Dean Eddington Appointed to Federal Facilities Advisory Board

Board created by Governor Martin O’Malley to help connect Maryland companies with federal opportunities to create jobs

By Becky Ceraul
January 19, 2010

Natalie D. Eddington, PhD, dean of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, has been appointed by Governor Martin O’Malley to the newly created Federal Facilities Advisory Board. The 16-member board will work to develop a comprehensive assessment of how Maryland can best support and leverage the vast potential of its more than 50 federal facilities. In addition, it will work to connect Maryland companies with federal opportunities for the creation of jobs.

“Maryland’s federal facilities are the powerful yet often underestimated economic engines that are driving our knowledge-based economy and helping us outperform most states and the nation,” said Governor O’Malley in announcing the appointments at a CyberMaryland Summit at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg on Jan. 11. “The potential of our federal facilities are limitless. I am looking forward to working with this extremely talented and knowledgeable board to help support these facilities and identify and maximize new opportunities for Maryland businesses so they can create jobs and improve our communities.”

In addition to connecting Maryland businesses with federal opportunities, the Board will also help to identify ways that the State can support and enhance federal facilities’ infrastructure, education and workforce needs and help to facilitate the commercialization of the innovative technology being created at federal and military labs.

“I am honored to have been asked by Governor O’Malley to serve on the Federal Facilities Advisory Board,” says Dean Eddington. “The board will work diligently to provide an informed mechanism to catalog and identify areas of synergy and potential collaboration among federal facilities, state facilities, biotechnology companies, and academic settings, such as the professional and graduate schools at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Through this process, we will identify important and transformational partnerships that will continue to propel the scientific and economic engine in Maryland.”

Maryland is home to more than 50 federal facilities, which employ more than 100,000 well-educated, highly-skilled government employees and contractors in areas such as space exploration, cutting-edge research and development, and scientific, medical and technological innovations.