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>>Theresa Bierer: Its time now for our interview segment, with inside NAU's Charlie Hicks.
>>Charlie Hicks: Thanks Theresa, I'm here with Mason Gerety, the vice president of advancement
her at northern Arizona University. Mason thanks a lot for joining us.
>>Mason Gerety: It's absolutely my pleasure. >>Hicks: Why don't you start a little bit
by telling us what the university's office of advancement is?
>>Gerety: The office of university advancement includes; developments, which is our fundraising
group, the Northern Arizona University Foundation, alumni relations, marketing and branding,
as well as public affairs and then of course our award winning radio station, KNAU.
>>Hicks: And what are the role of the boards, the alumni board and the foundation board.
>>Gerety: The alumni board's role is primarily an alumni outreach and fundraising and in
creating the kind of atmosphere that engages the alumni in the institution. The foundation
board is a fiduciary board. It's actually an affiliated group of the institution it
manages the endowment of the institution, as well as has two subsidiaries; Northern
Arizona Real Estate Holdings as well as NAU Ventures. Northern Arizona Real Estate Holdings
does real-estate investments beneficially for the university and NAU Ventures does tech
transfer for the university. >>Hicks: And I'm hearing about this, Eden,
and a return to Eden or basically trying to get to Eden, what is Eden?
>>Gerety: Eden is a big project being run on primarily university marketing, and the
project is a complete revamp of our web presence, our digital presence on campus. It includes
web site redesign as well as a state of the art content management system. That will really
allow us to move our digital presence significantly forward from where it is now. And also it's
a brand new look for us, and really trying to get the look of the institution to match
the kind of great institution that it is. >>Hicks: It sounds like it's a pretty big
project, is there a timeline when we might see this?
>>Gerety: Well we hope we will be done with at least the first phase of Eden sometime
in June. >>Hicks: Now I hear there might be a new restaurant
opening up on north campus, what's 1899? >>Gerety: Yep, 1899 bar and grill. We open
and start serving on Monday, the 28th of February to the general public. We have a grand opening
scheduled for the afternoon of the 9th of March. It's a great menu; it's filled with
really wonderful product as well as a complete bar. And we're doing lots of stuff hoping
to be to be sustainable, having a lot of locally grown, local sourced chicken, beef, fish,
that kind of stuff. >>Hicks: The name 1899, where did that come
from? >>Gerety: Well NAU was founded in 1899 and
so really it takes one of our great historic buildings in the north union, revamps it into
a, really very high class restaurant. >>Hicks: And how did the idea come into fruition?
Who got behind this and decided we needed a restaurant like this on campus?
>>Gerety: Well, this really goes back to when we built the high country club conference
center. And part of the deal that we had with the city with the high country conference
center was that we would put a full service restaurant on north campus. And what this
allows us to do is fulfill that piece, but then it was Northern Arizona Real-estate Holdings
through the NAU foundation that put up the money to actually build the restaurant.
>>Hicks: And hotel and restaurant management students are they going to have some involvement
in it? >>Gerety: We have hired, we have staffed up,
there are HRM students who are part of the staff and we will have interns thatroll through
there. >>Hicks: Mason Gerety from University Advancement
thanks a lot for joining us. >>Gerety: Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you.
>>Bierer: The 1899 bar and grill is open for lunch and dinner seven days a week.