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and web-enabling
technology for business

Gold Sponsors
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Silver Sponsors
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American Society
for Quality


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MIT Forum


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The Bard Center for
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Project Management Institute


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Bioengineering


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Cluster


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International Society for Professional Innovation Management

 


Lessons from the Real World
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Colorado Innovation Summit Advisory Board

David N. Allen
Associate Vice President for Technology Transfer
University of Colorado

David Allen came the University of Colorado February 2002. As AVP he has responsibility for the Technology Transfer Office and its management of intellectual property and technology licensing matters across the four University of Colorado campuses. From 1997 to 2002, Dr. Allen was AVP for Technology Partnerships at the Ohio State University, Columbus. From 1991 to 1997 he was AVP for Technology and Economic Development at Ohio University, Athens. From 1981 to 1991 he was a professor at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park. He earned a Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington in Political Economy in 1980.

Mark A Davidson
Acting-Director of the Governor's Commission on Science and Technology

Mark A. Davidson assists the State CIO Leroy Williams with IT policy, research, legislative issues, and office events/operations. Mark also serves as the Acting-Director of the Governor's Commission on Science and Technology.

Davidson holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Northern Colorado. Mark served two years as one of nine UNC trustees overseeing policy implementation and general operation of the university, an annual budget of $110 million. He also was the Director of Marketing for Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Northern Colorado.

Tony Frank
Vice President for Research and Information Technology
Colorado State University

Tony Frank received his BA in Biology from Wartburg College and his DVM from the University of Illinois. He completed a PhD and residencies in pathology and toxicology at Purdue University. He served on the faculty at Oregon State University before joining Colorado State University in 1993 where he served as Chair, Department of PathologyChair and Associate Dean for Research, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.. His research areas include chemically mediated craniofacial teratogenesis and the immunopathology of tuberculosis. Dr. Frank has served on the Editorial Boards of Toxicologic Pathology, Toxicologic Sciences, and Veterinary Pathology as well as various NIH and USDA panels. He is a member of numerous scientific organizations including the Chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents Vice President for Research subcommittee. He is board certified by the American College of Veterinary Pathologists and the American Board of Veterinary Toxicology. Dr. Frank has been the Vice President for Research and Information Technology at CSU since 2000.

Tim Fritz
Colorado Director Of the Office of Aerospace and Aeronautics

Tim Fritz is the Director Of the Office of Aerospace and Aeronautics, responsible for developing and implementing the statewide business plan that will support the growth of both the established and emerging aerospace industry and develop the strength of the state's aeronautics sector.

Fritz was elected in November 1999 to the Colorado House of Representatives in the 51st Legislative District. Previously, he served with Ball Aerospace as a lead engineer on numerous missions and projects including atmospheric research satellites, solar system research, outer-planetary missions and missile detection systems. He has worked with nearly all NASA centers and numerous military labs, CNES (the French equivalent to NASA) and aerospace and defense contractors in the United States and overseas. Fritz also has a history in aeronautics, performing his first public aerobatic demonstration at the age of 14 (with a safety pilot) in a 1946 Fairchild PT-19 WWII primary trainer. He was heavily involved with the Experimental Aircraft Association and took part in flying, building, and restoring several antique, classic, and experimental aircraft.

Dr. Terry A. Higbee
Chief Engineer National Systems
Raytheon

Dr. Terry A. Higbee is the Chief Engineer, National Systems at the Raytheon Company

Dr Higbee brings over thirty years of aerospace and related experience in program and technical management, system engineering, technical design, and contract management. Includes significant roles with both industry and government.

Prior to his work at SES, Terry served as the Chief Scientist and Director, Research & Technology, Space & Surveillance Organization at General Dynamics Electronics Systems (formerly GTE), in Mountain View, CA. He was responsible for overall technical guidance for the organization, including the development of technology roadmaps, IR&D program oversight, and technical review and contribution to programs and business development.

Cate Lawrence
Founder and CEO
Warrior Solutions, Inc.

Cate Lawrence is a founder, and president/CEO of Warrior Solutions, Inc. Warrior Solutions products provide small unit leaders in the U.S. military with easy-to-use mobile solutions that reduce time spent on administrative tasks, resulting in more time for mission-critical military duties. The digitization of U.S. military forces is accelerating – Warrior Solutions is here to provide effective mobile software solutions for tomorrow’s soldier-leaders.

