PSU to celebrate opening of Tyler Research Center

After years of planning and construction, Pittsburg State University will celebrate the opening of one of the state’s premier research centers this week.

The official ribbon cutting for the newly constructed Tyler Research Center will be held at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 21, at the site of the center, located at 1204 Research Road in Pittsburg (just south of the baseball fields on Rouse Street). Speakers include Gov. Kathleen Sebelius; Donna Shank, vice chairperson of the Kansas Board of Regents; Pittsburg Mayor Bill Rushton; and PSU President Tom Bryant.

The Tyler Research Center will be the new research facility for the scientists of the Kansas Polymer Research Center. The center replaces their former offices and laboratories in Shirk Hall, where the team performed award-winning research including the invention of a new family of BiOH Polyols, for which they won the 2007 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award.

After the city of Pittsburg donated the land for the new center, the university received a number of significant financial pledges, including a principle gift from the Robert and Gwendolyn Tyler Charitable Foundation. Robert Tyler, a 1975 PSU graduate, will also speak at Friday’s ceremonies.

“This project is of huge significance to PSU and the entire state,” said Steve Robb, executive director of the PSU Business and Technology Institute. “It provides world-class facilities for our world-class researchers.”

Robb adds that several national and international companies have already approached the KPRC, expressing an interest in touring the facility and discussing research collaboration.

“We fully expect to double our research volume in the next two to three years,” he said. “Our facilities had limited the number and size of industrial clients we could serve, but the Tyler Research facility now enables us to work with anyone who has an interest in our work.”

Construction of the Tyler Research Center began in May 2006 and took just over a year to complete. The 22,000-square-foot building has 18 labs and 22 fume hoods. At a total construction cost of $5.7 million, the building will accommodate the needs of 18 scientists and six graduate students for at least the next five years.

Please join us Friday for this important celebration at Pittsburg State University. For more information, contact the Office of Public Relations at 620-235-4122 or Steve Robb at 620-235-4920.

---Pitt State---