Tony Frank, Colorado State University’s Top Academic Official, Named to Statewide Climate Action Panel

Tony Frank, provost and senior vice president at Colorado State University, has been named to the blue-ribbon Climate Action Panel, a statewide committee charged with recommending ways to reduce Colorado’s contribution and vulnerability to climate change.

The Colorado Climate Project is a program of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, a private, non-profit organization dedicated to addressing climate change. The private initiative is patterned after similar public projects in states such as Arizona, New Mexico and Montana.

The Colorado Climate Project brings researchers, government officials, environmental groups and industry leaders together to reduce the state’s contribution and vulnerability to a changed climate. Project directors include Fort Collins Mayor Doug Hutchinson; Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper; Pat Vincent, president of Public Service Co. of Colorado; and Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.

Higher education has a significant role to play in investigating climate change in Colorado. Working groups will use scientists from three of the state’s research universities – Colorado State, the University of Colorado and the Colorado School of Mines – to share resources and ideas. Joining Frank on the Climate Action Panel are Susan Avery, vice chancellor for Research and dean of the graduate school at CU-Boulder, and John Poate, vice president for Research and Technology Transfer at Mines.

A panel report is expected by the end of 2007. No panel recommendations are predetermined, according to the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization.

Frank received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Wartburg College and his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the University of Illinois. He served on the faculty at Oregon State University before joining Colorado State in 1993, where he served as chairman of the Department of Pathology and associate dean for Research in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

He was appointed vice president for Research and Information Technology at Colorado State in 2000 before being named Provost and Senior Vice President in 2005.

U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez recently appointed Frank to a new advisory committee that will address the complex issues surrounding access of controlled sensitive technology by foreign nationals within the United States.

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