Tech transfer: $2 billion NSWC Crane facility partners with University of So. Indiana

From the University of Southern Indiana press room:

The University of Southern Indiana is piloting a Technology Commercialization Academy (TCA) this summer. For five weeks, six engineering students and six business students from USI are working full time to develop ideas and business strategies around commercialization of several Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division (NSWC Crane) patents. The Academy began on May 1 and will wrap up in early June.

The academy was made possible through a Lilly Endowment Sustaining Grant secured by Dr. Mohammed Khayum, dean of the College of Business, and Dr. Scott Gordon, dean of the Pott College of Science, Engineering, and Education.

“This is an extremely important project for us to gain insights into and increase the pace of technology transfer between Crane, USI, and others in southwestern Indiana,” said Dr. Khayum. “It’s an illustration of our commitment to engage the students in our business and engineering programs in meaningful ways for their personal and professional development.”

Throughout the process, students are utilizing USI resources to develop a manufacturing plan and produce prototypes of selected technologies. They also have completed preliminary market research and feasibility analysis.

“It’s uncommon for undergraduate students in business and engineering to be submersed in such a real-world, multi-faceted, and potentially high-economic impact area as commercialization of intellectual property,” said Dr. Gordon. “The identification of technology, evaluation of potential markets, and development of business plans helps capture our goal of developing synergy between those with business and those with engineering backgrounds.”

Only 12 of more than 36 applicants for the Academy were accepted. “These are some of our top business and engineering students,” said Andrew Moad, USI Crane partnership manager. “This Academy will help cultivate high-tech commercialization in southwest Indiana and will provide us an opportunity to home grow our own talent and build the intellectual capacity of the region.”

The process and technology

The 12 TCA participants were formed into three teams of four, and include two business and two engineering students.

Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville (GAGE), which came up with the Academy idea in their Tech Transfer Committee, helped to design and kick off the project, and provided business expertise for participants. GAGE facilitated an early session, where teams competed to create the Academy’s logo design. “The focus wasn’t on design as much as it was on making a great pitch,” said Moad.

“I like the mix of engineering and business students,” said Matt Rust, a junior marketing major at USI. “It’s good to get others’ perspectives. They might come up with solutions to a problem that wouldn’t even cross my mind.”

Rust normally spends his summers lifeguarding at a local pool, but this year, the TCA project has taken precedence. Part of the grant funding is being used to provide the opportunity for students to spend their summer working on the projects. “It’s grown into a lot more than I expected,” added Rust. “The real-world application is incredible. What we’re doing here can be applied to what we’ll be doing when we graduate.”

Students were asked to pitch commercialization ideas related to three technologies from NSWC Crane, including a rotary electrical contact ring, a Smart Skin technology, and a milestone and schedule management software program called STMTRC. Students came up with more than 100 ideas, pitched 36, and finally narrowed them down to six finalists. Each team of four students worked on two of the six applications.

Participants meet for two hours each day with faculty, and spend another six hours each day working on their projects and working with USI and community resources.

“This is something completely different and exceptional,” said senior engineering major Katie Shaw. “As an engineer, I can bring my background and skills to a marketing aspect. It’s been exciting to be doing something meaningful and unique over the summer.”

TCA participants chose five projects based on the Smart Skin technology and one using the management software program. In the end, two Smart Skin applications including smart targets and pressure and temperature sensitive hospital beds, and the software program were selected for final presentations.

Shaw’s group, which is working on the hospital beds, was able to meet in person with staff and administrators at Deaconess Hospital, including its president, Linda White. Their project could potentially improve technology and provide a cost savings to the local hospital. Shaw is excited to be pitching her team’s idea to a client for a real-world application, and the Academy has prepared her for that role. “Coming from an engineering background, it’s been important to learn marketing strategies,” she said. “It’s not only about marketing the technology; it’s about being able to sell yourself in front of other people.”

For another team, the Web-based management software is being designed around applications that could be used by universities to help with coordination of registration, advising, calendars, and other university-related needs. “This is an application that could be utilized at USI,” said Moad. “The students have identified some real needs for a program like this and, in the long run, it could even help improve our graduation rates.”

Teams traveled to Crane early in the process to learn about the technology they would be using and met the inventors. A follow up visit to Crane is planned for June 5, at which teams will present their ideas to officials there.

Goals and outcomes

“How do we bring an entrepreneurial mindset to corporate thinking about innovation?” asked Bryan Bourdeau, instructor in business. “We have to build expertise and capacity in the region to commercialize technologies. We can do this by creating an experiential learning environment that gives participants a process, the tools they need, and helps them better understand the resources available to them.”

