Saturday, September 20, 2014

The downside of the 30 second elevator pitch

I've heard a lot of advice about the need to prefect one's elevator pitch: make it WOW, make it short (30 to 60 seconds), give people a reason to care (have an emotional punch), etc. All of that is great and wonderful advice, and for most business ideas that is all you need. Unfortunately there is a downside, that only works with ideas people are already basically familiar with or with "simple" ideas. Simple in quotations because no business is simple, but some ideas are more complex than others. A long-term vision can be very complicated (3M is a great example of this: today we know them for Post-it notes, sandpaper and tape, but they started out as a mining company that realized they had to move into R&D to survive). Often, but not always, complex ideas can be teased apart into simpler but still useful ideas. The 30 second pitch is good for forcing people to do that teasing apart. Complex ideas are not inherently bad, convoluted ones are.

Enough about simple vs complex ideas. To understand why 30-60 second elevator pitches are only good for fairly familiar ideas one needs to understand the 3 types of new products/business approaches:

1) products/business based on efficiency improvements or lower costs.

It is very easy to pitch these; just point and say "I'm going to do that better and cheaper than anyone else."  These are also probably the easiest to find funding for as the business sector is well defined, but have the highest risk of being edged out or copied by competition.

2) products/business based on combining familiar things in new ways to create a entirely new category of product (for example, iPhone = cellphone + computer).

These are a bit harder to pitch quickly but do able following this basic template: "You know product A and product B. If we combine their best features we get a great new product and here is why." Here there is a huge potential for success or failure. If they work, they will be copied, but that is not actually a bad thing as it will push the business towards continuous improvements. This type of business is great for traditional investors.

By the way pharmaceuticals fall into this category: everyone is familiar with illnesses and medications, even though most don't understand the technical details.  

3) products/business based on "revolutionary ideas." Revolutionary ideas, in this context, means that the typical investor/general public is not familiar with the basis of the idea, also the idea has far reaching applications and is probably very disruptive.

A fast test for a revolutionary idea is simple: a series of concise and simple statements can not adequately describe the idea in less than 60 seconds but can in under 5 minutes (beyond this the idea is either poorly formed or the speaker is fishing). Two examples of this: pitching the internet in 1985 and pitching mass distribution of electricity in 1875 (Edison invented the light bulb 1879). These types of businesses are best suited for crowdfunding, as they are likely to scare most other investors away as being too risky.

The functional purpose behind the 30 second elevator pitch

While there is truth to the claim that investors have many business ideas to consider and often don't have a lot of time to do it in, the functional purpose of elevator pitches is to quickly eliminate high risk ideas and poor salesmen. Unfortunately, that often means eliminating the ideas that might prove the greatest benefit for society. So I'll ask you the next time someone approaches you with an idea respect their courage (it takes guts to cold call or "ambush" a stranger to pitch an idea), and really listen for a few minutes (maybe they have a revolutionary idea or just not the best salesman - there's that proverb about "never judge a book by its cover.").

A note about my "test" for revolutionary ideas

The "test" is more of an observation than anything else and learned from trying my full pitch:

I have a way to make bleach more energy efficiently then the current best practice. One that does not produce chlorine gas which makes this method safe for anyone to use. That in turn means it can be used in the third world to disinfect drinking water and save over 1 million children a year from dying from water born illnesses. While bleach is cheap, shipping it isn't. With my method, a 50 pound bag of salt and a solar panel, it is possible to produce enough bleach at the point of use to disinfect drinking water, to US standards, for 150 people for a year.

Furthermore, a side product of the process is hydrogen; thus solar arrays, my catalyst and seawater lets one do desalination to get drinking water at a net energy harvest. Doing this is also more energy efficient than the electrolysis of water.

Back to "production at point of use;" such production reduces greenhouse gas emissions due to transporting bleach. It also means on does not have to transport either chlorine gas (AKA mustard gas) nor concentrated bleach, both of which are hazardous chemicals. Point of use production also means one does not have to store large quantities of concentrated bleach.

Electricity accounts for at least 50% of the production costs, which often makes it too expensive to produce bleach, or chlorine gas from which bleach can be made, anywhere but in the least expensive electricity markets. That in turn requires transporting either chlorine gas or concentrated bleach long distances to reach all markets. With my method, I estimate I could save the global bleach industry $250 million USD in electricity every year.

