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Public Service Programs at Virginia Tech:
One Stop on the Information Super Highway

by Su Clauson-Wicker

Doug McAlister

Ask Doug McAlister, executive director of Virginia Tech's Public Service Programs, what his group does and you get the feeling you've just lit a firecracker.

Supercharged with energy, McAlister responds with an explosion of answers _ set up a Virginia tourism web site... help localities develop marketing plans... initiate entrepreneurship education activities... train community leaders in economic development... coordinate a database of Virginia vendors so purchasing agents can buy "at home"... introduce regional planners to potential industries incubating in Virginia Tech labs.

"We're a bridge between the problems of Virginia's governments and businesses and the resources of the university," McAlister says. "We take the technology generated on campus out to communities. We are only limited by our imaginations," he adds.

Indeed, in the past several years, the eight staff members of Public Service Programs have become increasingly creative in harnessing high technology to help them meet their goals. In 1994 they developed a Virginia Tech interdisciplinary team to create a multimedia kiosk at the Factory Merchants Mall in Fort Chiswell.

Last year they coordinated another team to develop an Internet site promoting Virginia travel information. The interactive web system (http://www.virginia.org) provides opportunities for the small tourism business as well as the large ones to compete in a global environment. Visitor Information System for the Interactive Traveler, or VISIT Virginia, includes everything from presidents' homes and Civil War battlefields, to African-American sites, and was showcased last fall at the White House Conference on Travel and Tourism.

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