Dr. James V. Taranik was selected as president of the Desert Research Institute in 1987, and he has become the longest-serving President in the Institute's history. Having accomplished most of his goals for the Institute, in 1996 Taranik indicated to Chancellor Richard Jarvis that he wished to "hand the baton to the next runner." At Jarvis' request, Taranik agreed to stay through the 1997 Legislature, and he was part of the legislative team that secured a 29 percent increase in state funding for the University and Community College System of Nevada.

Taranik will leave DRI July 1, 1998 to become the first to fill the Arthur Brant Chair in Exploration Geophysics at the University of Nevada, Reno Mackay School of Mines--where Taranik was dean before joining DRI. In an interview with DRI Technical Editor Roger Kreiderg, Taranik took time to reflect on his tenure at DRI.

Kreidberg: What have been the most important changes in DRI during your tenure as president?

Groundbreaking ceremony for DRI's new Northern Nevada's Science Center (NNSC).

Taranik: The most significant change has been one of bringing the Institute together into a focus. My perception after the first year as president was that the centers that conducted the Institute's research were largely autonomous and really lacked a team approach or unifying theme. Beginning in 1988, we began a strategic planning process to try to identify the vision and mission of the Institute, some goals for the individual centers, and the values that we held as researchers and as administrators, particularly to identify those shared values. I thought that was very important in our strategic planning exercise.

I might add that the Board of Regents had a very poor understanding of what the Institute was and why there needed to be a DRI. The two universities, in some cases, viewed DRI as competitive with their own interests, did not understand what it was trying to do. So it was important for the Institute to have a mission that was understood both internally and externally. In the first five years of my presidency, we spent a fair amount of time trying to characterize the Institute in terms of the mission and goals, to more or less focus this effort. I would rate that as probably the greatest single transformation, to really bring it into focus, both internally and externally.

Kreidberg: How would you define that focus?

Taranik: Defining the focus was an interesting exercise that we did initially. First, we looked at themes that were uniform throughout the Institute. Then we asked the questions: "Where was DRI unique? Where could it be competitive?" We came up with the theme of understanding environmental change. We then realized that we had all the pieces that were related to environmental change, but they weren't integrated. The next major realization was that if the Institute could become a truly multidisciplinary environmental research organization, then we would have something that very few other environmentally focused groups would have.

We are now looking at global environmental change as an issue, and we have people working in all types of different environments, from the Antarctic to Ghana to South America. Although much of our strength is in dryland research, the fact of the matter is that we are today probably the largest terrestrially focused environmental research organization in the world.

Kreidberg: Are there any other changes that you would highlight from your tenure?

Taranik: One of the things that I realized early on was that administratively, DRI had just sort of come to be. It had grown to provide certain administrative services but wasn't very well managed. I felt that in order to lead the organization effectively, we had to have a sound management approach based on teamwork. We formed a series of groups to promote continuing improvement within the Institute through easy interchange of information.

Kreidberg:What about from a science perspective?

Taranik: Early on we looked at the kind of science work we were doing. We found out that our scholarly output was slow and limited. We became very concerned about making sure that DRI was a university system based institute with a scholarly component. Today the scholarly output has come up substantially. In fact, the Institute has received recognition, both in the scientific and popular literature, and is leading international projects like the National Science Foundation ice drilling project.

Kreidberg: What role has the introduction of strategic planning played in redefining the Institute?

Taranik: Over time, the process has resulted in engagement at all levels within the Institute. We took those inputs and decided that the leadership then had to make some calls. One of the interesting ones was whether DRI would be at the forefront in environmental change research or whether it would be regarded as "the leader" in environmental change research in a global context. Many of the faculty that had been here for some time thought that we were presumptuous to say that we would be "the leader." We asked the question, "If we are not, who is?" That analysis very quickly showed that we had the potential to become the leader internationally. Strategic planning is an ongoing continuing process today and will continue to engage everybody, at least in some fashion.

Kreidberg: How has the research marketplace changed in the last ten years?

Taranik: In 1987, the Department of Energy (DOE) was engaged in testing weapons at the Nevada Test Site, and DRI was providing a fair amount of service work. I encouraged the center directors to try to diversify their research grant and contract funding. That process really began about 1988-89. What changed was the end of the Cold War. Along the way, alarm bells were going off. Many of our traditional research marketplaces were going away, and we had to be very tuned to looking at a business development plan. Many of the sponsors who were willing to fund good ideas now lacked the money. That was a very significant change. By 1994-95, we said we should have a longer-term goal to be diversified: 30 or 40% of our sponsorship from the federal government, 20-30% from the private sector, and approximately 30% in the international arena. That was very challenging. It takes a long time and substantial investment to achieve that mix. On the other hand, the Internet and many other technologies were forcing us into a world marketplace. We had to become players in that market.