Oh yes, one last point: globally industrial bleach is a $1-2 billion USD market every year. At a minimum, this technology is worth $1-2 million in patent royalties.
----
The whole pitch can be done in under 5 minutes. I can pitch the first paragraph in less than 60 seconds. In fact, any one of those paragraphs can be spoken in less than 60 seconds, but none of them on their own has been sufficient to get investors. It was by thinking about the problems I've encountered with my whole pitch and then asking what other business ideas would have had similar problems if one was only allowed to make a 60 second pitch that I came to my conclusion about pitching revolutionary ideas.

Friday, September 19, 2014

The major differences between academic and industrial research

While there are real differences between academic and industrial research, there are a lot of misconceptions. The three most common misconceptions I've heard are:
  1. "They [industrial researchers] have tons of money, so they can get whatever equipment they want."
  2. "They [industrial researchers] lack curiosity and only care about money."
  3. "We have to spend more on education to improve our economy."

The role of money

The perception by academics that industrial researchers have a lot of money appears to come from the facts that industrial researchers have higher salaries then their academic counterparts with comparable experience, and industrial labs often have much more modern state-of-the-art instruments. This difference is really due to how money is used, not how much is available, as determined by:
  1. salaries
  2. who pays those salaries
  3. where the money comes from
  4. priorities

Salaries

Science graduate students typically earn stipends between $20,000 to $30,000 plus some tuition reimbursement, and until recently typically very minimal healthcare. If they get vacation, it is usually by arrangement only, with Christmas and federal holidays being the exceptions. Over their tenure as graduate students, they may get 1 or 2 milestone pay raises of $1,000 to $3,000 per year. Currently the average science graduate student is taking 6.5 years to finish their PhDs.

The stipends paid to academic postdocs changed this in 2014, and are usually set by NIH Kirschstein-NRSA awards (Postdoc pay). While an institution may pay an additional amount on top of the NIH Kirschstein-NRSA awards, they are generally very close. Based on the awards, a postdoc who just earned their PhD now make $42,000/ years, and after 7 years they reach a maximum of $55,272/year. Until the Affordable Care Act went into effect, the institution they worked at controlled how much, if any, medical insurance the postdoc received.

Now consider industrial researchers who, regardless of their level, have vacation/sick leave, full medical (with co-pay), and some type of retirement plan. A recent BA level graduate can expect to earn between $40,000-$50,000/year, and after 5-7 years should be making between $55,000 - $65,000/year. A new PhD typically earns between $75,000 and $85,000/year, though more is certainly possible. Please note, if an individual is working in an analytical lab or manufacturing setting their pay will be a bit less.

Who pays those salaries, and where does the money come from?

Within at least the last 30 years, the majority of science graduate students were paid from their department's budget in exchange for working as teaching assistants (TA). Some did receive their stipends from their adviser's research funds (RA) and very few won fellowships. This situation is changing as universities face tighter budgets and begin to demand that professors use more of their research grants to pay some of their graduate student's stipends.

Academic postdoc stipends have always come from either their professor's research grant or from a fellowship they won.

Industrial researchers are ultimately paid by their employer's shareholders from the employer's profits, or from the employer's investors in the case of start-ups.

Priorities

Again this is changing as universities face tighter budgets, but historically universities sought to increase the size of their programs. Larger graduate programs has meant more revenue (at public schools, the states pay some of the stipends), and more prestige (which attracts more undergraduates, who directly bring more revenue).

For business, the first priority is to earn more money than is spent. Once break-even is achieved other values may temper a business' priorities, but profit is always a top priority.

How do these factors lead to the equipment differences seen between academia and industry?

Since labor is typically a businesses largest expense, so minimizing its cost has the largest effect on a business' profitability. There are two basic ways of doing it: have a large staff using low tech equipment doing labor intensive work while paying low salaries and demanding long work hours; or have a small but well paid staff using highly automated equipment to do most of the work that would otherwise be labor intensive. There are pro's and cons to both approaches. The low tech/low salary/large staff approach requires a small initial investment but growth becomes difficult due to scaling issues and small profit margins. The high wage/high tech approach requires a large initial investment but considering modern automated scientific instrumentation often affords a 5 fold or greater force multiplier, this approach has a lower net overhead and often is easy to scale.

