National Swine Research & Information Center and the U.S. Pork Center of Excellence
Since the mid-1990s, budget challenges at universities, extension services and research facilities in all major hog-producing states have resulted in program elimination, staff reductions, program cuts and tight budgets for research and education, setting the stage for an erosion of opportunities for education and improvement in the swine industry.
Under these challenging circumstances, the National Swine Research & Information Center (NSRIC) was formed to provide an information center for the pork industry.
The NSRIC initially existed as a cooperative arrangement between USDA/ARS, Iowa State University, the National Pork Board, and the National Pork Producers Council. Eventually, Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) of USDA and Land Grant Universities were also invited to participate in the Center.
However, for nearly 10 years this regional cooperative effort floundered, unable to realize its vision of regionalized teaching, research and extension services for the pork industry. Even so, partners who established the Center continued to believe in the strength and concept of a collaborative approach. However, despite repeated good-faith attempts, by other consultants and industry giants, they were unable to articulate a common understanding regarding its mission, governance and operations, to the point that NSRIC existed only as the name of a building.
TPG Management Consulting was invited to facilitate a process that would help NSRIC bring clarity and focus to its vision, mission, principles, governance and goals. Core to the process was strategic research, executive counsel, organizational development analysis and planning, as well as a two-day strategic articulation/visioning session to which key NSRIC stakeholders and other influencers were invited. Throughout the process TPG encouraged innovation and emotional ownership in the initiative and helped to paint a future-cast picture of the organization, build consensus among its collaborators and facilitate break-through thinking and an action plan that received 100% support from the group.
As a result, the organization was named “U.S. Pork Center of Excellence” and gained a renewed sense of purpose, focus and collaborative energy. Today the initiative is based at Iowa State University and is being further developed and funded by the USDA and the National Pork Board with financial assistance from a consortium of industry and fourteen Colleges of Agriculture. According to Wendy Wintersteen, Dean, ISU College of Agriculture, “the U.S. Pork Center of Excellence as designed with TPG assistance serves as a model for joint efforts to bring greater efficiency and synergy to the land grant university system.”