Mary Park has all the tools to manage the largest agriculture project in K-State’s history
K-State’s Global Center for Grain and Food Innovation, the final and largest piece of the university’s Agricultural Innovation Initiative, is roughly halfway through its construction phase and Mary Park is on top of it.
As the senior project manager for the $127 million project, Park coordinates the thousands of contractors, architects, engineers, suppliers, project team members, alumni and university leaders that are making the center a reality.
When it’s finished, the global innovation center will be three times as large as the football field at Bill Snyder Family stadium and will house researchers, industry experts and scientists addressing agriculture’s biggest challenges.
“The global center is big and aspirational, and she leads it extremely well,” said Lisa Johnson, assistant vice president of planning, design and construction in the Division of Facilities. “She’s collaborative, innovative and a problem solver.”
With degrees in structural engineering and historic preservation, Park “wanted to transition into more of a developer and owner role, to help implement a project’s vision and work with a variety of different people.”
“Mary is very humble, but her work directly contributes to the mission and strategic direction of the university,” said Casey Lauer, associate vice president of facilities. “She’s like a Swiss Army knife — dynamic in how she communicates and leads different teams while also having the technical expertise to understand everything that goes into constructing the largest agriculture project in K-State’s history.”
As one of ten project managers in K-State’s Division of Facilities, who oversee an average of 22 projects simultaneously, Park has already overseen the exterior renovation of one of the Manhattan campus’ jewels — the historic Ahearn Field House.
Park handles everything from scheduling, hiring architects engineers and contractors, ensuring student and staff safety, engaging with interested alumni and community members, collaborating with designers and builders, budgeting, estimating costs, troubleshooting job site issues and much, much more.
Scheduled for completion in fall 2026, the grain and food innovation center will create shared spaces where faculty and staff from multiple fields of study — engineering, health services, agronomy — can collaborate on bigger projects.
And Park will be on to her next project, preserving K-State’s history and building its future.
Written by: Heather Ackerly