I've worked at companies that use both approaches and experience tells me that the large staff/low tech/low wage approach is the wrong one within the US - somewhere in the world, there will always be a place where the wages are lower. While the high wage/high tech approach does not guarantee success it helps - with a force multiplier of 5, one can pay an employee $80,000-$100,000/yr to compete against a low tech group of 5 employees earning $20,000/yr plus a supervisor (at $20,000+/yr). For that reason, the most successful science-based business in the US have chosen to go the high tech route.

Ironically, the low wage/low tech approach is largely the approach universities use with their graduate students, and with the large staffs they seldom have the money to get the latest technology... The other side of this is due to the historical fact that the graduate students were mostly paid from department funds and not their adviser's research funds, so their adviser's felt little economic pressure to adopt the latest technology. All of this is changing (though slowly) due to increasingly tight university budgets, and it is a very painful process.

Do industrial researchers really lack the curiosity of their academic counterparts?

The simple answer is no. It may appear that way because industrial researchers are focused on achieving particular goals at the lowest cost possible. To understand this better, let's examine the "research tree" below.

A research tree. One starts at the green dot, the arrows are experiments and the remaining dots as results.
While both academic and industrial research have objectives (the blue dot), academic researchers are encouraged to follow all interesting leads including the ones not relevant to their objective (all paths). Industrial researchers can't afford to do that because investors want income generating results and won't provide more money unless that is happening. In practice, the industrial researcher follows the most promising results only (the yellow arrows). Then if time, money or a need for a backup plan exist, good but less promising results will be followed. When an industrial researcher discovers something that is interesting but not relevant to their objective (yellow dots), they are suppose to report the result to management who then decides whether or not to do further follow-up.

As a side note, often there really are multiple ways to reach one research objective (as shown by the three paths to the blue dot). The prime example of this comes from the pharmaceutical industry where there are many drugs to treat the same medical condition.


Open-ended research vs. Profit Driven Research

Another reason why an academic might think industrial researchers lack curiosity has to do with the fact that academic research is open-ended whereas industrial research is not. Again the majority of academic research is basic research where the principle product is knowledge. As long as an academic researcher does what they said they were going to do in their grant proposals and write papers, they can apply for more grants and will never run out of questions to ask. This is true even if they don't reach their objective, as long as they produce new knowledge. This encourages them to forge ahead despite poor results, the "never give-up" attitude.

That is very different from industrial research which is profit driven. Well disciplined companies shutdown research projects when they fail to meet objective goals, all on the principle of "don't throw good money after bad." It is common for companies to talk about Go/No-Go project goals (objective standards of success, such as "produce a drug candidate with a 100 nanomolar IC50") which are evaluated once every three to six months. If a project fails to meet a Go/No-Go goal, the company kills the project. Sometimes if a project is close to its Go/No-Go goal, it might be put on probation for one or two cycles then if it still fails the company kills the project. Do industrial researchers get emotionally invested in their projects and push on well past the point it should be obvious to all that no real progress is being made? Yes, of course, researchers are only human but if a company allows that to happen too often and for too long, then the company will fail.


What is the role of education in stimulating economic growth?

Over the years I've heard a lot of versions of "the economy is bad, we need to invest in education," implying that education will make the economy grow. Unfortunately that line of reasoning is a non sequitur. I've also heard several versions of "we need to stimulate innovation, so let's invest in academic research," which is also a non sequitur. Hopefully by now, the second one is easy to understand: academic research primarily produces knowledge (that is why they write all those papers), not new products (innovation).

Besides the fact that education is expensive, the easiest way to explain why educational investments don't directly lead to economic growth is with a gardening analogy. In order for a farmer to grow tomatoes, he needs three things: fertilizer, tomato seeds, and water. While one might argue over what variety of tomato seeds to plant, one has to plant tomato seeds to get tomatoes. Nothing else will do.

To grow a business, one needs three things: fertilizer, business seeds, and water. Paying customers are the water. Ideas and infrastructure to produce products are the business seeds. Capital, a skilled workforce, and knowledge are the fertilizer. Education produces a skilled workforce and knowledge (from basic research). It is true that if one has a pile of fertilizer laying around, occasionally wind blown seeds will sprout in it but it is not an efficacious way of growing tomatoes. In much the same way, university research occasionally produces a spin-off business.

