Gov. Ricketts, Sen. Kolterman tour UNMC

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts, accompanied by State Sen. Mark Kolterman, toured UNMC earlier this month.

The governor, accompanied by UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., visited the iEXCEL Visualization Hub, where he received a demonstration of various technologies, and toured the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, meeting with director Ken Cowan, M.D., Ph.D., and researcher Tony Hollingsworth, Ph.D.

See a photo album of the governor’s visit.

Gov. Ricketts tours the Chihuly Sanctuary.

“I’d heard a lot about the cancer center, and I had not had a tour yet, and I was anxious to see how this is all coming together,” Gov. Ricketts said. “It is just absolutely fantastic, very impressive — not just the building itself, but the philosophy about how it was designed and executed, where you have the clinicians and the scientists all working together to figure out how best to be able to treat patients in a way that is really unique around the metro.”

While at the Visualization Hub, Gov. Ricketts said, he was impressed by the way the first class of the EON Reality Virtual Reality Innovation Academy, in partnership with iEXCEL at UNMC, was put together.

“I was not expecting that when UNMC put together that class, to help train people in the new VR technology that they are going to have, that they actually thought about the class as a team, bringing in diverse groups of people and talents to enhance not just the learning experience from the standpoint of what UNMC can offer, but from what the team, the new class, can offer each other,” the governor said. “The students will be able to train and teach each other, as well as be trained by the staff here at UNMC. I was impressed by the level of thought that went into that.”

Following his tour of the cancer center and meeting with Drs. Cowan and Hollingsworth, Gov. Ricketts praised the UNMC community.

“The staff at UNMC should be very proud of being a part of a world-class organization that is on the cutting edge of treating patients and being able to help take care of them, and doing it in a way that is going to stay on that leading edge – with the construction going on around here and the new technologies they’re implementing,” Gov. Ricketts said. “And it really is something that is going to change people’s lives.”

Sen. Kolterman, who invited the governor to tour UNMC with him, said the med center’s work in research, recruitment of doctors and innovative researchers and growing number of research grants is economic development to our state in the truest sense.

“We were appreciative that the governor took the time from his busy schedule to take the tour,” Sen. Kolterman said. “My main purpose in arranging the tour was to make sure he had a chance to see all the good things going on at the med center.”