how good question let me let me try to take parts of that may cause in an academic environment. Research is an effort to improve the knowledge known about a particular discipline maybe add value we're looking at an econo were an economic development group so there is basic research which a lot of researchers want to find something new regardless of whether it has economic value or not we're dealing with applied research where there the big challenge is to innovate in ways that create economic value back in my acts in days we work with data we had more data and Conway Arkansas than Citi bank at any place but we mine that data for innovation and so on so in your research you need basic research Arkansas is not that deep in research that it really it's really more an applied research state now have chances calling me this afternoon saying what the hell did you tell the folks of the education but that's quite honestly the evaluation we would you have the commissioner of the FDA who was out of do was a deep basic researcher came and said basically. And it's not necessarily a bad thing but Arkansas needs to look at the value of research has an economic impact there's a huge curricular benefit to basic research regardless of the discipline and I have historians architects or or English folks called me about their research well that's good that's not really what the Arkansas research alliance is focused on its focus on. Those scientific areas could be life science it could be Rice it could be act it could be said she could be whatever but. If we make it economically a better tomorrow there's an app there's a value gain there that you can monetize remember I came to axiom in two thousand seventy three we had twenty employees. That that got to over close to three thousand employees in Conway. Now under two thousand to three thousand employees have an economic value Conway has quadrupled in size since I move there and seventy three. Now what is the economic value of that in Arkansas and we had patents and all that so my senses to answer questions there's basic research or supplied research and if I was a chance or if I was a scientist I be eloquent on that but we're really trying to take applied research to the mark comment I made about nano technology you A. B. B. I personally think that is a huge opportunity for economic gain with growing bones in central Arkansas. Okay generally. Thank you Mr chairman thank you both for being here today this is so exciting nice to hear this information I am. Deeply familiar with the bone growing operation at university of Arkansas at little rock And one of the things that I like you just give talked a little bit about. And I don't want to put in a position where you might offend legislate orders so I'm trying to be careful with this question. We're so proud of what's happening but you know what the bone growth and so forth House happening the the military and so forth. And I've been following that program for many years now I one of the problems we have constantly had with all of its potential is getting funding for in fact so many years we were trying to get a supplement or when we had some of the county I am funds just to keep it going and I I know that's been an issue with other universities as well and we're so lucky that in a small state to have this many things going on So I've always been curious about how we are site load and I work force in fact and branding consultant no I'm not talking about hundreds back because I said right here in this room asking when are you going to see the whole spectrum of people who will make this state better and make this state run. So one. Do you see any of value and health of the state I understand from what we traditionally call workforce that we are also include what we call the professional work force in that spectrum. And is that an advantage not an advantage for doing that and and then secondly so I don't have to come back to the to the Mike Are you getting the funding it ideally that you think you could have and do so much more in our state and we're doing now if you indeed had an amount that could maybe pro palace even further. Transaction very good friends and we work closely together and we're probably about. Eighty four percent compatible which is probably pretty pretty decent but in general I thank all boats rise you not take a look at axiom if you go back to that we had we had tech graduates that were in our operations there really was the backbone of the company we had we got to eventually recruiting college degree people because of the technology issues and so on but if you take even a nano science or as somebody scientifically intense organizations they need two years school support they need to spectrum of people to make that you know is everybody can't be and nano scientists thank god I mean you know they have to go out and buy groceries I mean you know you take command of scientists to the. To a grocery store it's a probably a long visit now I don't I don't handle signs is calling me I thank I think there is a need to not silo but I think there are it's easy to silo it sometimes it's easier to solve the solution in silos but the reality is that Arkansas needs to be able to have the economy spread to everyone and in some way innovation does that you know we're bringing together thirty two scientist who are not naturally here. I think three of them are cans Sri Lankan's Chinese Rumanians center and our goal is to get these really smart people here and keep him here for ever but the innovations that you know creating a bone growth nano manufacturing company. I would have thought of it. Most people would have thought of it let's say it becomes a. Multi million even greater size company it's going to create opportunities. That we're gonna required advanced degrees going to require bachelor's degrees gonna require two year school degrees Ryer everything so if it works right. It works right and so what we're trying to do is to. really you get further along brewing after fourteen year we're still in the early stages because worst yet this is. This academy is starting to speak to us is kinda like raising children with a great idea bring him together with the more they're together they're more they're asking us to make sure we're doing things to make them go further that take fuel. The the ease everybody can do more with more that was one of the issues I've had with some of the education exposure give me more money I can do more well do more with less but the but there is a flex point and I think in general and and and Mike Preston is been extraordinarily supportive area I can't thank enough for my car funding comes through the commerce department but if Mike was recruiting. A organization that provided thirty two Advanced P. H. D.'s trying to recruit that company in Arkansas. Asking for two million dollars in operating support from the state. What would you think would be the state's investment in a thirty two. Person PhD organization and some of these people that we recruit come with their lab fourteen people are two or three businesses and sponsor or moving and credit incredible talent but I think two million dollars I'm trying to recruit a thirty two PhD organization to the state of Arkansas would probably know that more than a two million dollar recurring funding. So but it but again I I'm not going anywhere Arkansas is my home I advocate Arkansas and it's a low resource state low resource state and so I think the reality is that. Targeted funding is still in Porten energy for our future for Aries okay thank you. And and Senator Irvin I guess she's not here yes she did I was checked to make sure I wasn't speaking for her and she's here she asked me to kind of basically associate my comments with something that is on her mind and I just want to do that so I would keep my word to her because there there is a small group of folks here. We've been trying to think about an advance Arkansas. From. All through that spectrum because the research is pretty clear we are never going to be as great as we can be if we don't have more four year and more professional properties and that does nothing to diminish two year degrees or anything else report it it's a both and yes it is there is meaningless and it's should be a fight it's it's not a competition thank you thank you Mr chair. All right this all of our questions thank you gentleman we appreciate our thank you thank you will and will you have anything to follow up on the end are you good now I really do appreciate the opportunity thank resolution for House would Preciado thank you but very informative but I have learned a lot of things that I didn't know so I think it's been a great presentation so thank you guys and before the committee here our next full meeting will be January third and fourth pre adequacy the first day adequacy the second Day may be full adequacy both days we'll see how that comes up so be prepared and starting tomorrow you know what's coming so we'll see all of the old more. We are adjourned.