The Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) will experience a transition in its top leadership over the next few months.

Robert Harriss, president and CEO since 2006, will be stepping down from that position and continue a part-time affiliation with HARC as a scientist on the research staff.

Jim Lester, vice president and chief operating officer during Harriss' tenure, will assume the top executive job. Lester joined HARC in 2002 as director of the Environment Group.

HARC, founded by the prominent Houston businessman George Mitchell, is a not-for-profit organization based in The Woodlands, Texas, which works to improve the well-being of people and ecosystems by applying sustainability science and the principles of sustainable development.

Todd Mitchell, chairman of HARC's board of directors and a son of George Mitchell, told the HARC staff that board members have "a lot of confidence that this will be a smooth transition."

Todd Mitchell was president of HARC from 2001 until 2006. He said that under Harriss' and Lester's leadership, HARC has broadened and deepened its activities, strengthening relationships with businesses and clients.

Harriss rebuilt HARC's relationships with Texas universities and hands the presidency to Lester with HARC a more stable organization in spite of difficult economic conditions, Todd Mitchell said.

Lester has provided strength during those hard times and enjoys the board's full support, he added.

Harriss told staff members they would "still see a lot of me" in his new position as a HARC scientist. Among other activities, he will spend more time on research interests in the Arctic, teach at Rice University, and remain active with HARC's Texas Climate Initiative and Third Ward Project.

Lester said he believes HARC will emerge from the challenges resulting from the recession as a stable, independent organization that expands its contributions toward the creation of a better future.

Harriss was previously senior scientist and director of the Institute for the Study of Society and the Environment at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Prior positions included a Harvard University postdoctoral fellowship and faculty appointments at McMaster University (Canada), Florida State University, University of New Hampshire, Texas A&M University, and the University of Colorado.

Harriss also served as a senior scientist in ocean and atmospheric sciences at the NASA Langley Research Center and as science director for NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth Program. He obtained a Ph.D. in Geochemistry from Rice.

As director of HARC’s Environment Group, Lester developed and implemented projects to make management of water, air and biological resources more sustainable. From 1975 to 2002, he was a faculty member and administrator in the University of Houston System, serving at UH-Clear Lake as a dean, associate vice president, and director of its Environmental Institute of Houston.

Lester obtained a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Texas at Austin. In his scientific work, he has applied principles of ecology and population genetics to projects involving biodiversity and sustainable aquaculture. He chairs the Galveston Bay Estuary Program's Monitoring and Research Committee and serves on advisory committees of the Texas Sea Grant College Program and the Texas A&M University College of Geosciences.