Indicators of ability to meet emerging future needs of UH on the international arena. Activities on this arena require attracting substantial extramural funds; these are highly competitive and require both the necessary expertise and proven track-record.

A. THE SCOPE OF SUSTAINED PERFORMANCE

High productivity, which is well demonstrated by the volume of completed work, organization of project information, and overall accomplishments and high quality.

Contributing new outstanding ideas toward meeting our goals and enhancing project outcomes.

Thoroughness, awareness and accuracy of addressing project needs and deadlines.

Working conscientiously and voluntarily for extra hours and days to ensure that prompt attention is paid to characteristically unpredictable, but important and urgent project matters.

Acting as a reliable and dependable contact with our team associates, as well as regional and international partners.

Maintaining frequent communications with our Iraqi partners based on the experience and knowledge about Iraqi issues of higher education.

In summary, our Iraq assistance program spans several partnership projects for Iraq's agricultural higher education and development through outstanding leadership, dedication, resourcefulness, networking capacity, multi-language ability, ability to cope with obvious risks, and interpersonal skills have enabled our Team to strategically expand the scope of the program and to implement all the above funded projects efficiently.

B. PERUSING NEW AMBITIOUS INITIATIVES

Commitment to fulfilling Iraq’s economic development led our team to take a key role in exploring the following new initiatives:

A National Agricultural Higher Education and Development (NAHEAD) program which expands the scope of our earlier and current work in northern Iraq to a country-wide scale, involving the revitalization of agricultural higher education in all major Iraqi universities (10 or more).
Responding to the expressed need for establishing forest-based Natural Area Reserves (NARs) to implement resource conservation and wildlife restoration to devastated lands in Iraq, especially in the north.

C. COMMUNITY SERVICES AND VOLUNTEER WORK

Continue to undertake highly productive leveraging activities which go a long way in expanding the scope and effectiveness of our grant funds. So far these activities have earned me membership in the Advisory Committee of the Sabre Foundation, and helped attract very significant support and funding from that Foundation in the form of 80,000 new textbooks, CD ROMs and reference volumes which were donated to enrich the libraries of major Iraqi universities. In addition, two shipments of Children’s books were obtained for pre-university learning institutions. The collective value of these donations exceeds 5 million dollars. Our program and UH are gaining significant credit and are earning a highly positive image in Iraq as a result.

Actively contributed practical suggestions on reconstruction needs in Iraq. These suggestions are embraced by the US military as a result of email exchange and several meetings, followed by an invitation to participate in a 3-day pre-deployment planning roundtable by the Army’s 25th Infantry Division (Tropic Lightning) out of Schofield Barracks.

Assisting in developing a total strategic planning and a priority setting scheme for agricultural development in Karbala.

Additional leveraging and "volunteer" activities included the following: