October 2009 Archives
Fall is my favorite time of year. We have some beautiful weather, but the Lab is not nearly as frantic as it is in late spring and summer. Our summer activities are very obvious, but what happens when the students and scientists leave? The construction and physical plant crews spent October oiling the exterior of buildings, doing fence work, assisting with installation of the weather stations, and finishing construction on Barclay. In the office, we have been updating our website, with a focus on getting student and science applications ready for the upcoming year. Fall is also the time when we assess the summer’s operations. We review the feedback we receive and set our operational goals for the upcoming year. I use this information to conduct evaluations of staff, as well as to budget.
Budgeting is a big part of what I do in the fall, with billy’s assistance. It’s been particularly complicated the last several years as we have switched to more sophisticated financial systems. We have been working on forecasting and tracking expenditures on a monthly basis. Such budgeting requires that we understand a myriad of details concerning the upcoming year. For example, who will we be hiring? Will they be living onsite? Where were our cost overruns this year? We don’t have to have everything figured out, but if we want an accurate budget, we need to have a good understanding of what we’ll be doing in 2010.
Another thing that keeps us busy is reporting on grants. This fall we are filing reports on the Research Experience for Undergraduates program and our construction projects, including the sewer work and Barclay renovation. Billy has financial reports due after every quarter and the new reporting requirements associated with the stimulus money are quite substantial.
If you really want to know what fall is like, I suggest you visit. You’ll need to wear some bright colors to avoid being mistaken for an elk by the hunters, but if you time your visit to miss the occasional snow storm, you’ll get to enjoy Gothic in its fully glory.
I’m just back from the Organization of Biological Field Station meetings in Costa Rica. They were hosted by the La Selva station, which is part of the Organization of Tropical Studies (OTS) network. It is interesting to compare La Selva’s operations to RMBL’s. They average about 35,000 use days. This is about four times what RMBL hosts, so they operate at about the same level as the Lab, only year round. La Selva scientists generate about 125 publications/year. The Lab averages about 30 publications/year, again about one-fourth of La Selva’s annual production. La Selva has about 50% more building space than the Lab- RMBL manages about 40,000 square feet versus La Selva’s 60,000 square feet. In the walking tour it was clear that La Selva has some very nice and modern laboratory space.
Another big difference is personnel. La Selva maintains about 100 full-time, year-round staff, including 10 Phd scientists (if I understood the numbers correctly). RMBL maintains five full-time year-round staff and peaks during summer at about 25 full-time staff (most of which are seasonal).
I don’t have the budget for La Selva, but the OTS spends approximately $8 million/year (compared to $1.6 million/year for RMBL in 2008). OTS operates three field stations, of which La Selva is by far the largest, so the finances are also roughly in line. I suspect that wages for basic work are substantially lower at La Selva than RMBL, which probably allows them to hire more personnel for less. Given the higher operating costs and the substantial fixed costs to operating a field station, even though we are operational for only about 25% of the year, the Lab’s efficiency at supporting research compares well with La Selva’s.