Nebraska
Lennander to serve as interim leader of human resources
Ben Lennander has been selected to serve as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s interim assistant vice chancellor for human resources.
The appointment, which will begin on June 3, was announced by Mike Zeleny, vice chancellor for Business and Finance. Lennander, who has served as director of payroll operations, replaces Steve Beck, who is leaving the university for another professional opportunity.
After graduating from Iowa State University with an accounting degree in 2001, Lennander moved to Lincoln to start a small business. He joined UNL in 2008, bringing an entrepreneurial spirit to each role held. During his tenure in Business and Finance, Lennander spent four years implementing standardized business processes and shared services for HR and finance. In that role, his team completed more than 100 process improvement projects. In the last year, he has served as director of payroll.
Lennander is passionate about coaching and is a mentor for the Staff Mentorship Program run by UNL’s Organizational Development unit. One of the things he enjoys most about leadership is exploring the strengths of his team members and guiding them to leverage those strengths for efficiency, growth, and success.
Beck was hired in April 2022 after a national search and brought years of experience in guiding progressive human resources programs in the healthcare and manufacturing industries. Beck was also a former University of Nebraska–Lincoln employee, having started his career more than 25 years ago as a senior human resources facilitator with Human Resources, then as an HR manager within Athletics.
“I am grateful to Ben for stepping up into this significant leadership role,” Zeleny said. “I’d also like to thank Steve for his leadership and service over many years to our university.”
The university’s assistant vice chancellor for human resources provides executive leadership for the institution’s human resource operations and organization. The position is responsible for ensuring compliance with human resource laws and regulations and identifying and recommending remedies for HR risk mitigation. The position works collaboratively with other human resources leaders in the NU system and will play an important role in the design and implementation of NU’s new enterprise HR system, Success Factors. Following that implementation, a search will likely be launched to select the permanent assistant vice chancellor for human resources.
The future of data centers in Nebraska took center stage at a North Omaha town hall Thursday evening.
The event was hosted by State Sens. Terrell McKinney and Ashlei Spivey, who alongside Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh sponsored a bill in the Nebraska Legislature that looked to help regulate data centers.
Parts of their bill were adopted and passed in LB1010, which requires reports on annual power usage, water usage and ownership.
“Having this passed in a package showed a lot of bipartisan work,” Spivey told a crowd of attendees at Nelson Mandela Elementary School.
The proposed regulations were shaped in part by Bold Nebraska, an advocacy group focused on eminent domain and clean energy. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, said before the bill passed there were “zero laws on the books” to address a boom in data centers.
“If one is coming into the community, we wanted to make sure that there were some basic transparency things in place,” Kleeb said.
Political discussions around data centers heated up in recent months following reporting by the Flatwater Free Press that showed Google is considering a data center in Nebraska that could require more than three times the amount of power the entire city of Lincoln uses at peak demand in the summer.
The Nebraska Legislature recently passed another bill, LB1261, that allows private developers to build and own power plants to serve a large industrial customer, including data centers. That bill was proposed by the governor’s office and celebrated by Gov. Jim Pillen.
“Our state is once again taking a bold and strategic step – one that will create an environment that attracts business and multibillion dollar investment, while legally preserving Nebraska’s unique and consumer-friendly public power model,” Pillen said at the time.
At Thursday’s town hall, McKinney called LB1261 “the bogeyman bill.”
“It’s a bill that the governor pushed through the legislature to allow for data centers to create their own power,” McKinney said. “It’s a bill that I stood on the floor and said this is going to harm our communities.”
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Hundreds of people are without power in southeast Nebraska after a severe storm passed through Thursday morning.
The Lincoln Electric System outage map showed 115 customers without power across the city at 11:36 a.m.
Norris Public Power District’s outage map also shows 45 customers affected by the storm. As of 11:36 a.m., there were nine active outages.
According to the Nebraska Public Power District outage map, 657 customers were affected by the storm. Most of the affected customers were near Plattsmouth in southeast Nebraska. As of 11:37 a.m., 27 customers remain without power.
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Mandatory evacuations have been ordered near Crawford, including Fort Robinson State Park, as the South Fork Fire continues to spread in western Nebraska.
According to the City of Crawford, evacuations are currently underway for an area north of Crawford that includes the area south of Dodd Road, west of Dodd Road, and FF Street.
Fort Robinson has also been evacuated.
The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission said Fort Robinson State Park and Peterson Wildlife Management Area have been temporarily closed due to the fire.
The fire has burned approximately 9,000 acres and is currently 0% contained, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Nebraska Game and Parks said the park and the WMA will remain closed until further notice to support firefighting operations and protect public safety.
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