On the private industry side, one of the big facilitators is the $4M UCCSN has in research matching funds from the state Legislature which allows us to do some work with private industry on different projects. In fact, we can engage private industry to work with us. I pushed very hard for about six years to obtain this support. In the last session of the Legislature, we actually got it done.

Kreidberg: Let's shift to DRI's role as an educational institution. How do you feel that this has developed during the last ten years?

Taranik: Our involvement has probably doubled during that period. We have hired research faculty who are also talented teachers, and we have put in place various mechanisms to allow for teaching. We have tried to focus the effort in such a way that a proportion of the Institute's activity is connected to graduate research, although the students receive their degrees on the academic campuses. Another dimension was involving the Institute in the K-12 program through Distance Education, making a connection with students considering careers in science, engineering, math, and technology. I also took a leadership role in writing the national NASA Space Grant Consortium proposal in 1990, which has placed DRI as the facilitating UCCSN institution for the national program. In the longer view, these educational efforts help to recruit quality scientists, engineers, and technologists.

Kreidberg: What qualities contribute to the success of researchers at DRI?

Taranik: One of the qualities is to be able to market your capabilities to your essential customer. Another important aspect is to be able to work in a team sense. You must also have a commitment to want to produce scholarly work.

Kreidberg: How can DRI attract the best researchers working today?

Taranik: Attracting the world's best scientists is a two-part issue. First is that the Institute faculty must have credibility in the published literature. Secondly, it is an outreach issue: colleague to colleague recruitment efforts that make it work. The process must fulfill affirmative action and equal opportunity requirements, but in that context, we can find the talented scientists that would like to come to work at the Institute.

Kreidberg: How would you define a leadership role for the Institute in the larger world of the UCCSN?

Taranik and DRI facilities manager Peter Ross survey progress on the NNSC.

Taranik: DRI has the potential to promote research opportunities for the other components of the UCCSN. The excellence of the research conducted by DRI is going to create opportunities for growing research programs at the two universities and in the community colleges. The leadership that DRI provides to them is exceptional and gives the UCCSN an option that other systems don't have. If you do an inventory of system level organizations in other states, you find that many of them are interested in creating an organization like DRI if they don't already have one.

The Institute is involved in many other activities that help us detect and realize opportunities for the system. A good example of this stewardship is the establishment of the Memoranda of Understanding addressing UCCSN involvement in Yucca Mountain and the Nevada Test Site.

Kreidberg: What technical innovations have had the greatest impact on DRI's research capabilities during your tenure?

Taranik: Computer technology today is the biggest revolution in the Institute. Because they are so wonderfully sophisticated, there is a tendency to focus on the tools and the information provided by them. One of the big impacts is that we have ways of visualizing science data that are so powerful that we believe the results more readily. As things evolve and we get more mature, we will be in a much better position to look at the information and ask the key scientific questions about the information provided.

The Internet technology in itself has changed the way business is done. If I have a sudden curiosity about who is doing tree ring research, I can get on the web and find researchers all over the world. Another level of this technology is what I call the virtual institute. Scientists scattered around the world will become part of the DRI faculty and staff in a virtual sense. They will collaborate with us on research grants and contracts. That level of communication will improve things tremendously.

Kreidberg: How is DRI's research contributing to Nevada economically?

Taranik: We like to say that if the state gives us a dollar, we bring in $10 of research. We currently have about $25M per year in research support of which approximately 10% is from the Legislature. The impact of that on Nevada's economy is nearly $90M, a substantial return on the state's investment. If you add all of the UCCSN research enterprise together--DRI and the two universities-- the total approaches a half billion dollars circulating in Nevada's economy. There are very few states that have the capability we have. I can recall a letter written by the Governor of Colorado to Governor Bob Miller thanking him for the fact that the DRI was able to help Denver in the Denver Brown Cloud study. I have even heard comments from people in Utah people who asked, "What if we just bought you and brought you here?"

Kreidberg: Has DRI increased its ties with the state as well as the business community in Nevada?

Taranik with Chancelor Richard Jarvis and Regent Dorothy Gallagher. Gallagher chairs the committee charged with searching for Taranik's successor.

