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Leadership transition at HARC: Harriss to step down as president; Lester will assume top position | |
Jim Lester, Todd Mitchell, Bob Harriss
The Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) will experience a transition in its top leadership over the next few months.
Robert Harriss, president and CEO since 2006, will be stepping down from that position and continue a part-time affiliation with HARC as a scientist on the research staff.
Jim Lester, vice president and chief operating officer during Harriss' tenure, will assume the top executive job. Lester joined HARC in 2002 as director of the Environment Group.
HARC, founded by the prominent Houston businessman George Mitchell, is a not-for-profit organization based in The Woodlands, Texas, which works to improve the well-being of people and ecosystems by applying sustainability science and the principles of sustainable development.
Todd Mitchell, chairman of HARC's board of directors and a son of George Mitchell, told the HARC staff that board members have "a lot of confidence that this will be a smooth transition."
Todd Mitchell was president of HARC from 2001 until 2006. He said that under Harriss' and Lester's leadership, HARC has broadened and deepened its activities, strengthening relationships with businesses and clients.
Harriss rebuilt HARC's relationships with Texas universities and hands the presidency to Lester with HARC a more stable organization in spite of difficult economic conditions, Todd Mitchell said.
Lester has provided strength during those hard times and enjoys the board's full support, he added.
Harriss told staff members they would "still see a lot of me" in his new position as a HARC scientist. Among other activities, he will spend more time on research interests in the Arctic, teach at Rice University, and remain active with HARC's Texas Climate Initiative and Third Ward Project.
Lester said he believes HARC will emerge from the challenges resulting from the recession as a stable, independent organization that expands its contributions toward the creation of a better future.
Harriss was previously senior scientist and director of the Institute for the Study of Society and the Environment at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Prior positions included a Harvard University postdoctoral fellowship and faculty appointments at McMaster University (Canada), Florida State University, University of New Hampshire, Texas A&M University, and the University of Colorado.
Harriss also served as a senior scientist in ocean and atmospheric sciences at the NASA Langley Research Center and as science director for NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth Program. He obtained a Ph.D. in Geochemistry from Rice.
As director of HARC’s Environment Group, Lester developed and implemented projects to make management of water, air and biological resources more sustainable. From 1975 to 2002, he was a faculty member and administrator in the University of Houston System, serving at UH-Clear Lake as a dean, associate vice president, and director of its Environmental Institute of Houston.
Lester obtained a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Texas at Austin. In his scientific work, he has applied principles of ecology and population genetics to projects involving biodiversity and sustainable aquaculture. He chairs the Galveston Bay Estuary Program's Monitoring and Research Committee and serves on advisory committees of the Texas Sea Grant College Program and the Texas A&M University College of Geosciences.
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HARC’s VP lists water-supply recommendations for Houston audience | | With a searing heat wave and protracted drought gripping Texas, Jim Lester of the Houston Advanced Research Center urged more attention to water conservation, greater cooperation in allocating water resources, and a variety of other actions to help address water-related challenges facing the state.
Lester, HARC's vice president and chief operating officer, was speaking to a couple of hundred people who attended a recent panel discussion on water issues that was organized by the Rice Design Alliance and held at Houston's Museum of Fine Arts.
"It's amazing that water is our most important resource, but gets so little investment," Lester said.
Contentious water issues have long been a routine part of life in Texas. Looking ahead, however, water experts say the state's rapid population and economic growth are creating ever-greater demands for water resources. Meanwhile, climate experts including Texas’ state climatologist warn that future droughts will be aggravated by man-made atmospheric warming.
To deal with those projected conditions, Lester recommended these steps:
"Serious water conservation," going beyond the relatively limited drought-contingency plans developed to date. Water conservation to stretch existing supplies is cheaper than any method for developing new supplies, he said.
Cooperation among water users – urban, industrial, agricultural – in place of the traditional tendency for competition to dominate allocation discussions and decisions.
"Appropriate consideration" for nature – meeting the water needs of the ecosystems such as those in the state's rivers, marshes and bays at the same time that growing human demand is met.
Matching the differing levels of purity in water supplies to the different uses those supplies will serve. El Paso, for instance, provides separate supplies of potable water for human uses and non-potable water for irrigation, agriculture and other appropriate applications. "If it doesn't have to be drinking water," Lester said, "why pay for that?"
Preparing to pay high prices for developing new water supplies. Desalination, for instance, is a viable technology for Texas, already used in locations including Brownsville and El Paso. But it is very expensive compared to traditional technologies for creating increased water supplies. Even so, Lester said, "it's time to think about new technologies."
"Coherent management of all water resources," instead of Texas' current, two-part arrangement with surface water supplies managed under one system and groundwater supplies under another. Trying to create a unified management system would spark conflict, but surface water and groundwater are intimately connected, Lester said.
The Texas Water Development Board is now completing work on the 2012 State Water Plan, which will update and replace the comprehensive water-supply blueprint that the board adopted in 2007.
Edward G. Vaughan of Boerne, chairman of the Water Development Board, also served on the water panel along with Lester.
Vaughan told the audience that Texas will have to "implement every possible scenario" in order to meet projected water demands, practice "more efficient utilization" of water supplies, and summon the "political will" to fund water-supply recommendations.
Vaughan said he hopes the hardships accompanying the current drought will help provide momentum for addressing water issues in the next session of the Texas Legislature in 2013.
While climate-change models are not yet able to predict changes in regional precipitation, the current drought should inspire Texans to be proactive in areas such as conservation planning, Lester said.
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Solar installations will help students learn, cut utility bills at two high schools | | HARC teamed with the district and a Houston-based company, Ignite Solar, on the project, which is formally known as the Pasadena ISD Solar Initiative. It was funded with $2 million from a $5.8-million civil penalty paid by Shell Oil to settle a Clean Air Act lawsuit by two Austin-based organizations, the Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter and Environment Texas. The two environmental advocacy groups had alleged illegal pollutant emissions at Shell’s Deer Park oil refinery and chemical plant near Pasadena. |
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HARC helps make offshore drilling safer and cleaner | | HARC senior research scientist Rich Haut was already a busy man before the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill on April 20, but he got a lot busier after that disaster's tragic human and environmental toll boosted the demand for his expertise in making energy production safer and cleaner. |
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