Oregon has good schools that train far more scientists then we have jobs for. Investing more in education will only make that problem worse, like drilling a hole in the bottom of a leaky boat while it is in the middle of a lake. There are a lot of good reasons to invest in education, but it is also time for Oregon to invest in infrastructure for science-based start-ups.  
Kirschstein-NRSA awards
Kirschstein-NRSA awards
Kirschstein-NRSA award

Saturday, September 13, 2014

A note from Commissioner Brad Avakian: Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries

I met Commissioner Brad Avakian of the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries on September 9, 2014 at a fundraiser for Betsy Markey, who is running for Colorado Treasurer. While talking with the commissioner, I gave him a copy of the business plan for Oregon Applied Research Incubator (OCARI) and discussed the employment problems that scientists face in Oregon. When I got home today, I found this note in the mail.

Thank you for the note, Brad.

Friday, September 12, 2014

The 4 types of research and whether or not scientific research is good business.

When I began to talk to people in Oregon about my for profit business concept (a better way to make bleach, which is an applied research project), I was often told "universities are where one does scientific research," or "scientific research is not a valid business model." To be fair, those that said that were not scientists. To be equally fair, scientists have done a piss poor job of informing the general public of what we really do. Yes, there is news about the Large Hadron Collider and the Higgs Boson, Neil Degrasse Tyson does wonderful job presenting astrophysics, and there are a few others that make the news but the vast majority of what is being presented are basic research results. Scientists do much more than basic research. In fact, only about 15% of scientists work in academia where the overwhelming focus is on basic research.

So far I've mentioned 2 types of research, applied and basic. There are in fact 4 types, the other two being commercialization and product refinement.

Defining the four types of research

Basic Research

Also known as fundamental research, basic research attempts to answer "what is happening and why?" To answer that question it is often necessary to develop new techniques or experimental protocols. The product of basic research is knowledge and when one hears the phrase "science for science's sake," the speaker is talking about this type of research.

As a general rule, a basic research project will last no less than 5 years with many projects lasting 20 or more years (a researcher's entire career).

Since this is not about creating practical results, investments in basic research really should be thought of as donations to satisfy one's curiosity where anything beyond that is a nice surprise.

Applied Research

Applied research is all about answering "we have this wonderful basic research result, now how do we turn that knowledge into and practical and commercial product?" Outside of science, the equivalent of applied research is product development. Despite the fact that applied research is focused on making products, it is still research because until someone creates a product based on a basic research result no one knows for sure that it is possible (in the language of science: "one hypothesizes that it is possible until one succeeds in making a new product"). The other reason it is research is that the lack of success is not proof that it is impossible, only that what has been tried so far has not succeeded.

This is in stark contrast to an engineering product development project where one knows the project constraints from the outset, and thus can calculate whether or not success is possible a priori. Knowing that success is possible before one begins a project in no way means that it will be easy to figure out how to succeed.

Generally applied research projects last no more than 5 years, with 1-3 year durations being common.

Applied research has the potential to produce truly revolutionary products. The lightbulb, internal combustion engine, and integrated circuit were all products of this type of research.

Examples that compare engineering vs. applied research vs. basic research

Engineering
    Q: "Is it possible to build a space elevator today?"
    A: "No, no known material has sufficient tensile strength to serve as the cable."

Applied Research
    Q: "With our current knowledge could we develop a cable for a space elevator?"
    A: "We don't know, but let us try."

Basic Research
    Q: "What determines a material's tensile strength?"
    A: "Let us develop a theory explaining tensile strength."

Commercialization Research

This type of research seeks to answer "now that we have a new product, how do we profitably make it on a large scale?" Chemists refer to this as process development.

Typically a commercialization research project lasts less than 1 year. As a side note, US SBIR and STTR grants primarily fund this type of research.

Product Refinement Research

Here the goal is to improve or to develop new variations of existing products. This is the bread and butter of most businesses, so much so that most people appear to think of it as "business as usual." Since the focus here is on known products with established markets, product refinement research is the least risky of the four.

The iPhone was the result of combining the cellphone and internet enabled computer existed, and is an example of product refinement.

Are there distinct boundaries between the 4 types of research?

No. While doing any type of research, one may gain new knowledge about why things happen as they do (basic research) or insights into how to make a new product (applied or product refinement research) or a better way to make a product (commercialization research). Some research projects actually combine two types of research. For example, researching how catalysts work combines basic and applied research (to answer the question one makes catalysts to experiment with and if they are sufficiently good catalysts then they are commercial products in their own right).

