Operations director is 'quarterback' of LSI building

Jim Alford is the kind of guy who needs a little prodding to share some of the interesting details of his life, such as the fact that he recently renewed his pilot's license. It turns out he did it so he can fly to North Carolina and visit his new grandson, 30 years after Alford served as a pilot in Vietnam.

Jim Alford (left), director of operations for the Life Sciences Institute, chats with Bill Jensen, architect with the Smith Group, and Jeff Smith, general superintendent/LSI for Barton Mallow. (Photo by Marcia Ledford, U-M Photo Services)

Alford also isn't one to boast about his work on the new Life Sciences Institute (LSI) building, where, as director of operations, he handles everything from insuring the right power outlets are available to securing a half-million dollar air-handling unit for the roof.

"There are a lot of people involved here, from President Coleman to Daryl the elevator operator," Alford says. "My role in that is to try to keep all the balls in the air at the same time."

Others are more willing to praise the modest Alford for the vital role he has played in establishing the LSI building, where the administration is scheduled to move in Sept. 16. Liz Barry, managing director of the LSI, knew of his work managing labs in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and recruited him in 2002.

"Jim has really been the quarterback for bringing this building online," Barry says. "We were really lucky to recruit him."

Alford is responsible for overseeing and coordinating all aspects of daily support for the research teams at the institute, including facilities management, grants administration, information technology support, environmental health and safety, animal care, and purchasing. If a scientist needs something for his lab space, Alford and his team track it down.

That means working with building contractors, architects, information technology specialists, U-M Plant Extension, the scientists themselves and many others. These are groups of people that have their own priorities and jargon; Alford serves as the genial and well-informed middleman.

"I guess my strength would be trying to talk both languages," he says. "I'm a translator."

Indeed, his knowledge about the needs of researchers has made him invaluable at the institute, Barry says. "Jim really understands how scientists work," she says.

That knowledge came from his work at HHMI, in addition to his previous jobs at U-M. From 1978-90, he was associate director of the Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine. He also is a past president of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science.

As the opening day for the building approaches, Alford still has found time to practice his golf swing and restore a 1975 MGB. Once his work schedule slows down, he plans to have more time for those activities, and to spend more time with his family, including his wife, Janet, who teaches art in the Chelsea Public Schools; his son and daughter-in-law, J.D. and Jennifer, who work as an accountant for the Institute for Social Research and a nurse at the University Hospital, respectively; and his family in North Carolina, including the new grandson.

For a while, though, he will continue to be one of the busiest people on campus as he makes the trek from the Kraus Natural Science Building to the LSI building several times a day. He looks forward to seeing payoff of his hard work—and that of everyone from President Coleman to Daryl the elevator operator—when the building opens this month.

"We had a blank page here," he says. "We've really tried to make the Life Sciences Institute the best we possibly can."

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