Taranik: During my presidency, we created a position of legislative and external relations. Sue Wagner, then a state senator, was the first to fill the job and later became the Lieutenant Governor. Every year I meet personally with over thirty legislators. It has been a key to the Institute's success. An outreach program was established including the Nevada Medal program which is very well attended by legislators. Taken as a sum, our outreach activities have dramatically increased the visibility of the Institute and the understanding of what we do.

Kreidberg: Do you think that has translated into increased state support?

Taranik: No question about it. And private contributions have increased as well.

Kreidberg: On a different subject, do you envision an increase or decrease in the impact of science on management decisions and policy?

Taranik: The biggest litmus test today is the world treaty that is being considered which will place limits on carbon dioxide emissions, notably in developed countries. There are two viewpoints: one is that global warming is merely a fiction of the science community and the other is that global warming is indeed occurring. Therein lies the dialogue, and it depends on whether you trust scientists and research or whether you are skeptical. In Congress today, we tend to see that skepticism coming through because they look at the price tag for getting the answers to some of these questions and they are quite large. We can be major players in this dialogue.

Kreidberg: If you had a chance to sit down with the President for an hour to discuss your view of the most critical environmental issues facing the U.S. and the world, what would those issues be?

Taranik: One of the ones I would pick is understanding the upper and lower bounds of climate change and what these could mean economically. Next is the relationship of air quality to public health. Currently, we tend to fund the Institutes of Health separately from air quality research. Cross-fertilization would permit these groups to connect public and personal health issues to air quality issues. Another of my views is that you can improve the quality of life if you improve the economic climate. Tied to the equation is trying to educate leaders in science and technology. The real question is how we create wealth that raises the standard of living of all Americans. And in that context, we can look back to environmental issues. Obviously, people can afford to pay for pollution solutions if they have a higher standard of living vis-à-vis other countries in the world. We have an opportunity in our civilization to foster scientific technology but also to be thinking analytically, philosophically so that we can solve problems that are new and different.

Kreidberg: What ecosystems are most threatened by human activity?

Taranik: Forest resources on a global scale. By that, I mean the tropical forests as well as the boreal forests. The forest in this country is, at best, only a residual pocket of the original forest. Trees are carbon processors, so they take in CO2 and use the carbon and put out oxygen. In that sense, the balance in the world's atmosphere is very much controlled by forests and other vegetation. Regarding human activity, I've always also wondered about the impact of increased airplane activity as well as the harvesting of many different types of fish from the oceans.

Kreidberg: Are multidisciplinary studies the best approach to understanding complex ecosystem issues? How can we address this need educationally?

Taranik: As I envision it, you need scientists who are well trained in given disciplines. The other approach would be to have scientists who are trained in many disciplines. What happens in the latter case is the creation of a generalist, and the danger in that approach is that you produce somebody who is more or less scientifically and technically aware but doesn't have the skills, abilities, and knowledge to solve problems. It is possible to have people trained in a specific curriculum and to have the institution that provides this education organized in such a way that it is multidisciplinary. What really draws scientists together is a multidisciplinary problem. It turns out that climate change is a multidisciplinary problem: you find scientists in all different kinds of disciplines approaching the problem from different directions using their discipline focus, but working in teams.

Kreidberg: Do you see the need to integrate scientific research with other kinds of research?

Taranik was instrumental in building DRI's Nevada Medal into an internationally recognized award and the Nevada Medal Dinners into important fundraising events for the Institute. Taranik with 1996 Nevada Medal Dinner Co-Chairs Roger and Sandy Peltyn (top) and with Colleen Taranik and 1997 Medalist Dr. Sherwood Rowland (bottom).

Taranik: It will take the right project for it to happen. I mentioned earlier that one of the things I consider extremely important is the link between environmental sciences and public health issues. We have tools to do that because geographic information systems can take cultural information related to human use of the landscape, overlay environmental information, and then apply health-related effects that are connected to the environment. One example might be in Las Vegas and Reno. When the air quality is poor in these cities, the health effect may be much worse depending on where you live.

Kreidberg: How can environmental studies best be extended from smaller scales to larger scales? Do you have confidence in the validity of these methods?

Taranik: One of the things we are doing at DRI is moving from small laboratory experiments to phytotron scale using the Great Basin Environmental Laboratory (GBERL). The issue is how do you extrapolate to the real world from the controlled environment. There are a number of very good remote sensing approaches to doing that, and one of the things that should be done is to calibrate remote sensing instruments in GBERL over real canopies. If that approach were to hold, we would be involved in a pioneering effort to look at CO2 gas exchange in an entire forest canopy.