Research as a Business Model

The core focus of many of the largest companies in the world is applied research for that is their pipeline of new products. Drug discovery is a type of applied research, so every pharmaceutical (Hoffmann-LaRoche, Merck, Pfizer, being examples) company succeeds or fails based on their applied research. Technology companies are heavily involved in applied research. When Intel develops an new generation of photolithography machines, that is the result of years of applied research preceded by many more years of basic research. GE and 3M would not exist today if not for doing applied research. In fact, GE is the descendent of the first industrial research laboratory: Edison Laboratories.

Can businesses do basic research and be successful?

Yes, with the caveat that only a small percentage (say <10% ) of their research investment go to those types of projects. If a company allows its research efforts to become predominated by basic research projects, it will fail because the projects consume a lot of resources while seldom directly producing new products.

Industrial research gained a bad name in the late 1980's and early 1990's precisely because companies, like Bell Labs, allowed their research to be dominated by basic research projects. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time before the accountants/CFOs/CEOs saw little return on investment and blanket killed the projects. Some may not have understood the fundamental cause for the lack of returns, while others decided that the only way to change the research culture was to clean the slate. Either way, many investors now appear to believe scientific research is bad business.

Concluding Remarks

Scientific research is good business, but one has to be disciplined in balancing long-term (basic research) vs. short-term returns (the other types). A failure to invest in basic research results in dry pipeline of new products (which has been seen in the pharmaceutical industry in recent years), but too much investment in basic research results in insufficient income.

Something else to consider; while investing in basic and applied research can have huge returns, it will always be a high risk venture.

Maybe in the final analysis those who were telling me that scientific research belongs in universities, not business, were really telling me that the stakes were to high for their liking. I am ok with that, though find it frustrating, and when I succeed they will have missed out, but it is their life.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Architectural Concept Art for Oregon City Applied Research Incubator, Inc.



1st floor plans
Today, I thought I'd share some of my architectural concept art for Oregon City Applied Research Incubator facilities and guiding principles behind the design.

 

 While form follows function, aesthetics is also important

It would be very easy to design a laboratory building that was very boxy and unattractive. In fact, I found it difficult to avoid a boxy design, largely due to a desire to minimize the building's square footage, footprint, and cost while maximizing the functionality of labspace. I did manage to include some exterior design features that break-up the boxiness and hopefully add an aesthetic component. I would like to see more aesthetic features, as I feel working in attractive building makes for a nicer day, but what I've drawn conveys my basic concepts for the project.

 

Accessibility

I have always been troubled by the fact that in multistoried buildings the only emergency exits are by stairs, which means anyone in a wheelchair must be carried out in an emergency. Disliking that, I've designed a building where all the floors are wheelchair accessible without using an elevator. One on end of the building, there are bridges connecting the 2nd and 3rd floors to the parking garage. At the other, there are a series of decks connected by ramps, those decks also serve as rooftop gardens and an attractive outdoor space. This design feature exceeds code requirements.

 

Green Design

The buildings were designed to minimize environmental impact, include solar energy systems, and combat urban sprawl.

2nd floor plans
Although a parking lot costs less to construct than a parking garage, a parking garage has a much smaller footprint which reduces environmental impact in several ways: a smaller surface area exposed to direct sunlight means less environmental heating (parking lots get hot on sunny days), reduced water runoff during rain (an acre of parking lot produces 2715 gallons of runoff per 1" of rain), and by allowing more land to be set aside as greenspace or higher density building (less urban sprawl). As drawn, the parking garage has a 0.5 acre footprint with a 250 car capacity. For contrast, a 250 car capacity parking lot would have at least a 1.5 acre footprint.

The incubator was designed to be 3 stories, to build taller would require a change to the campus industrial zoning code in Oregon City. The building is about 47,000 sf with a 0.4 acre footprint. Besides being aesthetically pleasing, the inclusion of rooftop gardens helps keep the building cool and reduce runoff.

In the drawings, the site is about 4 acres and when one factors in the required set backs the combination of parking garage and multistory incubator leaves enough space for another building with ample greenspace.

Although not obvious in the drawings, the intent is to use Solar Roadway tiles on the roofs, top floor of the parking garage, and for walkways. Even in Oregon, this should make the project a net producer of electricity. I would also like to include evacuated-tube solar heating for hot water and AC, however this may not be practical for this project.
3rd floor plan



Parking garage with some landscaping

The lab suites

The  chemistry suites include four 8' fumehoods, an enclosed safety shower with drain, and ample built-in cabinetry/benches. There is enough room for 8 chemists, though 4 would be normal. The small enclosed space next to the safety shower is for duct work. There are 6 chemistry suites on both the 2nd and 3rd floors.

