As published in the May 1, 2011 Toledo Business Journal
Richard Stansley,
University of Toledo Innovation Enterprises (UTIE)
Innovation Enterprises advancing development
Toledo Business Journal recently interviewed Richard Stansley, director of University of Toledo Innovation Enterprises (UTIE). He shared the following thoughts:
Toledo Business Journal: Can you discuss the mission and role of IE?
Rick Stansley: The engagement strategy in the Relevant University publication really defines what our goals are. Our mission is to support the University with respect to commercialization and economic development activity. We are the portal for the community to the University and vice versa.
We continue to advance towards the goals that are defined in the Relevant University. Our objective is really to engage community-owned assets in a consolidated approach with common goals and objectives to create a sustainable culture of economic development. We look at those elements and determine whose job it is to support those activities.
UTIE has people that provide service on the board. We have a good group of people that have entrepreneurial experience. We have people that represent the academic side that sit in the meetings. What we are able to do is access the resources inside and outside the institution. We bring them to bear and solve the problems that these business enterprises are experiencing. Our goal is to be able to get in early so the limited resources that these enterprises have are used most effectively even when they are confronted with a barrier.
TBJ: Can you discuss IE’s new role involving Rocket Ventures and Launch? What was the reasoning behind the merger?
RS: As an institution, the University of Toledo (UT), touches the economic development continuum in more places than any other organization, even those who are dedicated to economic development. That is because of the expertise and depth of resources we have here. In the past, our role has been benevolent and it is still benevolent. But now what we are doing is being more purposeful and focusing our resources and our expertise in order to better support economic development in the region.
This is a joint venture between the Regional Growth Partnership (RGP) and UTIE to provide business support services from the point of inception through acceleration or sustainability for new business enterprises. Rocket Ventures was providing business support. Funds are not being merged. Rocket Ventures’ fund will remain independent with an independent board, as will UTIE’s.
We believe a lot of new business enterprises are going to have a foundation in technology. One of the things we can do here at the University that other people can’t do is utilize our expertise to mitigate risk in the investment world. We can do due diligence to a deeper level than what typical due diligence capabilities are outside the University. The goal is to take what we do here at IE along with what Rocket Ventures does and create a broader level of services so that we can address more points on the continuum.
As an example, a business at inception needs business plan help. Rocket Ventures provides support services for business plan development. We believe that we have different capacities that we can use to create more depth and capabilities with respect to business plan development, business startup, and being able to provide business advice up until the point of time that we believe these businesses can be sustainable on their own.
Mergers happen for a lot of different reasons. This particular reason revolves around the fact that our missions overlapped but the methods that we were using were different. We saw real synergy there. Rocket Ventures uses a model that is closely aligned with the way a venture capital firm works with their partners. Our model is going to look more like entrepreneurs in residence. We will be able to call on experience to create a greater breadth. Typically, Rocket Ventures would do their thing, and we’d be as supportive as we could but it was disconnected. We are suggesting that we can build a continuum that would be seamless support for business enterprises. In the past this didn’t exist.
We believe the Rocket Ventures’ model is the right one, so what we are doing is bringing more resources and expertise to solve the problems using the current model and infrastructure that is established. This is not about UT taking it over and saying we’re going to do it our way. It is about recognizing what it is they are bringing to the table and being able to expand it given our expertise.
TBJ: How will Rocket Ventures and Launch change under IE leadership and direction?
RS: Change is always around. The way it’s going to change is that it is going to expand beyond its current capabilities. By combining our efforts, we can use our resources more effectively and will be able to drive more resources down to the interface between the business and what we are calling the entrepreneur in residence. That’s the whole key in mergers – drive more resources down to the interface with your customer.
The Third Frontier money is available to the joint venture and we believe that we will be in a stronger position to be successful with our proposals because of the joint effort. What we are doing is demonstrating how the community is coming together to address the issues that are out there. One of the challenges in northwest Ohio in the past has been a disjointed effort. Everybody having the right thing in mind, and the heart to do the right thing; but they are trying to do it on their own. An important component in really being able to work through the issues that the community and region face is working together in a collective way with common goals and objectives.
