New Home in Knoxville

MTAS agent packing up files for office move

The Institute for Public Service and one of its agencies, the Municipal Technical Advisory Service, relocated their offices to 1610 University Ave. in the Mechanicsville area of Knoxville. IPS’s Naifeh Center for Effective Leadership and regional offices for the Center for Industrial Services and the County Technical Assistance Service also are in the building. The move took place in November and early December 2015. The phone numbers for all IPS and agency employees will remain the same. UT Knoxville bought the University Avenue building and another facility at 1525 University Ave. The UT Foundation will move into the 1525 building later in 2016.

CIS Sponsored Forum for Interested UPF Vendors

The Center for Industrial Services (CIS) sponsored a vendor forum that educated local, regional and national businesses on performing work for the $6.5 billion Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) being built at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge.
The four-day event in Fall 2015 at Y-12’s New Hope Center was designed to help businesses become qualified vendors for the UPF project. During presentations and breakout sessions, the event offered information on how to become a UPF supplier, dealing with government contracting regulations, and meeting the rigid standards associated with nuclear construction.

A 2014 report from the University of Tennessee’s Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy noted the impact of the UPF project will ripple across Tennessee and other states over the next decade, creating nearly 8,000 jobs a year and adding billions to the Tennessee economy. CIS partnered on the forum with the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, Gilmartin Engineering Works and the UPF project.

Law Enforcement Innovation Center Goes International

LEIC’s Chris Jones teaches how to properly secure protective clothing.
LEIC’s Chris Jones teaches how to properly secure protective clothing.

UT Law Enforcement Innovation Center (LEIC) Executive Director Don Green and Training Coordinator Chris Jones took the center’s training international in Summer 2015. The training program is a partnership between LEIC and the Global Security Program at the UT Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy.

Green and Jones, along with Howard Hall, a UT Governor’s Chair scientist and director of the Global Security Program, and other instructors completed chemical weapons response training in Nigeria, Indonesia and the Philippines. The program is funded by a U.S. State Department grant.

Certified Public Manager Program

The Institute for Public Service’s Naifeh Center for Effective Leadership is accepting applications for the state’s first Certified Public Manager (CPM) program, which begins its first cohort of classes in January 2016.

The Tennessee CPM program is a project-based, 18-month series of courses for all levels of public service employees across the state. The program will host classes, each limited to 25 participants, in East, Middle and West Tennessee. Program participants will be able to sharpen their personal and professional leadership styles and develop knowledge and skills needed to manage and inspire positive change in their workplaces and communities.

Participants will meet for a total of eight weekends over a period of 18 months.
The competency-based instruction comprised of modules will take place in class sessions and online exercises. After the modules, students will have six months to complete a guided capstone project before obtaining the public manager certification. The CPM program consists of 300 total hours of training and is designed in conformance with the requirements of the National Certified Public Manager® Consortium.

For more information, contact Gary Peevely at 865-974-6628 or gpeevely@tennessee.edu.