NBDC Names Catherine Lang New Director

The Nebraska Business Development Center (NBDC) (nbdc.unomaha.edu) has announced that it has named a new director – just the second in the center’s nearly 40-year history.

Catherine Lang

Catherine Lang, who most recently served as the vice president of Accelerate Nebraska, will take over as NBDC statewide director on Dec. 1 of this year after serving two months as director designate. In her role at Accelerate Nebraska, Lang connected educational institutions with business and community efforts to support workplace development and share best practices leveraging private, philanthropic and public resources to improve the state’s education and economic systems.

Lang earned her J.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Law and has served in a number of governmental roles, including Director of the Property Tax Division of the Nebraska Department of Revenue, Commissioner of Labor for the Nebraska Department of Labor, and Director of the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. She is a board member for Nebraska’s AIM Institute, the vice chair for Humanities Nebraska, and a member of the Nebraska State Bar Association, just to name some of her community leadership positions.

In her new role, Lang will not only lead statewide outreach for NBDC, but will also work to build new collaborative efforts across all four of the University of Nebraska campuses to support the center’s mission.

Lang will be replacing Robert Bernier, who is retiring after serving as NBDC director since 1979. He is the longest-serving director of a business development center in the U.S. Bernier will continue to provide consultation and support for NBDC in various capacities after stepping down as director.

Robert Bernier

Bernier, who also served as assistant dean for UNO CBA, has formerly served as president of the Association of Small Business Development Centers, as well as earning national recognitions including the Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge and the Equal Opportunity for Women in Business Innovation Award from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business – International. He earned an MBA in finance and a Ph.D. from UNO.

Since its founding in 1977, NBDC has operated with a statewide mission out of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s (UNO) College of Business Administration (CBA). Currently, the center has service centers in seven cities outside of Omaha: Chadron, Grand Island, Kearney, Lincoln, North Platte, Scottsbluff, and Wayne.

Since 2002, NBDC has served more than 62,000 clients, helping them contribute more than $5 billion to the Nebraska economy, through professional development, training, operational improvements, funding opportunities and applied research. Find out more about NBDC online at nbdc.unomaha.edu.

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