Project targets wartime injuries

Jerry Bussell, Nevada's controversial former homeland security director and an advocate of UNLV's Educational Outreach Division in its 2006 fight with another branch of the university, has taken a one-year position with the division he favored that will pay him $120,000.

Bussell was hired in May as executive director of operations for the TATRC Project. The project is named for the Department of Defense agency with which UNLV will work, Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, but its more specific purpose, said Bussell, is to improve the Army's curriculum and methods for teaching soldiers how to deal with battlefield injuries.

"There's only one medic to every 50 soldiers, and when people get hurt, the first person who has to take care of that soldier is usually his buddy."

The Army allocated $1 million for the effort. Bussell explained that TATRC serves as an oversight agency making sure that a useful product is actually delivered, and gets $150,000 for that role. UNLV got $850,000 of the grant, Bussell said he will receive $120,000 of it because his job will end in one year. So far, he said, the main work that has been done has been hiring two graduate students who will analyze the Army's current curricula and determine whether parallel curricula used with different groups of trainees can be unified.

One element of the project will test whether "blended learning," an educational approach that adds online instruction and other high-tech means of accessing information to more traditional classroom and face-to-face instruction, is as effective as predominately online instruction alone, or predominately face-to-face, in teaching soldiers how to initially evaluate injuries to others and how to control bleeding.

If it can be shown to be effective, blended learning offers the Army many advantages including adaptability to the different learning styles and speeds of many trainees and the ability to provide more realistic training scenarios.

Bussell, 66, is a retired military officer best known for his former role as Nevada's homeland security adviser, appointed by Gov. Kenny Guinn in November 2001 after terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington. He resigned in May 2004 amid controversy in which a lobbyist, connected to Bussell and his wife, appeared to get advantageous treatment in bidding for a $40 million statewide emergency communications system.

In 2006 he had a role in a dispute involving UNLV's Institute for Security Studies and the Outreach Division. An investigation by reporter Jeff German of the Las Vegas Sun showed that ISS had failed to fulfill its founders' promises regarding research and education related to homeland security, the military and law enforcement.

Bussell had once been a consultant to ISS but was quoted by the Sun as a critic of its failures. Tom Williams, the top administrator of ISS, accused Bussell of provoking the investigation so the Outreach Division could take over contracts of the sort that normally would have gone to ISS.

"I did not cause it to happen," said Bussell. "I didn't even know until now he said I did. I wanted ISS to succeed then and want it to succeed now. "

In 2006 David Ashley, then president of UNLV, vowed to bring ISS under tighter control by the university. By October Williams was gone, replaced by Scott Smith, a retired army major general, who still has the post.

Outreach was left under the control of Dr. Richard Lee, its vice-provost. About that time, Bussell said Monday, Lee asked Bussell "to find programs that could bring money into educational outreach." Bussell knew that the Army had recently mandated combat-injury training for soldiers; and that, with troops already fighting the global war on terror, the training had been devised hurriedly.

"I approached the Army and our congressional delegation and said 'We can really improve this training. We're trainers,' " said Bussell. He said he started with Rep. Jim Gibbons, who later in 2006 was elected governor, but also every other member of the delegation. "All of them were helpful," he said.

The Educational Outreach Division defines its mission as "offering high quality credit and non-credit courses and subject matter experts," while ISS is mandated to be "a nationally recognized source of excellent research, training, studies and education in the fields of homeland security and combating terrorism."

Lee was seeking a federal grant for a study that could have fit into the ISS portfolio.

Bussell said, "I'm more of the operations guy, coordinating with the army, seeing that the deadlines are met, and so forth. This is an academic program. I can't say that ISS couldn't run it, but I know we can."

Lee, who has since died, named himself as the principal investigator with ultimate responsibility, but applied for no additional salary for that role. After Lee's death, Bussell said, the role of principal investigator was assigned to Bea Babbitt, a UNLV administrator with a doctorate in education. The grant application specifically named Bussell as director. A job description for the position, provided by the UNLV office of public affairs, seems to be written specifically so Bussell could get the job. For instance, the required education is a master's degree in public administration, the highest degree Bussell holds.

However, UNLV President Neal Smatresk said a job description customized for a specific candidate is not unusual when applying for a grant.

"Grants are initiated by specific people and require certain expertise," Smatresk said. "When you're dealing with the military it's good to have people with military experience helping you."

Bussell appears to have neither medical nor professional educator's credentials but has military experience. His biography identifies him as a veteran of the Vietnam War, in which he commanded the 183rd Aviation Company, a reconnaissance unit supporting a ranger battalion. He resigned the Regular Army in 1972 and joined the Nevada Army National Guard, where he last served as a colonel and the director of logistics until his retirement in February 1993. He holds a bachelors degree from the University of Tennessee, a masters in public administration from Shippensburg University, and attended the United States Army War College. Since his retirement he has been involved in various businesses including a Lake Tahoe restaurant, a property management company, and a steel brokerage firm. He is married to Pat Lundvall, a partner with the law firm of McDonald, Carano, Wilson LLP.

Bussell said he will maintain control of his other businesses but that he will work full-time on the Army curriculum.

"If we don't give them a product that's better than what we got now, I would be wasting a million dollars, and I have no intention of doing that. This is not some pork project."

Contact A.D. Hopkins at adhopkins@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0270.