Marty Spears serves on the BoT

Guest Blog from Marty Spears:

I have been honored to represent IPS on the UT Board of Trustees' committee for Research, Outreach and Economic Development. This past meeting both IPS and Agriculture jointly presented on how each agency impacts all 95 counties in Tennessee with the services it provides through financial offerings to the public and private sectors.

The time I have spent on the committee has been very beneficial to me and, hopefully, for IPS also. I have been able to network and meet, not only peers with other agency’s, but Trustees, Chancellors of the other campuses and even the President of UT. When we think of UT we normally think of the agency that we work for, but there is so much more going on that I wasn’t aware of like the University’s involvement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory where UT has partnered with Battelle on many projects. The switch grass to ethanol project in Vonore, TN and the solar farm in West Tennessee that is converting sun light to energy being placed back to the TVA grid. There have been times during the reports whereas Mike Garland says “I have been like a dog watching TV”. I was sitting there and had no idea what they were talking about so I just smiled and nodded but in the end I did learn something.

As I said it has been a pleasure to serve and hopefully help IPS with my service to the University of Tennessee Board of Trustee committee.