CWU VP/CFO Named to Prestigious Scientific Oversight Board

George Clark, Central Washington University’s vice president for finance and business services/chief financial officer, has accepted an invitation to join the finance and audit committee for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC).

Opened in 1962, SLAC—the world’s longest particle accelerator—has helped with the discovery of some of the fundamental building blocks of matter. It was also behind the creation of North America’s first website.

“This is an honor for George and our university,” said CWU President James L. Gaudino. “For officials at SLAC to see George as a valuable addition to their team speaks volumes about his capability and high level of expertise in the areas of business services and finance.”

Clark added, “I’m excited about becoming part of two world-class entities—Stanford and SLAC—to have the opportunity to share my knowledge and experience, and to learn about what makes each of them exceptional. Hopefully, I’ll be able to apply what I learn to operations here at Central.”

As a member of the laboratory’s finance and audit committee, which meets various times throughout the year, Clark will help develop and revise financial and administrative policies, processes and systems support for SLAC’s mission, and making sure that control systems are working as intended to protect the Department of Energy and Stanford University assets.

At CWU, Clark has been instrumental in helping implement and oversee the university’s transition toward a Responsibility Centered Management budgeting model. He also has significant experience working within the scientific realm, having previously served as associate director of administration at Virginia’s National Radio Astronomy Obervatory, director of administration at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, director of support finance management at the Oak Ridge (Tennessee) National Laboratory, and division business manager for fundamental sciences at Washington’s Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland.

The United States Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is on the Stanford campus in Palo Alto, California and is operated by Stanford University. It is one of ten Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science laboratories. Six scientists have been awarded Nobel prizes for work done at SLAC and more than 1,000 scientific papers are published each year based on research conducted there.

Media contact: Robert Lowery, CWU Public Affairs, 509-963-1487, loweryr@cwu.edu

March 31, 2014