Anna McEntire talks with Jason Williams on KVNU’s For the People program
LOGAN — Every year, Utah Governor Spencer Cox receives a report on land, air and water in Utah. It informs a lot of the legislative process and the governor’s priorities.
On KVNU’s For the People program last week, Anna McEntire, managing director of the Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water and Air at Utah State University, said they don’t do the research in the institute, their job is to be a linch pin between the university and policy makers.
“And so, that’s kind of a fun job and one that I love, because it’s my job to go around to our many, many researchers at Utah State, and say ‘what’s going on, what’s interesting, how do we say that in a way that policy makers will understand,” she explained.
McEntire said she started to refer to herself as a translator as opposed to a research communicator.
“One thing that I will say, is researchers at Utah State are eager and wanting to figure out how to get that language correct, they want to make sure that their work is being used and understood by people who make decisions.”
She said it helps having someone who has worked at the federal and state level, such as the institute’s executive director Brian Steed.
“And Brian has spent an entire career at the federal and the state level, he knows the players in those areas and he understands the language. And my career has been internal to the university, I’ve been with the office of research and now with the institute for 20 years now getting to know the researchers at the university. So, with Brian and I together, talking to each other, trying to understand the needs of the state and the capacity of the researchers, it’s been a nice partnership where we’ve been able to work together to bring those two things together.”
In addition to being executive director, this past spring Steed was appointed by Governor Cox as the Great Salt Lake commissioner.
McEntire said that’s been great for USU as it has put the school on the front lines of helping to inform and understand issues specifically with the Great Salt Lake.