Bob Bartee has been named vice chancellor for external affairs at UNMC.
Bartee has served as UNMC executive assistant to the chancellor since joining the medical center in 1980.
On Thursday, the University of Nebraska Board of Regents approved the new appointment, creating the fourth vice chancellor post at UNMC. The campus also has vice chancellors for research, academic affairs and business and finance.
“This promotion is much deserved as Bob is an invaluable member of our leadership team,” said UNMC Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D. “He is a visionary and strategic thinker with unmatched political skills who genuinely cares about this medical center, this university and this state. He knows the intricacies of the university and is truly an expert in legislative, political, alumni and public relations. His leadership and experience are vital in helping UNMC achieve its strategic goals.”
The Battle Creek, Neb., native is responsible for government relations at UNMC, as well as the Departments of Public Affairs and Alumni Affairs, the Rural Health Education Network Office and Health Professions Tracking Center. Bartee has been a key member of the leadership team for university presidents and the five UNMC chancellors that he has served.
“I am honored to be the first to hold this position at UNMC,” Bartee said. “I appreciate Chancellor Maurer’s confidence in me and the great team that so ably supports the work of this office.”
Bartee’s tenure at UNMC includes the following successes:
- Establishing a partnership with Nebraska institutions receiving National Institutes of Health research funding and successfully drafting and passing legislation that called for 20 percent annually of the state’s Tobacco Settlement funds to be allocated for biomedical research.
- Spearheading a unique public/private partnership for bioterrorism preparedness that included creating the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Nebraska.
- Helping assemble a coalition of businesses, neighborhood groups and city government to develop a vision and master plan to revitalize the midtown Omaha area through Destination Midtown. He serves on the Destination Midtown board and is the board’s immediate past chairman.
- Designing and leading the passage of legislation to create the Nebraska Cancer Registry to assist cancer researchers in obtaining vital epidemiological data.
- Creating the UNMC Health Professions Tracking Center, a unique service for tracking health professionals.
- Positioned Nebraska as one of the very first states in the nation to dedicate a portion of its cigarette tax for research in cancer and smoking-related diseases.
- Drafting legislation and securing funding for the Nebraska Rural Health Education Network (RHEN), a statewide educational partnership between private and academic health professionals that is now nationally recognized as a model system for meeting the needs of the rural underserved.
Prior to joining UNMC, Bartee spent five years in the University of Nebraska’s government relations office. A 1969 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Bartee has a master’s degree from Syracuse University’s Maxwell Graduate School of Public Affairs.
In 2005, he received the 2005 Marvin D. “Swede” Johnson Achievement Award, one of only two state government awards presented annually by four nationally known academic organizations — the American Association of Community Colleges, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.
He also is a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges Governmental Relations Steering Committee and the Association of Academic Health Centers Health Policy Advisory Committee.