Ohio State creates new program to help fight terrorism

COLUMBUS -- The Ohio State University today announced formation of a new multi-disciplinary research program designed to assist Federal and State officials in better understanding the causes of international terrorism and finding appropriate solutions. The program will focus on both policy issues as well as the development of new technologies designed to protect Americans against the possibility of future terrorist attacks.

The new research initiative will be called The Program for International and Homeland Security and will be headed by recently retired Air Force Major General Todd I. Stewart. Stewart was formerly director of plans and programs for the Air Force Materiel Command Headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. Stewart comes to Ohio State after a 34-year career in the military. His appointment is effective Friday, pending approval by the university’s Board of Trustees.

In announcing Stewart’s appointment, Ohio State President William E. Kirwan said that the university is uniquely positioned to launch such a program due to its broad scope of disciplines, overall research capabilities and significant experience in conducting multi-disciplinary research.

“We are one of the largest and most comprehensive research universities in the country,” Kirwan said. “This program will capitalize on Ohio State’s extraordinary breadth of research expertise and allow us to apply that expertise to the creation and development of new and innovative approaches for understanding and fighting terrorism.”

The new program also represents a collaboration with the Battelle Memorial Institute, Kirwan said. “The university will focus on its basic research capabilities, while Battelle will offer its expertise on the application and commercialization of our research efforts.”

Stewart said his role initially will be to facilitate the process of identifying research efforts within the university that could influence national and international security and connect them with outside development entities such as Battelle. “Our goal,” he said, “will be to pursue research that will enable us to better understand the sources of terrorism and solutions for how it can be stopped.”

Stewart said that he wants to reach out to potential research partners, to funding agencies, businesses and industry, professional and scientific societies and other organizations that would be likely active partners, developing a network that would work in close collaboration with Ohio State.

“The program that Todd Stewart will lead holds great promise for effectively addressing many of the nation’s security problems,” said C. Bradley Moore, vice president for research. “It also meshes perfectly with the institution’s academic plan to build multidisciplinary research programs that attack some of the major problems facing our society.” Administratively, the new program director will report to Moore.

Stewart earned his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Michigan Technological University, his master’s degree in engineering administration from Southern Methodist University and his doctorate in management from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

He is also a graduate of both the Air Force’s Air War College and the Air Command and Staff College. He has held positions as graduate instructor, assistant and associate professor of management at the Air Force Institute of Technology, where he developed and taught at least 10 separate graduate courses.

He is the author of at least 18 scholarly papers focusing on research in management and in civil engineering. In 1993, he was selected to receive the Newman Medal, an award given by the Society of American Military Engineers for the most outstanding contribution to Air Force engineering.

In his last military assignment at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Stewart directed strategic planning and resource programming for an organization of 85,000 people, operating in eight business areas, at 13 U.S. locations and 400 locations worldwide, with annual revenues exceeding $35 billion.

Prior to that, he was the chief operating officer for installations and support at the Air Force Materiel Command. In that role, he managed a $50 billion physical plant spread across 13 U.S. locations and directed the largest, most complex environmental protection program in the Air Force. Stewart held previous positions as Command Civil Engineer at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas, Deputy Air Force Civil Engineer at the Pentagon, and commander of the 36th Civil Engineering Squadron at Bitburg Air Base in Germany.