Bridging the academic divide
BYLINE: Fred Horlbeck
RALEIGH - When infant technologies emerge from the research labs of North Carolina State University, there's no better place for them to grow up than in North Carolina.
That's the view at NCSU, at least, and it's the defining force behind David Winwood's dual mission as head of both the university's Office of Technology Transfer and its Centennial Campus Partnership Office.
As director of the Office of Technology Transfer, Winwood manages the pipeline through which the university's patents flow from the laboratory out to licensing deals with companies and government agencies that can commercialize the ideas. As director of the Centennial Campus Partnership Office, he oversees recruitment of companies to open operations on the campus, one of the state's best-known university research parks.
The goal is to assist in developing the state economically - a task that NCSU prizes as part of its charter mission. Such development, Winwood says, is vital to "securing the country's innovation pipeline and enhancing economic development on a local and regional and national basis."
Neither prong of Winwood's dual role lacks that sense of mission. NCSU has spent more than $620 million on facilities and infrastructure at Centennial Campus. Meanwhile, the Office of Technology Transfer manages the university's 552 patents.
In terms of number of patents issued, NCSU ranks third in the Triangle, after No. 1 IBM and No. 2 Ericsson, according to a ranking by the Triangle Business Journal. Among American universities, it ranked ninth in a 2006 survey by IEEE Spectrum magazine, a publication of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
It's a track record that spans more than two decades, and Winwood has been part of it for seven years. But the genesis of the U.K. native's work in America extends back to a move across the Atlantic in the early 1980s that put him in position to experience science and entrepreneurship in startup form.
Winwood was working on a doctorate in chemistry at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. The professor overseeing his doctoral project took an endowed chair at the University of Florida, and Winwood followed to finish the project. "Twenty-six years later, I'm still ..." in America, he says.
Maybe the startup companies did it. After getting his Ph.D., Winwood took a job with a startup called Pharmatec. A few years later, he joined another startup, Xenon Vision.
"We'd be one day moving equipment around and the next day putting on a suit and going to Manhattan and trying to pitch the company to investors," he says.
The startup experiences continued as Winwood came to Durham to work for Protein Delivery. In 1996, he became associate director of the Office of Technology Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He directed the Emerging Companies Institute at Quintiles Transnational, came to work at NCSU in 1998 and took a two-year turn at Ohio State University's tech transfer office in 2004 before returning to NCSU in 2004. He now manages a total staff of 16.
It all adds up to a "wealth of experience," says John Gilligan, vice chancellor for research and graduate studies at NCSU. Gilligan, who recruited Winwood back from Ohio State, says Winwood "understands (NCSU's) position, but he also understands the position of industry and the people we work with."
That ability is crucial in tech transfer, says Monica Doss, president of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, a nonprofit entrepreneurial support organization.
Tech transfer "by definition has conflicting interests," Doss says. While a university holds patenting and licensing interests in new technology, researchers who originate the technology have a stake in royalties. Add in companies eager to commercialize good ideas, and it becomes a balancing act.
The process has benefits for North Carolina, Winwood says. More than 50 companies have started up on NCSU technology, with most staying in-state, and more than 2,000 jobs have been created.
A variation on that synergy is the effort to recruit companies to Centennial Campus. Last year, Winwood oversaw the recruitment of a record 17 companies to the campus, bringing the total to more than 60.
A mix of university departments, students, startups and established companies such as software company Red Hat and global packaging company MeadWestvaco, the campus is "going to continue to be held out as a new model for the 21st century engaged university," Winwood says. "This is a great venue in which interaction with the world can take place."
DAVID WINWOOD
Age: 49
Native of: Doncaster, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom; U.S. citizen, in United States since January 1981
Career history: NCSU: 2006-present, associate vice chancellor, technology development and innovation (responsible for the Office of Technology Transfer and the Centennial Campus Partnership Office); 2004 - 2005, director, Centennial Campus; 2000 - 2002 , associate vice chancellor & director, technology transfer; 1998-2000, associate vice chancellor for knowledge transfer and commercialization. The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio: 2002 - 2004, associate director, Office of Technology Transfer and Industry Research. Quintiles Transnational: 1998, associate director, Emerging Companies Institute. UNC-Chapel Hill: 1996 - 1997, associate director, Office of Technology Development. Xenon Vision Inc., Alachua, Fla.: 1992 - 1996 , director of scientific affairs. Pharmatec Inc., Alachua, Fla: 1984-1989, manager of scientific affairs.
Education: M.A., NCSU; Ph.D., chemistry, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England; M.Sc. physical organic chemistry, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England
Family: Wife, Casey, daughters, Daitlin and Leah.
Last book read: "American Theocracy" by Kevin Phillips
Last movie seen: "Babel"
Likes about the Triangle: Diversity of opportunities
Dislikes about the Triangle: Nothing really - maybe that the population distribution is too diffuse to have a critical mass "big city" downtown - yet
Favorite leisure activities: Music, playing bass guitar in my church band and travel