Providing experience pursuing entrepreneurial ambitions is one outcome the Academy looks to achieve. It provides participants with a look at how to form and market a startup company.

Crane also stands to benefit from the partnership—building its reputation in the region and becoming recognized as an important technological resource. Commercialized technology also becomes a resource for Crane, which can purchase it for its own needs.

“We hope this leads to opportunities to go into internships in the fall of 2012, either at the Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville (GAGE) or at regional technology-based companies who bring these students on board to do technology commercialization related work,” said Boudeau. “Other possible outcomes include a start-up based these technologies or a regional company seeing an opportunity to pursue commercialization of an idea coming out of this Academy.”

Indiana's New $6 billion Commercial Defense Corridor

As construction crews fashion bridges and pour concrete, the long-awaited I-69 begins to take shape in southwestern Indiana, representing a whole new economic opportunity for Indiana’s defense and energy sector. Originally isolated in its early days as a Tier I ammunition depot during World War II, the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) – together with the WestGate @ Crane Technology Park and other military technology assets – will soon possess all-new logistical access through I-69 with other key commercial defense assets in the state.

Soon to stretch essentially from Evansville to Angola in northeast Indiana, I-69 will link together billion-dollar assets completely across the state, effectively becoming a commercial defense and energy corridor for Indiana. Until a few years ago, Indiana’s defense- and energy-related companies in southern Indiana represented a relative unknown. Here’s a snapshot of the major assets located on this emerging commercial defense corridor.

As the state’s commercial defense activities more than tripled over the past decade, AmeriQual in Evansville became the nation’s largest provider of Meals Ready to Eat (MREs – formerly known as k-rations) for the U.S. military. Continuing a 20-year transformation, NSWC Crane (located on the 100 square miles of the Naval Support Activity facility near Crane, Indiana) today represents a major military laboratory providing technology and support services for all branches of the U.S. military and Homeland Security, as well as a major technology resource for the energy storage and electric vehicle industry.

The WestGate @ Crane Technology Park, certified by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) about five years ago, today is home to more than 10 major commercial defense contractors serving NSWC Crane and the 5,000 defense-related employees in the region. The park is located next to both NSWC Crane and I-69, the latter of which will provide highly strategic for future growth. Nearby are the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center and Camp Atterbury, Indiana’s premier training and mobilization center. All of these assets and others are being positioned for major economic growth by the Radius Indiana regional partnership, located in Bedford, Indiana, which is also home to the EastGate industrial park

About 20 miles to north of NSWC Crane and the WestGate is the main Bloomington campus of Indiana University, home to the IU School of Informatics and faculty members engaged in advanced defense work. Numerous defense companies serving NSWC Crane and other national defense contracts are also located in Bloomington.

Continuing up I-69 and S.R. 37 to Indianapolis, several major commercial defense companies employ thousands of Hoosiers in high-impact, high-wage jobs. These include Raytheon, Rolls Royce, Allison Transmission and other companies directly working in defense cluster companies. North of Indianapolis on I-69 lies the cities of Fishers and Anderson, both home to defense-related technology companies presently doing work for the Pentagon communication systems and in advanced battery and energy storage technology.

Continuing above Anderson is tiny Taylor University in Upland, where students and faculty work on NASA contracts.

New I-69 off ramp takes place just outside WestGate @ Crane Technology Park

The 10 counties served by the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership represent another major hotbed of commercial defense activities. About 4,000 defense-related employees work at another division of Raytheon in Fort Wayne, as well as ITT, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and other defense companies. A major flying wing of the Indiana Air National Guard is located in Fort Wayne, and the city is also home to the Indiana University-Purdue University campus at Fort Wayne (IPFW). IPFW houses two centers of excellence critically related to the defense and energy industries: wireless and systems engineering. Iotron's new $15-million electron-beam facility is just a few miles away in Columbia City, next to other commercial defense operations.

Numerous other major assets exist in Indiana, including defense- and energy related companies and research activities at Purdue in West Lafayette, the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute (which has conducted graduate engineering programs at NSWC Crane for several years) and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend (which is also home to AM General, where the Humvee and HUMMER military transport vehicles are manufactured).

Given that IEDC is now aggressively marketing Indiana’s defense assets and the Indiana General Assembly has a formal Crane Caucus led by Rep. Mark Messmer to help support growth, Indiana could again double or even triple its current defense and energy industry activities over the coming decade.  The I-69 defense and energy corridor is becoming real, as will thousands of new jobs as new companies join in Indiana’s new commercial defense opportunities.