NE-VERC's mission is being accomplished through a combination of applied projects to tackle important VA topics, purposed collaborations to build strong relationships with academic system engineering programs, student projects to develop pipelines for the necessary next generation of VA system engineers, education activities to develop improvement engineering skills within the VA and healthcare systems knowledge within engineers, applied research to develop new engineering solutions and learn what methods prove most useful to healthcare improvement, and spread activities to test solution robustness in multiple settings and disseminate results throughout VHA. Key strengths of our Veterans Engineering Resource Center (VERC) are an exceptional team of VA and academic partners, a clear vision that balances building long-term improvement capabilities with solving immediate system issues, committed leadership throughout VISN 1, thoughtful projects connected to national clinical and delivery system concerns, and integrated learning, research, and operations plans to prioritize, manage, and spread our work. All VERC activities are steered by an engineering leadership team and Advisory Board via defined processes for project selection, staffing, management, completion, and evaluation - organized and resourced to also be quickly responsive to emerging topics of national or local concern. Our success is monitored via key metrics tied to Center objectives at project and overall VERC levels. Coupled with full matching funding from VISN 1, NE-VERC balances its work between inpatient and outpatient processes, clinical and non-clinical concerns, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) dimensions, and methodological approaches. Identified start-up projects include problems in Supply, Processing, and Distribution (SPD), colorectal cancer, bedside care, and compensation and pension, through which we also aim to accomplish our higher objectives of building improvement capacity, a workforce pipeline, and strong academic partnerships.