Chamber executive takes R&D post at MSU

Allen D. Kunkel has been named the new associate vice president for research and economic development at MSU. He steps into the post Jan. 2 after seven years with the chamber.

“I think it was the right time for me to make a move, and hopefully it’s a good time to advance my career and do some good things for the university,” Kunkel said.

Kunkel, whose annual salary will be $95,000, also will serve as chief operations officer of the newly formed JVIC Inc., a nonprofit corporation formed to promote technology-based economic development in southwest Missouri. JVIC Inc. will assist emerging entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies by coordinating federal, state and local government resources to promote business growth.

Kunkel will help guide the Roy Blunt Jordan Valley Innovation Center in its mission of supporting small to mid-size emerging technology companies and high-tech startup ventures looking to commercialize products created through corporate and university-based research and development. He will work to grow those commercialization efforts in the Ozarks.

Additionally, Kunkel will provide an array of services to entrepreneurial companies, such as opportunity assessment; research and development planning, funding and execution; and developing venture capital plans and investor presentations to help companies secure startup capital.

“We are very pleased to add Allen to our team,” said James Baker, MSU vice president for research and economic development, in a news release. “He is a highly respected professional who will enable the university to accomplish its economic development goals.”

Chamber work

As the chamber’s regional development manager, Kunkel helped organize and grow the Ozarks Regional Economic Partnership. As head of the partnership, he assisted 68 cities, counties and chambers of commerce in planning, coordinating and conducting economic development activities throughout a 10-county region.

Republic City Administrator Dean Thompson, who co-chairs OREP’s executive committee, has worked with Kunkel since the partnership’s inception.

“I hate to see him leave the partnership, but I’m glad he’s still in the area,” Thompson said.

Thompson said he was particularly impressed with Kunkel’s fairness in dealing with the partnership’s member communities.

“As one of those, I don’t think he ever took a position favoring one community over another,” Thompson added.

Greg Williams, the chamber’s senior vice president of economic development, said he hopes to hire Kunkel’s successor by mid-February. An amended contract between JVIC Inc. and Springfield Business Development Corp. – an arm of the chamber ¬– will provide for Kunkel’s continued work on the chamber’s behalf through 2007, Williams said.

Williams said Kunkel’s leadership is reflected in the success of the regional economic partnership, which has been a model for other regions in Missouri and the Midwest.

“He’s one of most respected economic developers in the business,” Williams said. “Our loss is JVIC’s gain, without question.”

Kunkel, who holds a master of public administration degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, left the Missouri Department of Economic Development in 1999 to join the chamber. Prior to that, he served as a regional planner for the Southern Iowa Council of Governments in Creston, Iowa.