MORGANTOWN - Every bit of space in Dan Carder's world has its own purpose. Sometimes, it has two.
At the Vehicle and Engine Testing Lab, the newest space for West Virginia University's Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions, every inch of the 13,000 square foot facility will be used.
The researchers began moving into the facility just off of Green Bag Road in February. Here is where they'll have engine dynamometers to test heavy-duty trucks and personal cars alike.
And just inside the lab are three faux-leather chairs that sit low to the ground and hug a large wooden table. In Carder's world, this space could be used for something else. Another desk area, perhaps, for another enterprising faculty member to stack his or her papers and empty soda cans on.
This makeshift conference room is crucial. It's here where Carder and his staff sit for interviews with the New York Times. It's here, after squeezing into the tiny space, that they retell their story to dozens of reporters. How their lab cracked open the secret that Volkswagen had installed devices to fool emissions tests. How their work would lead to a huge settlement (potentially worth $15 billion) to buy back some Volkswagen cars.
"There were many times at two, three in the morning that we were answering calls or scheduling for the next day. They were coming from all over the world," Carder said. "But, I think that we've made a difference long before this story. A lot of it's really nerdy and no one would have ever heard of it."
With everything that has happened, with all of the headlines and all of the attention, it would be easy to assume that business is booming at CAFEE.
Those assumptions are wrong.
Carder, the director of CAFEE, still worries about meeting his payroll obligations. He and other researchers still come in to work on the weekends and regularly work 16-hour days. They still keep doing the kind of work that affects transportation in America that goes unnoticed too often.
And they are still struggling for cash.
"Back in the old days, we were able to take what [funds] we had that was maybe not as contractually obligated, and divert some of those funds to grow this program," Carder said.
About eight or nine years ago, the lab started losing some of the earmarks it had been receiving from Congress. Carder doesn't know the exact number, but he thinks the lab took in about $25 million from Congress, a significant portion of its budget during that time.
Their phones starting ringing off the hook when the world realized this tiny lab exposed Volkswagen, a colossus in the auto industry. So they dealt with all that attention for a while, and they didn't really grow the number of students involved in their program.
For a while, it seemed the lab's work was put on hold.
They have always had an off-campus lab. At first, it started in an old garage. Then, they moved to the Westover Industrial Park for a few years. The electrical grid there wasn't strong enough to handle the kind of work CAFEE did.
While waiting to move into their new lab, and dealing with all of the attention they received, they didn't have as much time to secure grants or contracts to work for the private sector.
Greg Thompson, associate professor of mechanical engineering, said they didn't have time to return all the emails they got from international students asking to work for the lab as graduate students at the university.
And honestly, Carder said, there were times when they weren't sure there would be a job around for those students if they came over.
There are two branches of CAFEE, really. The one branch devoted solely to research, and another branch, housed in the new lab still under construction, that works to fund the research.
WVU has a media training course for its professors and staff members to help them figure out how to handle questions from reporters in the event that the work they do grabs the attention of a newspaper or TV station. After all, fuel emission researchers don't often talk to reporters. (In case you're wondering, the guys from the CAFEE lab never took this course).
"This case study, what happened at CAFEE, is now what all researchers at WVU are terrified of happening to them," said April Kaul, WVU spokeswoman. "We use this as the, 'See, this could happen to you.'"
That's WVU's hope, anyway.
In the meantime, Carder and his crew will keep working. If you ask them about all the attention they've received, they'll say sure, it has been nice to be recognized by the world. But it's nice, too, to work with your friends in a field that you love.
And maybe, if they play their cards right, the Volkswagen settlement will provide the lab with enough money to endow the program.
Reach Jake Jarvis at jake.jarvis@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-7939 or follow @NewsroomJake on Twitter.