Prior to joining Warrior Solutions, Cate managed new product introduction/production processes for computer hardware and software manufacturers including EGG Optoelectronics, GTE, and IBM. She holds a B.A. and M.S. from Purdue University, and an MBA from the University of Colorado’s Executive Program. She is certified by the American Production and Inventory Society and by the Institute for Supply Management. Cate serves on the Board of Directors for the Colorado Technology Community Foundation.

Dr. Phil Romig
Dean of Graduate School
VP of Tech Transfer
Colorado School of Mines

Dr. Phil Romig is the Associate VP for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. In this position he has institutional responsibility for research development and administration, technology transfer, graduate school policies and administration, and strategic planning in those areas.

Dr. Romig has a B.S. from the University of Notre Dame, 1960 in Electrical Engineering; an M.S. from the Colorado School of Mines, 1967 in Geophysical Engineering; and a Ph.D. from the Colorado School of Mines, 1969 in Geophysics.

George Saliba
VP/GM. and DLTG Chief Technical Officer at Quantum Corporation

George Saliba is currently the Vice President/GM. and DLTG Chief Technical Officer at Quantum Corporation.

George Saliba joined Quantum in 1994 and led the development of the DLTtape™ product family contributing to the phenomenal success of the DLT business. In addition to his position as the group CTO and primary inventor, Mr. Saliba led the Advanced Products Group in developing businesses and technologies for a number of advanced products including the Super DLTtape TM Family.

Mr. Saliba’s career spans over 25 years in the storage industry. Prior to Quantum, he was the Senior Group Engineering Manager for TK and DLT tape storage products developed at Digital Equipment Corporation. Saliba also held a variety of senior engineering management and technical staff positions in developing state-of-the-art disk drives at Storage Technology Corporation.

Mr. Saliba has received numerous awards for his work. He was voted Quantum’s “Inventor of the Year” for the years 1996 and 1998. For his many DLT inventions and innovations in producing the multi-Billion dollars DLT business, in 1997, he was awarded Quantum’s “Lifetime Achievement” Award in recognition of many contributions to Quantum’s success.

Mr. Saliba has over 50 patents issued or pending in various tape, disk and system technologies. He also has published extensively in the magnetic recording field.

Dr. Rahmat A. Shoureshi
Dean, School of Engineering and Computer Science (SECS), University of Denver

Dr. Rahmat Shoureshi completed his MS and PhD degrees at MIT in 1981. He was on the faculty of Purdue University (1983-1994) and was G.A. Dobelman distinguished chair professor and Vice-President for Technology Transfer at the Colorado School of Mines (1994-2003), as well as director of three research centers covering advanced technologies related to Electric Power & Energy, Biomedical Engineering, and Robotics, Automation and Artificial Intelligence. He joined DU in Sept. 2003 as the Dean of SECS. He has received several awards and lectured internationally. He is a fellow of ASME, member of European Academy of Sciences, has over 200 technical publications, supervised 70 PhD and MS students, and holds several patents. His areas of research interests include: automation and robotics, biomedical engineering, MEMS, smart structures, intelligent sensor and actuator systems, and advanced monitoring and diagnostics. He is President of the Colorado Alliance for Bioengineering.

Blair Stock
Lead Technical and
Strategic Alliance
Manager

Hewlett Packard

Blair Stock is a Lead Technical and Strategic Alliance Manager for HP’s Telecommunication product offerings. He works with their International product, marketing and sales teams to leverage large hw/sw alliances. Mr. Stock comes to HP after leading the development and marketing of Qwest Wireless’s hdml/WAP and 2-way messaging products. He also led this regional carrier to a “first to market” Voice Portal product (*999 or *www).

While at Qwest, Mr. Stock was also responsible for developing future product lines and incorporating wireless data for everything from Qwest’s VoIP initiatives to as far as 2.5 to 3G networks. Before Qwest, Blair worked for a boutique-consulting firm where he helped a variety of clients ideate and launch new products and services. His industry experience here includes Motorola (LA Cellular and Paging Svcs), Nortel, Whirlpool (National and International Laundry, Cooking, and Refrigeration groups), Procter and Gamble (Fabreeze and Dryel product lines), Sears, Merck and Nabisco.

Stein Sture
Associate Dean of Research, College of Engineering
University of Colorado - Boulder

Stein Sture serves as Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering and Applied Science, and he is also Professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, where he has been on the faculty since 1980. He served as Department Chair between 1990-91, and 1994-1998.

