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Jim Brasunas,
president, TEC |
TEC HELPING IT GROW
BETWEEN THE COASTS
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Downtown
Incubator Attracts, Nurtures New Ideas
By Bill Beggs Jr.
Located in an early 20th century vintage building at Tucker and
Olive, the Technology Entrepreneur Center (TEC) is a safe haven
for developing businesses that are decidedly 21st century. A unique
IT incubator that’s been up and running since only mid-2004, TEC
occupies a space that formerly housed employees of the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, offices that were warrens of cubicles occupied
by workers who moved mountains of paper.
What TEC’s half-dozen or so tenants do is pretty much paperless,
ideas destined for a new generation of information technology that’s
rapidly rendering some not-so-old developments obsolete. To illustrate:
In the late 1980s and early ’90s, no office could have survived
without at least one fax machine. It was a necessity—pre-Internet.
Today, most folks can just attach their document(s) and click.
IT advances are in the realm of virtual reality, “products” that
can’t be seen or touched, but whose impact can be felt instantaneously,
whether they originate in St. Louis, on either coast, or anywhere
else on the planet. TEC president Jim Brasunas represents a new
energy that has tongues wagging and jaws dropping, all over town
and way out of it.
Whenever a once-fledgling enterprise can operate independently,
Brasunas says, it spurs economic development, creates jobs, and
“the community has another fast-growing company to be excited about.”
There’s plenty of excitement these days about IT around town and
beyond, thanks to a group of civic leaders, researchers and corporate
execs who’ve put some muscle into building the region’s information
technology community.
“We’ve got high hopes with the emergence of Innovate St. Louis,
the IT Coalition,” says Brasunas, crediting Mark Showers, CIO of
Monsanto and presently TEC’s chairman, “for raising our profile
and really getting things going.”
Much has been written in these pages about the Center for Emerging
Technologies and NIDUS, two of the region’s biotech incubators.
But the needs of TEC’s tenant companies are much different than
those emerging in the plant and life sciences. By and large, biotech
startups need wet labs for their research and development. IT doesn’t
tend to take up as much space.
“Companies can start in basements or garages,” Brasunas points out.
There’s less government red tape to deal with: No oversight by the
FDA, the EPA and other agencies.
Money, of course, is always a good thing to have. Although an independent
venture, TEC would still be merely a concept were it not for the
support of a diverse group of public and private sponsors including
AmerenCDC, the City of St. Louis, State of Missouri, St. Louis Development
Corp., Bandwidth Exchange Buildings and Bank Midwest. Not to cast
aspersions, Brasunas notes that CET’s raison d’être is largely because
of its affiliation with University of Missouri-St. Louis; NIDUS
is on the campus of Monsanto.
Tech proponents are intent on growing the pie, however, not trying
to take a bigger slice for themselves. Collaboration, not competition,
is a hallmark of this environment. To wit: Bob Calcaterra, who heads
up NIDUS, is a TEC sponsor.
Brasunas emphasizes that IT and biotech are symbiotic.
“They feed off each other,” he says. “St. Louis also has an unrecognized
strength in information technology.”
It’s just that our region’s IT capabilities to date haven’t quite
received the same attention as biotech advances.
A recommendation first articulated by the Battelle Memorial Institute
study in 2001 was to “leverage the growing BioBelt image of St.
Louis to foster a broader technology position for the region, encompassing
information technology as well. Since nearly every major life science
region in the nation also has a strong IT presence, it is very possible
and perhaps even critical for St. Louis to pursue development of
both sectors.”
Ironically, a career in information technology may not the best
communicator make. As Brasunas asks rhetorically, “When a group
of geeks get together, how do they become aware of us, or how do
we become aware of them?”
Brasunas, among others, laments a situation that has become critical.
It’s a case of too much of a good thing, if you will: A burgeoning
regional IT job market, but too few applicants for positions in
new and growing companies. Brasunas imagines that were an executive
to accept a job with one of the Gateway City’s largest and most
widely known IT companies—Savvis, for example—if the opportunity
didn’t pan out in the long term, he or she might just pack up and
head for either coast before thinking seriously of looking right
here. Ian Patterson, CIO of Scottrade, says this has been a perennial
problem as the discount brokerage continues to build its online
component, which now comprises more than 90 percent of overall business:
On any given day, at least 20 positions are open in IT.
Meanwhile, entrepreneurs are doing it the only way they know how:
by themselves. Still, few succeed without believers, backers—and
bankers.
Global Velocity is among the startups that have benefited from forming
under the wing of TEC, part of whose mission is to assist IT start-ups
and “increase their likelihood of success through access to highly
qualified mentors, assistance with business planning and strategies,
and office services.”
