Reorganization Announcement

On Oct. 17, 2000 we announced a major reorganization of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. This reorganization was undertaken to

• consolidate fragmented programs,
• enhance visibility of key research programs,
• enhance our ability to mount broad, holistic, integrated systems approaches to solving agricultural problems.

Beneficial side-effects are administrative efficiencies and some institute-level savings in indirect costs. Workloads of the institute Directors are also better equalized. No jobs or funds were lost, but some employees were moved to new or different research units.

As a result of the reorganization, we have a net decrease of five of research management units (MUs) and go from five institutes/centers to four. The Natural Resources Institute will be dissolved, and the Livestock and Poultry Sciences Institute will be renamed the Animal and Natural Resources Institute. The SES position for Director of the Natural Resources Institute, which has been vacant since April, 1999, will be abolished. A GS-15 position for Associate Institute Director will be created in the Animal and Natural Resources Institute, paralleling the existing structure in the Plant Sciences Institute. Recruitment for that position will open within the next couple of weeks.

New management units include

• the Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory,
• the Animal Waste Pathogen Laboratory,
• the Alternate Crops and Systems Laboratory,
• the Environmental Quality Laboratory, and
• the Agriculture Remote Sensing and Hydrology Laboratory.

Other changes will allow us to highlight our animal waste management program in the Animal Manure & Byproducts Lab (formerly Nutrient Conservation and Metabolism), soybean genomics, and food safety research in several labs that were renamed to enhance the visibility of this work. Several MUs were dissolved, and some were renamed. Attached are copies of

• old organizational charts
• new organizational charts
• list of MU’s created, dissolved, renamed or otherwise changed
• list of MUs that did not change.

There was no effect on the United States National Arboretum, and only minor change in the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center.

The reorganization will officially be implemented on November 19. Please call if you want more information.