MADISON – Business leader Tom Hefty has been elected president of the board of directors of the Wisconsin Security Research Consortium, which held its organizational meeting this week in Madison.
Hefty, of counsel to the law firm of Reinhart, Boerner and Van Deuren, is the former co-chairman of the Governor’s Economic Growth Council and the former CEO of Blue Cross & Blue Shield United of Wisconsin. During his tenure at Blue Cross, Hefty helped bring more job-creating federal dollars to Wisconsin through service contracts.
Other officers elected by the non-profit WSRC were:
- Vice President Paul Peercy, dean of the College of Engineering at UW-Madison.
- Secretary Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council.
- Treasurer Linda Bunnell, chancellor, UW-Stevens Point.
The Wisconsin Security Research Consortium, formally launched this fall by the Wisconsin Technology Council and 11 public and private academic research partners, was designated for a $500,000 grant in a congressional appropriations bill late last month. That money will not be received until sometime in 2006.
The Tech Council will become the administrative agent for the WSRC, which spearhead efforts to apply for grants to conduct classified or sensitive research in areas where the federal government has identified a need. Those areas could include biodefense, rapid response, engineering physics, composite materials, water and food security, biometrics, vaccines, biosensors and more.
The initial members of the Wisconsin Security Research Consortium are the UW System, UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Stevens Point, UW-Superior, UW-La Crosse, UW-Stout, UW-Extension, the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, the Milwaukee School of Engineering and the Tech Council. The consortium will eventually include associate members from private industry.
For more information, contact Tom Still at 608-442-7557.
;
