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Editor's note: This is the last of four Chancellor's Award winner profiles.
Higher education is Tim Quigg's third career and the one he said "every
other job in my life has prepared me for."
He taught school in North Carolina, held a governor-appointed post in
state government for nearly a dozen years and started two successful computer
software companies before joining the University's Contracts and Grants office
in 1991. But his achievements over the past four years are what earned him one
of the coveted Chancellor's Awards for 1999.
Quigg's honor is a direct reflection of his skill in managing the
top-ranked computer graphics department in the country: the University's
Department of Computer Science. As associate chair for administration and
finance he received accolades from department Chair Stephen Weiss for "proving
to be an excellent manager of both people and money. He can leverage scarce
resources better than anyone else I've ever seen."
The complexity of Quigg's job doesn't seem to phase him. He reaches into
his tool chest of skills and pulls out the perfect combination of technical
competence and human understanding to secure major grants and equipment gifts,
negotiate contracts and royalty agreements, and manage the department's patent
and license technologies.
"Our building is now full of machines bearing the sticker, `Donated by
Intel.' They should really say `Donated by Intel with help from Tim Quigg,'"
wrote Weiss in his nomination letter.
Big proposals yield big rewards
When 12 schools were invited by Intel Corporation to submit
proposals for a large equipment gift, Quigg's leadership in pulling together
many high-quality faculty research projects into one convincing $3 million
package helped win full funding, along with the acknowledgment that it was the
strongest proposal submitted.
But in the time between being awarded the equipment and getting it, the
computer hardware originally worth $3 million was selling for only about $2.5
million. Quigg again went to bat and convinced Intel to add about 60 machines
to the award, bringing the value back up to $3 million.
When members of the University's faculty designed PixelFlow, a very
high-performance graphics computer, Hewlett Packard wanted to license the
technology and produce a commercial version. Quigg was able to negotiate an
agreement that generated substantial royalty revenue for the department and the
University.
When HP later decided to abandon the product, Quigg jumped on the
opportunity and urged the computer giant to give the only PixelFlow machine in
the world, along with all the spare parts, back to the University.
"Money from the royalties has come and gone, but this machine is the
largest graphics computer on the planet and our graduate students are learning
with it right now," Quigg said. "The ideas that came out of the genius of our
faculty are being used, and down the road, the University will likely make
money from it."
The art of negotiating
That's Quigg's way of doing business. Negotiating is a skill he
uses daily and seems to have mastered. These, he said, are the fundamental
rules he follows at the negotiating table:
* Recognize that "winning" is when both parties go away satisfied with the
result;
* Develop a relationship where you are treating each other the way you
want to be treated; and
* Focus on what's really important.
The image of a tough negotiator, wheeling and dealing at the table,
couldn't be further from the cheerful and confident image of Tim Quigg.
"I guess I'm one of those blessed people.
I wake up with a smile and can't wait to get to work," Quigg said. "Most
people in this department will say this is the best place they ever worked. We
work hard and we laugh hard. We figure out a way to succeed without engaging in
destructive competitions."
The whole is more important than the parts
Quigg pointed to the department's open atmosphere and the
interdisciplinary nature of the business as reasons for its success.
"We have shared lab space, multiple people from different disciplines
working on similar problems and experts from industries other than university
all coming together in a very open atmosphere," Quigg said.
Noting that the department takes care of most business through committee
structure, Quigg said every committee has faculty, staff and student
representation.
"The whole," he said, "is more important than the individual parts."
Delighted with the award but reluctant to take praise for his
accomplishments, Quigg said: "Clearly there is personal satisfaction in doing
your job well, but my focus in the department is to support others doing the
main enterprise of the University: education and research.
"When educators get to spend all their time educating, when researchers
spend all their time engaged in research and when students spend all their time
learning, we are succeeding in that goal."
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