by Richard Clayton, PhD

Board Update

As the Chair of PIRE’s Board of Directors, I am writing to update you on the current status and future direction of the Board. First, you should know that there are four Staff Directors (Matt Courser, Karen Friend, Al Stein-Seroussi, and Bob Saltz) who are doing an incredible job of representing the entire PIRE workforce. Second, the “outside” Directors (Westley Clark, Linda Degutis, Pebbles Fagan, Harold Holder, Jane Maxwell, Brian O’Neill, and I) are working with the Staff Directors to be good stewards of PIRE’s resources. Harold Holder and Brian O’Neill just completed their last meeting, and two outside Directors will be joining the Board (Henrick Harwood and Jody Sindelar) in April 2018.

Third, as you may know, PIRE is in good shape financially, thanks in part to the VA and the AB InBev contracts. Add to that the renewal of PRC’s Center grant from NIAAA, funded continuously since 1983, that will keep PIRE at the forefront of research on environmental approaches to health. PIRE currently has net assets of a little more than $6 million. This is an impressive achievement, given challenges in the current funding environment. Fourth, during the December board meeting, the Board approved a supplemental contribution to the retirement plan, the eighth such contribution in 10 years. PIRE’s Board is focused on helping the organization think strategically in our rapidly changing funding and political environments.

PIRE is now at an important juncture in its more than four-decade history. During the December 2017 Board meeting, our CEO, Bernie Murphy, announced his intention to retire in early 2020. This provides PIRE with two years to prepare for and navigate the transition in executive leadership. While two years may seem like a long lead time, there is much to be done, and we will discover the time will simply fly by.

During 2018, the principal goal of the Board is to facilitate a process by which PIRE engages in a robust and critical visioning process to serve as a crucial foundation for thinking about what PIRE has been, what it is now, and what it should be and will be going forward.

Many of our Center Directors and Senior Scientists have been working at PIRE for many years. These folks are leaders in their substantive specialties and have made significant contributions to the fields from scientific and practice perspectives. Those affiliated with PRC in particular have essentially grown up in parallel with the alcohol research field. They are getting closer to the end rather than the beginning of their careers. The lessons they have learned and the wisdom they possess will be invaluable in a visioning process.

However, over the next 10+ years, our junior and mid-career staff will constitute the critical mass of leadership of the PIRE workforce. It will be essential for everyone, especially those less than senior, to be active participants in the visioning process.

For example, when the Board has its July 2018 meeting in Oakland, the Board will likely conduct two structured focus groups—one with the Senior Scientists and one with the younger scientists. Our Staff Directors will engage our other Centers in similar focus groups. In partnership with our Center Directors, the Board will work to ensure that everyone who has a stake in PIRE now and in the future is able to structure the narrative to be used both in recruiting the next CEO of PIRE and in determining our future path. Although it is the responsibility of the Board to hire the next CEO, we need an active, collaborative partnership among everyone at PIRE—from the Board down to our junior-level staff. The work we do in 2018 will set the stage for our CEO search and recruitment process in 2019.

Although my term as Chair of the Board will end with the December 2018 meeting, I look forward to working closely with each of you throughout 2018 as we work to position PIRE to another healthy and vibrant 40 years. We know what must be done—our task now is to begin this important process.