[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 142 (Wednesday, November 19, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Page S6141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO BILL SCHWERI

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a friend 
of mine and a great friend to the Bluegrass State and the University of 
Kentucky, Mr. Bill Schweri. Bill recently retired from the University 
of Kentucky after dedicating over 40 years to working at the 
university, the last two decades of which were spent as the director of 
Federal relations.
  It has been Bill's job to serve as a liaison between the university 
and its faculty and the executive and legislative branches of State and 
Federal Government. I am a proud graduate of UK's College of Law, and 
Bill has represented my alma mater exceedingly well over the years.
  Bill has been a staunch advocate for new research initiatives at the 
university in fields as varied as agriculture, biotechnology, clean 
coal technology, energy, engineering, and transportation. He has helped 
transform UK into one of the most prominent economic drivers in the 
State.
  He has been instrumental in bringing about such UK achievements as 
the Marty Driesler Cancer Project, the expansion of a teaching space in 
the College of Nursing, the creation of a bioinformatics core in the 
university's medical center, and Fedtrak, a project with the 
Transportation Security Administration to track sensitive material 
shipments.
  Bill also played a key role in UK's Markey Cancer Center being 
awarded a National Cancer Institute designation. With NCI designation, 
UK is better positioned to recruit researchers, receive grants, and to 
develop new breakthrough treatments to lead the fight against cancer. 
This means that fewer Kentuckians will have to travel out of State to 
find the most advanced care and clinical trials, and instead will be 
able to find it within the Commonwealth, which is critical as Kentucky 
suffers from the highest combined cancer mortality rate in the country.
  Bill has worked actively to help maintain congressional support for 
student financial aid, which is so important to many Kentucky students. 
He has worked tirelessly to ensure his school's visibility here in 
Washington, DC and to fight for legislation that is important to UK. 
And he is fiercely loyal to the University of Kentucky.
  Bill is not just an employee of UK, he's also an alumnus. Bill earned 
his bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of Kentucky 
in 1969 and his master's degree, also in anthropology, from UK in 1978.
  In his youth he served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala, and he also 
served as the past president of the Society of Research Administrators, 
International from 1997 to 1998. Bill previously served as UK's 
director of sponsored program development in the 1980s and '90s before 
becoming the director of Federal relations in July of 1994.
  Bill has been a leader in the Science Coalition, a nonprofit, 
nonpartisan organization of more than 50 of the Nation's leading 
research universities dedicated to sustaining the Federal Government's 
investment in scientific research. He has also been actively involved 
in the Council on Governmental Affairs of the Association of Public and 
Land Grant Universities.
  Bill is well known and highly respected among his colleagues in 
Federal relations at other research universities, just as he is 
throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I wish to personally thank 
Bill for his service to the University of Kentucky and to our State. 
Although his retirement is well earned, he will certainly be missed, by 
me, by my staff, and by the many people across Kentucky who have 
benefited from his efforts. I ask my U.S. Senate colleagues to join me 
in bidding a fond farewell to Mr. Bill Schweri.

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