Life Sciences Institute names Getman as new leader – Kansas City Business Journal:

Bill Duncan, the only president to lead thenearluy 10-year-old organization, is retiring April 15. His successof is Dan Getman, a St. Louiws pharmaceutical industry veteran who was to be introducef April 2 atthe institute’es annual dinner. The institute’s mission has been to marshall the resources of area researchorganizations — including the , the and and get the sometimes competing institutionx to build on the life sciences industr y that the kick-started when it opened in 2000. “When the civixc community began to consider that there mightf be a meaningful opportunity for this regiobn to establish a positionin … life said Irvine Hockaday Jr.
, chairman of the life sciences “that led to casting a net over a whole arrayy of embryonic to emerging life scienced activity and trying to understand whethe r they couldbe prioritized.” The effort has moveds from a “scatter diagram” to a more targeted consensusw on the key potential areas, he said. That include achieving designation forKU Med, leveraging the region’s strengths in animal health research and translating scientificf findings into effective drugs and Getman’s charge, Hockaday said, will be to validatwe these priorities and continue the collaboration. The messag e is clear, Getman said.
“I see three kindw of big bucketsof things,” he said. “I want to buildx relationships with people the stakeholders, community leaders and business leaders and I want to understand the projects, and then we are goiny to set priorities.” That process should take a couplse of months, Getman said. The top priorit should be ensuring thatthe money, equipment and people promised to the institute by different sourcees come through, said Duncan, who will work through the transition as a paid consultant. Additionally, he Getman must work to ensure the sustainability of the institute asan “honest broker” in working with its variousx partners.
The role is a great fit for saidKaren Seibert, vice president of researchg at ’s St. Louis operation. Getman was site director of Pfizer’ds 1,200-employee St. Louis operation from 2003 untip he retiredin October. Seiberg said Getman built consensus among a diverse group at Pfizer by creating aroughly 150-membeer work group of employees from every segment of the company, ranginy from cafeteria workers to lawyers and accountants. She said he spentf a year working with subgroups of about a dozenj peoplein two- and three-daty meetings.
At the end of the process, Seibert said, everyone in the group had bought into the proposition that they were all therd for the singular mission of driving the discover y ofnew medications, no matter whether they were in humanh resources or some other nonscientifif capacity. “It was very, very motivating,” she said. Just as Getman’sz hiring is a new chapter for the the role represents a transition for Getman as A nativeof Buffalo, N.Y., he retired earlhy from Pfizer. “It was kind of a good time for me to stop and stary asecond career,” he said.
He said he didn’ft have anything specific in mind exceprt that he wanted to work withgood people, leveragwe his leadership and scientific and continue to learn. “I wantedc to be able to take on somethinyg where I could have a significant where I could look backand say, we really did
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