06/21/2007

Vacation - Yes, I'm back from vacation and yes, I took 700+ pictures of Spain, but no, I'm not going to be sending them to you. I'm glad to be back and while I was gone the Legislature passed the certified municipal finance officer act along with funding (so maybe I should go again?)

Comings and goings - Shara accepted a position as business manager on campus for the electrical and computer engineering department. It's a bigger department with a bigger budget and a business staff of 14. We wish her well.

Randy Gustafson will start Monday, June 25 as research specialist. We don't have a place for him to sit in Knoxville yet so he will divide his time at the beginning between the Knoxville and Nashville offices. He comes to us from the state Department of Revenue where he was a statistical research specialist in the research division. Before that he was a research associate in the business and economic research center at MTSU. Randy has a BA in economics from Vanderbilt and a MA in economics from MTSU. He'll be working for Mike as we develop and execute a research agenda.