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The following describes an innovative person. Region: Western |
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Contact information for this innovator: Terry Messmer Contact number: 435 7973975 Email address: terry.messmer@usu.edu |
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Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: See http://utahcbcp.org/ |
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Notes from phone interview: Again, conservation issues and land management issues and extension has been doing those for many, many years, but this group is making a tremendous amount of headway because again they're pulling together groups that historically haven't talked with each other. So they pull together the producers as well as the federal agencies, as well as the tourism and recreation folks - people who sometimes are at odds when it comes to the use of public land. This has taken years to do this, but has created opportunities for these diverse groups to be together working on common issues, because as sage-grouse and other endangered species get listed, has implications on all of these different groups. What they've been able to do is help them see that working together - they're going to get farther than working against each other. Again, that's not a new thing, but they are getting more effective. I think part of innovation is effectiveness - that they have made an innovative process to these community based groups to make some real headway. What makes it innovative is its partnership development. I don't know if you want to call that administration or programming, but what we're doing there is really strengthening and developing partnerships not just between us and different groups, but between those groups themselves. We become in some ways the facilitator by getting groups together that haven't historically been willing to work together. That's the innovation, but we're not necessarily teaching a class. We're facilitating partnerships and collaborative relationship and since we're at the table in those meetings we're then able to keep the conversation going using research based information, but we're not necessarily trying to educate them. We're just trying to keep them to keep on meeting together and working together on a common pursuit. |
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The following describes an innovative person. Region: Western |
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Contact information for this innovator: Mike Whitesides Contact number: 435-797-7613 Email address: mike.whitesides@usu.edu |
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Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: e-learning, app development, etc. |
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Notes from phone interview: Nothing in the transcript for this innovator. |
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The following describes an innovative person. Region: Western |
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Contact information for this innovator: Diane Alston Contact number: 435-797-2516 Email address: diane.alston@usu.edu |
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Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: See http://utahpests.usu.edu/ipm/ |
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Notes from phone interview: Nothing in the transcript for this innovator. |
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The following describes an innovative person. Region: Western |
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Contact information for this innovator: Kelly Kopp Contact number: 435-797-6650 Email address: kelly.kopp@usu.edu |
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Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: See http://cwel.usu.edu/ |
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Notes from phone interview: I think that group, although they've been around for a couple years now, they're innovative in the sense that water issues are not new, but that the way they are trying to address them is just really strategic in light of where funding opportunities currently lie, where the politics in our state currently we are shaking out. And so what they're doing isn't particularly new in the sense of studying water and water efficiencies, that they are just approaching it in a real strategic way, and what I mean by that is they've compiled a group of-- collaborated with a group of folks and work closely with legislators, work closely with our climate center, to just be in the right conversations and to be going after the right funding. We commend them for that and through that process they're getting into new venues and into new communities with their outreach effort and are saving millions and millions of gallons of water throughout our state, not just because of the research, but because that research is being able to be put into practice and actually implement it in partnership with communities and utility groups around the state. One, it's grounded on good research and it is producing good research. Secondly, it is a real important topic here in the west that many states are struggling with drought and so there's a lot of political capital around water right now. That's one of the reasons why we are really excited about the work that's going on because it's meeting a need that democrats and republicans and independents and everybody else can all agree on. So we've really tried to stay research based, be non-partisan and so supporting programs that are really apolitical, but that serve everybody and are in the best interest of everybody and it makes it really easy for us to support. The other reason why that has got a lot of support is because it shows they've been able to document their impacts and relatively, I won't say it's easy, but it's quantifiable how many gallons are saved by individuals adopting some of the techniques that are taught in classes. |
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The following describes an innovative person. Region: Western |
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Contact information for this innovator: Brian Higginbotham Contact number: 435-797-7276 Email address: Brian.H@usu.edu |
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Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: See http://healthyrelationshipsutah.org/ |
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Notes from phone interview: one of the things that we've done there is we've done quite a bit of hiring of contracted workers. I think that's probably the best way to say it. Our extension faculty that we have who are full-time faculty already have full-time jobs. They typically have lots on their plate, and so when specialists on campus or administration on campus come up with innovative ideas, they don't necessarily have, that the accounting faculty, they don't necessarily have time to implement those, and so that can be a limitation to innovation when specialists or the administration has this great idea and yet people in the field either don't want to do it, don't have the time to do it, don't have the resources to do it. In the case of our relationship education initiative - what we ended up doing because our accounting faculty just didn't have the time to do it and yet we had these outside funding agencies saying, "We want extension to do this - we want them to teach the relationship education classes." So, we said, "Well, one of the ways to do that is by hiring contracted extension employees - people who are funded just by this grant and when these grants end then so too will their contract." What it's allowed us to do is really grow the overall portfolio of extension without growing faculty lines which we don't have the capacity to do. |