Academic and Corporation Relations Center

Director Kramer Bails in less than a year -

Leaving University of Minnesota

With Egg on Face After

Contra-(hiring freeze) Hire...

About a year ago, in the midst of a hiring freeze - or is that pause? - the U of M took aboard another poor ship-wrecked Pawlenty person.

For background, please see my post of about a year ago: "If you can't beat 'em, hire 'em."

From Thomas Lee's most excellent MedCity News:

Kramer’s exit from the University of Minnesota
raises tricky questions

In the end, Matt Kramer’s departure from the University of Minnesota was a lot more low key than his hiring less than a year ago.

[not with a bang, but a whimper]

With great fanfare, the school had hired Kramer in July 2009 to run what was then known as the Academic and Corporate Relations Center. The university had good reason to crow: at the time, Kramer was chief of staff to Gov. Tim Pawlenty and a former commissioner of the state’s Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).

Eleven months later, Kramer bolted the university to become president of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce. In truth, Kramer was already thinking about his departure last December, a mere five months on the job, after a recruiter contacted him about the St. Paul job.

[Sounds like a Pawlenty sort of guy. It is all about ME.]

In an interview, Kramer said he enjoyed his time [and his salary?] at the university but needed to seize a “great opportunity” in St. Paul. Through his brief tenure, Kramer said he helped establish a firm foundation for the school to build upon.

[Uh, huh... as Ray Charles would say]

As Kramer himself noted, at the university, he was one person trying to carry out a mission in a large institution full of missions.

But “in St. Paul, I am the mission,” Kramer said.

And the university’s relationship with the business community still remains very much a work in progress. In my previous interview, I asked whether the school had made any progress in that area.

“I can’t really answer that question,” Kramer said at the time. “I’ve only been here six or seven months. We are starting to make a difference. It’s a start. If I had to measure, we went from here beneath my shoe to a little bit up.”

[Firm foundation? Ya, fersure.]

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