Chamber public affairs director taking new job...

Chamber public affairs director taking new job

Doug Stuckey, a familiar face at the Newport Beach Chamber of

Commerce, has announced his resignation to pursue a career at Wells

Fargo Bank.

Stuckey, the chamber’s public affairs director, will begin work as

a regional marketing consultant in Wells Fargo’s Irvine office on

March 17.

The 27-year-old Stuckey, who graduated from Newport Harbor High

School in 1993, said he has enjoyed his more than four years working

for the city’s lead promoter and advocate for local business.

“It was a great situation to work in and promote a city you grew

up in,” Stuckey said. “It has been a great experience here.”

Chamber President Richard Luehrs hired Stuckey in 1998, when he

was the communications director for then-Assemblywoman Marilyn

Brewer.

Luehrs credited him with raising the chamber’s profile with city

leaders and state representatives.

“We wish him all the success in the world,” Luehrs said. “He has

meant a lot to the chamber.”

Stuckey was a kicker on Newport Harbor’s football that lost to

Irvine High School in the CIF championship game.

Stuckey studied communications and political science at Oregon

State University, where he played as the Beavers’ starting punter and

kicker. He graduated with a degree in speech and communications.

Stuckey lives in Costa Mesa with wife Molly, whom he married in

January.

-- Paul Clinton

UCI gets $2.6 million for spinal cord research

The National Institutes of Health awarded a five-year,

$2.6-million grant to the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at UC Irvine

to confirm new findings in spinal cord injury research.

The grant marks the first time that the National Institutes have

funded a center’s research based on key findings, and only the second

time in the country that a center has been awarded a grant for it.

By taking that step, the National Institutes have moved toward a

new initiative that will help propel breaking research as it first

becomes available.

The grant it will not only push the Reeve-Irvine Center’s

laboratory research in the regeneration of injured nerves and the

enhancing of genes that promote nerve cell growth or block other

genes that code for growth-inhibiting molecules, it will also allow

them to develop new methods to track the use of experimental spinal

cord injury treatments in animals.

Researchers in the center, established in 1996, study the effects

of spinal cord injury and spinal diseases to find their cures.

-- Christine Carrillo