CIRM Hires Top Facilities Exec

Only hours after we wrote that the impending departure of Zach Hall would make it more difficult to hire senior management at the California stem cell agency, CIRM said it has filled a key position involving its grant efforts to build scientific facilities.

Rick Keller, currently assistant vice chancellor for capital resource management at the University of California, Davis, will become CIRM's senior officer for scientific and medical research facilities as of Jan. 2. Keller has held his position at Davis for 19 years.

Keller has worked with the California legislature and the California State Department of Finance. He also was chairman of Mercy Healthcare, a subsidiary of Catholic Healthcare West, one of the nation's largest nonprofit hospital systems.

CIRM President Zach Hall said, "His experience with more than $2 billion in complex building projects will be enormously helpful to us, as we move forward with our shared and major facilities grants."

Keller's salary at CIRM was not immediately available. We will report it as soon as we obtain it.