The Daily Bulletin Archive

It is my pleasure to announce that Voldemar Innus, who served Buffalo State so well as vice president for information services and systems and chief information officer, has agreed to take on the newly created role of special assistant to the president for economic development and community outreach.

This part-time, temporary position will be supported by the Research Foundation at Buffalo State.

Both the SUNY Strategic Plan and Governor Cuomo’s recent State of the State address have made transforming New York’s economy a top priority. Buffalo State is extremely well positioned to contribute to these efforts by building on its existing strengths, but needs to assess those strengths, identify opportunities for new collaborations, and build awareness of our efforts.

The new special assistant to the president will be responsible for developing and implementing the “Buffalo State Economic Development and Community Outreach Strategy.” To meet that goal, the special assistant to the president will focus on the key drivers identified by the Rockefeller Institute of Government in “A New Paradigm for Economic Development: How Higher Education Institutions Are Working to Revitalize Their Regional and State Economies”:

- Innovation: creatively leverage our strengths and knowledge to yield tangible economic benefits, new technologies, new processes, new products, new ideas.
- Services for business: management assistance, start-up help, training, counseling.
- Community revitalization: embracing a role in the cultural, social, and educational revitalization of our region.
- Creating an educated population: the new economy is making the traditional academic mission ever more important; new approaches must be explored to address these new and growing needs.

By focusing our efforts in this way, we will be able to benchmark and assess our progress and seek external state and federal funding to help support this initiative.

Please join me in congratulating Voldemar Innus on his new role.