Kreidberg: What further research is needed to better understand global climate change?

Taranik: I am a great believer that the Quaternary science factors related to global climate change need to be organized in one campaign. For instance, I think the tree ring people should be well funded. We should have a campaign to work in all the critical environments throughout the world, and that is a multimillion dollar tree ring research program. The same is true of the packrat midden and pollen research. A lot of the work in global climate change has been focused on making measurements of air and sea surface temperature, wind direction and velocity, gas composition in the atmosphere, and surface cover changes. NASA is going to spend billions of dollars doing this. One of the serious disconnects is that the funding for Quaternary sciences is extremely limited despite the fact that this avenue of investigation, if properly organized, could really provide some significant information on the boundary conditions for climate change.

Kreidberg: The last questions are more personal in nature and a time for you to reflect on what your role has been at DRI and how this experience has fit into your career. First , which associations at DRI have been the most meaningful to you?

Taranik: The opportunity to work with a really talented bunch of people. One of the joys about working here was to try to recruit the best possible people to provide the leadership to move towards organizational maturity. I can take a lot of pride in the fact that the administrative team we have in place today is as good a bunch of people as I think you will find. Also, many of the Foundation members have become personal friends. I have tried to meet with them individually at least once a year, and we will still be friends after I leave. The Chancellor and the Regents have certainly been supportive. Over time in the Legislature, I have also made many friends. There are certainly people that I have been working with in the Legislature who are true professionals. Likewise in state government, I have enjoyed working with agency people and the Governor and the First Lady of Nevada. Everybody knows one another, and people don't hesitate to pick up the phone to ask for a favor, to register a concern. That is very refreshing. I will probably miss that.

Kreidberg: What do you regret most about leaving the Institute at this stage of its history?

Taranik:My biggest regret in leaving is that there are some tremendous opportunities to take DRI to the next level. I will miss not being able to do that, but if we're successful in handing the baton to the next fast runner, I can watch this person move the Institute to a higher level of performance. I will take pride in the fact that this is really a great enterprise and that I had a role in helping it along its way.

Kreidberg: Do you intend to have an ongoing research relationship with DRI when you return to the teaching faculty at UNR?

Taranik: I have talked about it and would certainly be pleased to do so. I was pleased when the QSC faculty suggested that when I rejoin the academic faculty on the campus, I should also consider working with them on climate change research and remote sensing.. I would welcome that opportunity.

Kreidberg: Do you feel that you were able to make a larger impact as president of DRI than in the other positions you have held?

Taranik: I think that is fair to say. When you look back at 1987, there was no Research Park. I looked at that and thought, "How are we going to develop this thing? We have the land. We are telling people we have are a Research Park. I knew that the thing to do was deliver the infrastructure." That was a major achievement. The second one was developing a program in Las Vegas. On my first visit to the Las Vegas office, the staff got me in a car and drove me out to several sites including land that had set been set aside for us adjacent to UNLV. When I looked at the Swenson and Flamingo site, I thought it was a wonderful place to go. Then to fight all those turf battles to make it actually happen was tough but challenging. Now that the Institute is well established in southern Nevada and supported by the Regents, we have a site plan for the facility for the next twenty-five years. Likewise in northern Nevada, we have a major science center under construction. All of those things were terrific battles to face and very rewarding as well.

Taranik relaxing on the links at DRI's 1997 golf tournament with (left) Assemblyman Lynn hettrick and DRI Research Foundation Lou Emmert and her husband Jerry.

Kreidberg: If you were asked at this point in your life to identify your most important legacy, what would it be?

Taranik: Certainly my legacy for Nevada would be advancing the School of Mines into one of the top schools in the country and ensuring that it had all the facilities and equipment needed to provide excellence at the undergraduate level of instruction and also to do the kinds of research and grow into what it wanted to be. Likewise at DRI with the help of a whole lot of hard working people, I moved the Institute to organizational maturity and developed the facilities and given the Institute the tools it needs to really be successful: strategic planning, an excellent management team, great facilities, the Research Park. The idea that the Regents really began to think of the Institute as Athe crown jewel of the system@ is part of my legacy too. My national legacy would be the development of new earth observations technologies on the Shuttle.

Kreidberg: Any other thoughts or comments you want to add?

Taranik: The one thing that should not be lost in all of this is Colleen's contribution. I am very lucky to have someone so supportive and probably could not have done the job without her.