The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, visited TRIUMF on Friday morning, January 16. After announcing a $3.5 million investment for 31 research projects at UBC from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Gary made TRIUMF his next stop.
First elected to the House of Commons in 2004 and re-elected in 2006 and 2008, he was appointed Minister of State by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on October 30, 2008. Minister Goodyear has contributed towards the successes of Hepatitis C compensation for victims, payback of GST claims for Quebec and Ontario school boards, and funding for HazMat training for Fire Fighters. Educated at the University of Waterloo where he specialized in Biomechanics and Psychology, he then attended the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College where he graduated cum laude.
TRIUMF Director Nigel S. Lockyer and Head of Strategic Planning & Communications Tim Meyer greeted the Minister of State when he arrived. He expressed great enthusiasm to be on site. received a presentation on the success and leadership that TRIUMF has achieved and its vision for the future. Minister Goodyear learned about the transforming field of nuclear medicine and the prospects of building next-generation superconducting accelerators for generating isotopes at TRIUMF’s facilities. He also learned about the potential for scientific progress and improving the health care for all Canadians. The Minister received a tour of the facilities and was introduced to several of the ongoing experiments such as TITAN (which measures the mass of short-lived isotopes with high precision), the TR-13 Cyclotron (which produces limited quantities of medical isotopes for research), the ATLAS Tier-1 Data Centre (a grid-computing centre associated with particle physics experiments at CERN's LHC), and a walk-through of MDS Nordion. Before departing, he took some time to meet the students and post-doctoral researchers that form part of the TRIUMF’s community and thanked them for their work.
TRIUMF was delighted to meet the Minister of State for Science and Technology and thank him for his visit.
Banner Photo (Courtesy of S. Reeve):Tim Meyer, Catherine Peters, Doug Kinsey, Nigel S. Lockyer, Gary Goodyear, Ed Odishaw
Maria Jose Crousillat
TRIUMF's Communications Assistant