Bear Briefs

UM Offers Hydrogen Safety Course—Anticipating an increase in the number of vehicles using hydrogen technology, UM has developed a new eight-hour awareness program titled Hydrogen Safety for Emergency Responders. The course is appropriate for firefighters, emergency medical technicians, law enforcement professionals, emergency administrators, and business and industry safety personnel. Topics covered include general hydrogen safety, personal protective equipment, hydrogen storage, emergency responses and more. The training and supportive materials have completed beta testing and are now available for presentation. The training can be conducted at the University’s training site at MonTEC, 1121 E. Broadway in Missoula, or at any national or international user site. For more information, call Paul Williamson at 406-532-3227 or visit http://www.h2education.com/index.php/sID/472aa1df/fuseaction/safety.main.htm.

Montana PBS Wins National Award—Montana PBS recently received the Public Broadcasting Service’s top award for Excellence in Development for its successful fundraising activity. Lisa Titus, Montana PBS development director, accepted the award at the PBS Development Conference held Oct. 2-4 in San Antonio. Montana PBS, a collaborative service of KUFM-TV at UM and KUSM-TV at Montana State University, has members in more than 220 communities. The service has seen double-digit increases in membership revenue in each of the past three years and has received significant major gifts to its Campaign for the Future. More information about Montana PBS is online at http://www.montanapbs.org.

Social Work School Earns Accolades—UM’s School of Social Work has won a Best Practice Award for Gerontological Curricular Innovation. The award recognizes UM for integration of gerontological content in the University’s bachelor’s degree program in social work, for development of an interdisciplinary gerontology minor and for offering a Gerontology Fellows Program that provides social work majors opportunities to pursue advanced skills in their work with older adults. It is presented by the Council on Social Work Education’s Gero-Ed Center, which prepares social work faculty and students to meet the demographic realities of our aging society. UM’s interdisciplinary gerontology minor was introduced last year. For more information, go online to http://www.health.umt.edu/GSWI.

Hybrid Truck Unveiled At COT—The UM College of Technology and Montana Peterbilt unveiled a new hybrid truck late last month. The new Peterbilt Model 335 Hybrid Electric medium truck is capable of reducing fuel consumption by 50 percent for certain applications, significantly reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. It also is eligible for up to $12,000 in U.S. federal tax incentives. During the unveiling, Kevin Gustainis, owner of Montana Peterbilt, and Jim Ziti, director of vocational sales for Peterbilt Motors Co., gave presentations and discussed the company’s overall efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.

Business Educator Receives Award—Scott Douglas, an associate professor at UM’s School of Business Administration, has received a Citation of Excellence Award from Emerald Management Reviews for 2007. Emerald Management Reviews features articles from the world’s top 400 management publications. Douglas’ article was among more than 15,000 published in journals during 2007. The Citation of Excellence Award goes to the top 50 articles. Douglas is co-author of the award-winning article, “The Role, Function and Contribution of Attribution Theory to Leadership: A Review,” which was published in Volume 18, Issue 6 of The Leadership Quarterly. He teaches in UM’s Department of Management and Marketing.

Best Article Prize Goes To Professor—Dan Flores, A.B. Hammond Professor of Western History at UM, has won a Vivian Paladin Best Article Prize from Montana: The Magazine of Western History. His award-winning 2008 article, “Bringing Home All the Pretty Horses: The Horse Trade in the Early American West, 1785-1825,” is an essay about the West of Thomas Jefferson’s era. In the article, Flores argues that trade in wild and Indian horses was one of the earliest economies in the West, funneling horses to the advancing American frontier east of the Mississippi River. The award is given annually by the magazine’s editorial board.