What we are seeing is this stuff starting to come to pass. The agencies and organizations involved in economic development over the past four or five years have made a collective effort to start to communicate better and work together in defining roles. They are making sure no one is overlapping and they are using each other as support mechanisms to accomplish goals of attracting, creating, and supporting new business enterprise. This is just a continuation of those efforts.
We have the capability of bringing matching funds in a more purposeful way to the table in respect to grant money. There’s always been the capability but it’s been disjointed. What we want to do is consolidate the resources. By consolidating, you reduce your overhead and you have a greater ability to bring more to the forefront.
TBJ: Can you share an example of IE’s efforts concerning business development for advanced and renewable energy and environment research?
RS: Photovoltaic Institute for Commercialization (PVIC) is a good example where State money has been used to leverage our commercial activity. One of the things people generally don’t know about UT is that we have more experience in material science and conversion technologies than any other place in the world. In thin film, we have a breadth of experience in material science and there are three accepted materials that are being used right now in photovoltaics (PV) for thin film. We have expertise in all three areas. It is unheard of. We continue to hire strategically in these areas to support the activity in PV specifically.
We are getting more and more involved in biomass conversion. Our chemistry department and our biosciences are getting hugely involved in green chemistry. Those are examples of the areas that we are working in to promote both developmental and fundamental knowledge and identify opportunities off that pipeline where we can commercialize activity.
We are investors in Nextronex, an inverter company that supports the balance of systems in the alternative energy area. We provide research and development for them, along with business advice and support. We’re currently active in helping Xunlight in various aspects of their enterprise.
TBJ: What has IE done to support entrepreneurship at the University of Toledo?
RS: There are loads of great ideas that are inside the University, but they need support and a reason to coalesce. We need to provide the infrastructure to support that activity. What we did was create the business competition as a method of supporting entrepreneurial activity at the University. We participated by helping to fund the program itself. It has been our interest to look at the plans and start to help people develop their business plan further.
We want to create a culture of entrepreneurial activity. We don’t want everybody necessarily to be an entrepreneur. We want to do this in a managed way that really promotes the ability to create wealth and prosperity in the community, in the hopes that we will build an environment where people will recognize that the tools are here for them to be successful in pursuing the endeavors that they dream of. The University is here as a public asset. But nothing is for free. We define the value proposition. We’re primarily interested in enterprises that are going to invest in the region and we are committing the region to them.
TBJ: Can you discuss past IE investments in UT spin-off companies and other affiliated businesses?
RS: Core Trainer was built off a technology that’s owned by the University. It’s the only product out there that can measure the rotational capabilities of your spine and midsection. It has a significant market potential dealing with soft tissue injuries and claims, which is one of the most significant injuries out there in respect to workers’ compensation. It’s a huge market. Right now, they are selling it to sports professionals to improve their core strength and speed.
TBJ: Are there any other issues that you would like to addresss?
RS: This really demonstrates the University’s commitment to do something different than what it has done in the past. This is very unique for institutions of higher education. We were the first in the State to create the concept for University investment at the business enterprise. We are leading the University community and the State with respect to these activities around commercialization and creating an entrepreneurial culture. Our goal is to access what we’ve created, which is a great breadth of knowledge in certain areas.
Part of what this University is good at is characterization and analysis of any type of material. Instrumentation specs that are being created for the world to use are being written right here by our people. We have instruments here that are one in the world. It is really a unique capacity and capability. We’re here to continue to create the interface to allow the people here in the community to interact at a level where we can create commercial activity.
We are moving to support and understand cluster development. We believe that if we understand cluster development and we’re here to support that in a business friendly environment, which is what we have to continue to improve here in the region, we not only will be able to do it with alternative energy, primarily PV, but other alternative energies and other things we have expertise and specialization in as well.
We have three defined centers of excellence: alternative energy, bioscience, and sustainability and green chemistry. Bioscience is set primarily around individualized biomarkers, which allows us to create plans for medical device creation.
There are other areas of expertise we have here. I believe in education. Education is one of the last industries to be revolutionized. The University is working through a program to innovate education. There is a huge opportunity to utilize technology in effective ways of teaching. Technology can be interfaced with the teaching experience. We are trying to define where those opportunities are. We see a real pipeline to commercialization.