Greg Sullivan, named Global Velocity’s CEO in September, says the
company is working to commercialize technology developed by Washington
University professor John Lockwood. Global Velocity is in the early
stages of product development and is recruiting an engineering team
for rising to the challenge presented by high-speed networks of
cable and telecom firms in an environment of ever-increasing bandwidth.
“Bandwidth goes up exponentially every year now,” says Sullivan.
“This technology is very compelling.”
A goal is to protect intellectual property, including the copyrighted
music and film that network-savvy hooligans constantly invent new
ways to pilfer. As networks increase in speed, Global Velocity’s
clients will have to stay at least one step ahead—and know which
corners to look around.
As Sullivan puts it: “If you carry a file cabinet out the front
door, chances are you’ll be seen. But if you just push a button
and send information outside the corporation, nobody may happen
to be looking.”
TEC happens to be looking for a few more good clients. The incubator
is about to admit one more startup, and at least four others at
various stages of formation are in the wings. Encouraged by developments
to date, Brasunas proudly points out that the enterprise “has a
bit of an economic development angle to it.” Tax-credit programs
have helped keep fiber-optic cables humming in a section of town
whose future once seemed bleak.
“So far we’ve been able to keep body and soul together,” says Brasunas,
with a chuckle.
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IT
Incubator at UMSL to Boot Up in March
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(Left
to right):
Chancellor Thomas F. George and Vice-Provost
of Research Nasser Arshadi of UMSL |
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The doctor
couldn’t have written a better prescription for the University
of Missouri-St. Louis: Move the headquarters of Fortune 500
company Express Scripts (No. 123) to the North County campus.
Express Scripts has helped catalyze a project designed to
eventually house a dozen or so information technology startups
that will benefit from the center’s high-performance computing
capabilities—not to mention access to faculty and grad students
in disciplines from biology, chemistry and physics, to computer
science and economics.
To say that Thomas F. George and Nasser Arshadi are excited
about the fast-track project is an understatement. The chancellor
and vice-provost of research, respectively, are thrilled.
And energized that the UMSL Business, Technology and Research
Park is really beginning to mean business.
“Suddenly we have this humongous tenant,” says George of Express
Scripts, which occupies 17 acres and has an option for an
additional eight.
Express Scripts evaluated several attractive locations for
a new, larger corporate headquarters in Missouri, Illinois
and elsewhere in the country. The 320,000-square-foot headquarters
complex will house 1,100 employees. And it’s been attracting
attention.
“We have a lot of inquiries from fairly well-established startups,”
says Arshadi.
The relationship between the university and the company, a
leading manager of pharmacy benefit plans, is unusual.
“We couldn’t find another model for this in the country,”
says George.
Grants amounting to about $1 million from the Small Business
Administration, and local support from organizations such
as Ameren Community Development Corp., are keeping things
humming, say Arshadi and George.
In so many words, UMSL’s IT incubator/ accelerator is designed
to be a cross-discipline research center of excellence serving
all academic and industry researchers requiring high-performance
computing; a springboard for major external funding supporting
research, technology transfer and economic development; and
an economic development engine encouraging the development
of new start-up companies in a high-growth industry, which
in turn provide high-paying job opportunities for UMSL graduates
and others in the field.
It bears repeating: collaboration, not competition, is the
hallmark of such enterprises.
“Our doors will be open to other institutions and industries,”
emphasizes Arshadi. “Different organizations will exist on
a continuum, rather than being in competition with one another.”
Meanwhile, the price of research, like petroleum, shows no
sign of going down.
It has to be a collaborative effort,” says George. “Research
has become a very expensive enterprise. Federal funds have
tightened up.
The UMSL Business, Technology and Research Park will comprise
an estimated 35,000 square feet. It is projected to: provide
high-performance computing resources to tenant companies,
academic researchers and industry through a High Performance
Computing (HPC) Center staffed by doctoral level computer
scientists and mathematicians, graduate students and UMSL
professors and administrators whose expertise is IT. |
| At
a Glance: |
Staff will be available to tenants for consulting on technology-related
research problems, helping solve fundamental R&D issues. This
is a critical service to the IT Incubator concept, which is
designed to go beyond the typical incubator business plan
(shared conference and breakroom space, secretarial staff,
etc.).
The High Performance Computer Center will serve as a springboard
for major grants across many disciplines, and will support
collaborative work with technology-based companies in the
region.
The Center will provide an interdisciplinary research environment,
focusing on attracting IT entrepreneurs.
The incubator will enhance the university’s abilities to garner
large federal grants in support of research, technology transfer
and economic development.
This project will leverage campus strengths in intellectual
and infrastructure resources to establish a state-of-the-art
information technology incubator for start-up companies.
In addition, it is anticipated that the incubator/ accelerator
will:
Encourage the technology transfer process of turning university
research discoveries into start-up companies.
Facilitate economic development by providing space and services
for IT start-up companies spun out of industry.
Facilitate collaborative, cross-discipline research in and
related to information technology. |
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