The biology suites include a 4' fumehood, an enclosed safety shower, and mobile cabinetry/benches (not shown) for maximum flexibility. There are 6 biology suites on both the 2nd and 3rd floors.
A view of a chemistry suite (right) and biology suite (left)
A view of a chemistry suite (back) and biology suite (front)

The communal labs

The chemistry communal labs, one on each of the 2nd and 3rd floors, include eight 8' fumehoods, an enclosed safety shower, and ample benches. These rooms are designed for 16 chemists (2 per hood) and will house many of the chemistry instruments.

The biology communal labs, one on each of the 2nd and 3rd floors, include a 6' fumehoods, an enclosed safety shower, and ample benches. These rooms are designed for 16 biology and will house much of the biology equipment.
View of a chemistry communal lab (left) and biology communal lab (right)

View of a chemistry communal lab (right) and biology communal lab (left)


Exterior views





Friday, September 5, 2014

Oregon City Applied Research Incubator (OCARI) Newsletter blog

Scott Sandler, Oregon Entrepreneur Network (OEN) & Oregon Angel Fund (OAF), suggested that I write a blog to keep people posted about OCARIs progress when I met with him yesterday. So taking his suggestion, here I go.

First what is OCARI?

OCARI is a non-profit public benefit/public charity to promote, foster, and mentor science-based start-ups in Oregon. To do this, a state-of-the-art fully equipped wet-lab business accelerator will be built in Oregon City. As envisioned, the facilities will be about 45,000 sq with 12 chemistry suites, 12 biology suites, and communal labs for both chemistry and biology. The suites are intended for funded start-ups, and the communal labs are for any scientists wishing to develop a prototype/proof-of-concept before seeking investors.

OCARI also has an educational aspect. By being near to Clackamas Community College (CCC) it will be practical to allow CCC's more advanced chemistry and biology students access to our equipment as part of coursework, and to assist them in finding internships with OCARI's incubated start-ups.

OCARI's business plan and related documents can be found here:
Oregon City Applied Research Incubator Business Plan

What was my motivation for founding OCARI?

The answer is simple: help Oregon's economy, create jobs for scientists, and make it easier for scientific entrepreneurs to start businesses (largely through providing space and greatly reducing the required capital). I'm not a saint, one of the entrepreneurs I want to help is myself.

I'll talk about my for profit business concept another time, but in the effort to get that business going I ran into several roadblocks:
  1. Many people told me scientific research is [only] done in universities, and not a business model
  2. One must have a prototype before anyone will invest
  3. Investors don't want to buy scientific equipment or to renovate a building into a laboratory for an early stage start-up
  4. The supply of wet-laboratory space in Oregon is extremely limited
  5. The insistence that one have a credible founding team
With the exception of the fifth issue, OCARI is my solution to those roadblocks.

Over time I'll write about the first four issues as they relate to OCARI, but today I'll address the last issue.

The need for a credible founding team

While it is possible to start some businesses by on one's own, consulting firms being a good example, having a team is better. Founding teams instill confidence in the business' investors. Literally, it should be much harder for someone to take the money and run with a team running the business. Another advantage of a team is that its members ideally bring skills others lack and cover each other's weaknesses.

To me that is logic one can't argue with. Unfortunately, and especially if one is an introvert like myself, finding the right key people takes time.  In the spirit of boot strapping, if you have a business idea but don't have a prefect team yet, get out there and start your business anyway then network like hell to find the rest of your team. Remember "perfect is the enemy of good," and "if you wait for perfection, you'll wait forever."

What's next?

September 6th, 2014: Celsi Celebration (Multnomah Democrats) Funudraiser - a chance to network and promote OCARI

Septmeber 10th, 2014: Meet with Lita Colligan from Oregon Institute of Technology's (OIT) Office of Strategic Partnerships and Government Relations - networking and hopefully, gain OITs support.

September 15th, 2014: Oregon Progressive Science & Tech Caucus - to discuss issues facing science & tech in Oregon

September 24th, 2014: PositivePDX - more networking

Thank you for reading,
Troy Wahl, PhD Chemistry
Founder & President of Oregon City Applied Research Incubator, Inc.