Olathe, Kansas
In 2005, the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation commissioned a Blue Ribbon Task Force, which found that metropolitan Kansas City was all but alone in not having a world-class research university in the region.
About 35 percent of the global animal health industry is located between Columbia, MO (home of the University of Missouri), and Manhattan, KS (home of Kansas State University/KSU), making the area a major center for animal health, food safety, and agro-terrorism prevention.
The mayor of Olathe, KS, (pop. 133,062) proposed that KSU, the Kansas Bio-Science Authority (KBA), and the city explore a partnership in which the city would make a land grant of city-owned land to KBA; in exchange, KSU and KBA would develop a research or education facility in Olathe.
Under the direction of the city council, City Manager Michael Wilkes, together with the Olathe Chamber of Commerce, began the time consuming work of forging the partnership and growing the vision. The partnership’s goal was to create a world-class facility where educators and researchers would be able to pursue their dreams and have support for marketing their efforts.
K-State Olathe officially opened on April 26, 2011. Its LEED-certified International Animal Health and Food Safety Institute broke new ground in more ways than one: it is the first higher education facility supported by a local tax, and the ongoing tax support will make it equivalent to one of the country’s largest endowments ever to a public higher education institution.
Learn more at http://olathe.k-state.edu/.
Meet the Manager