He received his Ph.D. in 1976 from the University of Colorado at Boulder. From 1976 to 1980 he was a faculty member at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is the author or coauthor of over 240 peer reviewed papers and chapters in books, and 90 research reports. His current research work focuses on constitutive modeling and fracture mechanics of cementitious and geomaterials, and computational modeling of structure-media systems, including soil-structure interaction. He has served as principal or co-principal investigator on 65 research projects, many of which have been sponsored by NASA, NSF, DOD agencies, etc. He has received several awards for accomplishments in research and service, including the American Society of Civil Engineer's Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize in 1990, and the Richard Torrens Award in 2000.

Dr. Renjeng Su
Dean
College of Engineering
and Applied Sciences
University of Colorado
at Denver

Dr. Renjeng Su is the Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Colorado at Denver. He previously served as chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is Director of the Colorado Center for Information Storage at the University of Colorado, funded by the data storage industry, and Director of the Center for Space Construction at the University of Colorado, a NASA University Space Engineering Research Center. Dr. Su started his career with positions at Texas Tech University and NASA Ames Reserach Center.

Dean Su earned his Doctor and Masters degrees in Systems Science and Mathematics at Washington University and his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering at Cheng-Kung University in Taiwan. His main research interests today center on data workload analysis and data center modeling.

He was elected a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 1995 for research in advancing the theory of feedback linearization. He had the prestigious National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator award from 1985-1990.

Tim Swales
Chief of Innovation, Johns Manville Engineered Products


 

Tim Swales - Tim is currently the Director of the Innovation & Commercialization function for the Engineered Products Group at Johns Manville. He joined JM in December 2001 as Director, New Product Development.

Tim’s background includes more than 17 years at 3M and the 3M spin-off Imation . Recent previous roles at these companies have included Optical Transport Business Manager at 3M in Austin , TX and Network Storage Development Manager at Imation in Oakdale , MN.

Tim has over 13 years of international product commercialization experience. Virtually all of his product development experience has been focused on the development and application of materials for commercial use.

Tim received his Ph.D. in Physical Polymer Chemistry from the University of Manchester, England ,in 1983. He lives in Saddlerock, Colorado with his wife Gina and three children.

David Verdun
Manager
Business Operations
GMG/AXIS

David Verdun manages all business operations for GMG/AXIS, a local software and technical services company. GMG/AXIS technologies are recognized worldwide in providing the upstream oil & gas exploration industry with software and service solutions for acquisition design, near surface refraction, seismic processing, interpretation and reservoir imaging.

David was formerly Executive Vice President, Research & Development, for Landmark Graphics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton Company. Landmark is the leading supplier of software and services for the upstream oil and gas industry and one of the largest commercial software companies in the world. During his tenure, Landmark continued to set the pace for delivery of high impact technology in this sector.

Throughout his career David Verdun has been instrumental in driving cultural as well as strategic change across the organization. He has been routinely recognized for leading the development and delivery of innovative practices which accelerate the performance of multidisciplinary teams.

Leroy Williams
Secretary of Technology
State of Colorado

As Secretary of Technology & Chief Information Officer for the State of Colorado, Williams is responsible for: managing the State's entire $500 million information technology (IT) budget, advising the Governor and General Assembly on IT appropriations, issues, legislation. He also oversees the implementation of the statewide IT strategy which is coordinated with all state departments, agencies and public/private sector stakeholders to implement the strategic IT plan for the State of Colorado. Prior, Williams was employed with the State of Colorado as the Chief Information Officer for the Department of Personnel & Administration (DPA). In this capacity, Williams was responsible for developing and implementing information technology strategies to enable E-Government capabilities.

Prior to a career in the public sector, Williams directed Qwest's supply-chain management and procurement IT program. He also served as Director of E-Business for U S West/Dex, Inc.; Director of Local Market Integration for U S WEST Communications; and Manager of Business Process Integration for U S WEST, Inc. Williams served three years in the U S Army in Germany as a telecommunications specialist and was a Senior Programmer/Analyst with Norwest (Wells Fargo) in the Technical Services Division.

Jim Leonard
Project Manager
Museum of Future Inventions

Jim Leonard is a champion for competitive Colorado companies by encouraging enterprise and innovation. Currently, he is a project manager and adjunct instructor at the University of Colorado at Denver Mechanical Engineering Department. He is working with the ME Dept and the College of Business to develop an executive/professional-level education program in innovation and new product development. The program development is funded by a grant from the Colorado Institute of Technology [CIT].

Prior to joining the UCD ME Dept, he held positions in the Colorado Advanced Technology Institute and the Colorado Community College System and as an evangelist for manufacturing competitiveness. At the Adolph Coors Company he managed the Competitive Intelligence Department, was an engineering supervisor, and senior project engineer. At Ford he was a design engineer, a manufacturing engineer, and a project engineer.

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