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Uintah Basin Regional Campus News

New UBATC/USU Building Already Impacting Community

Sep 17, 2008

Each day the UBATC/USU Vernal Building gets closer to completion. With a target date of June 2009 for a ribbon cutting and opening, Big-D Construction is working hard to meet a demanding schedule.
"We are on track and things are really happening fast," notes Dr. Robert Behunin, Assistant to the President for Special Projects. "We are fortunate to have such competent general contractors and sub-contractors. Many of our sub-contractors are local people with vested interests in the community."
Paul Hacking, President of the UBATC is quick to note that "this is a true community project. We have some funding from the State, but the majority of the support has come from the local community. There is not another project like it in the State."
Hacking is referring to the generous support of local citizens and government as well as industry. Anadarko Petroleum Corporation donated $1.5 million to the project.
The 86,000 square foot building will house UBATC and USU students and faculty. USU will have a suite of offices on the second floor as well as fully mediated distance education classrooms. Labs that were once planned for this building have been removed and will be housed in the new Bingham Entrepreneurship and Energy Research Center which will break ground in November.
"This building project along with the Bingham building has and will move the Uintah Basin to the forefront in a variety of ways," notes Behunin. "Every day we see people who are interested in investing in the Uintah Basin economy, and the single largest dynamic attractor is the higher education component: USU and the UBATC. We are utilizing higher education and workforce training to help create economic diversity and to mitigate the impacts of mineral extraction.”
Behunin is quick to point out that the phrase "mitigating impacts" is not a dirty word. "By its very nature, any industry creates impacts on a community, and we are working with industry to raise the quality of life and to expand opportunities for people in the Basin and for people in the State. Mitigating impacts is just another way of saying creating partnerships."
Gayle McKeachnie knows first-hand how this new facility will impact Utah. "We will be able to recruit, create and train a competent and highly skilled workforce in our own area, and that will spill-over into the overall State economic profile. This is a dream come true.”