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Montana organization helps Alaska start-ups

Montana and Alaska are a lot alike. Both have resource-based economies, small populations, and wide open spaces.

By Tim Bradner
Alaska Journal of Commerce

What Montana has that Alaska doesn’t have, however, is a growing high-technology sector. Montana doesn’t have much more population than Alaska, but it has three clusters of high-tech firms, one based around Bozeman, home of Montana State University, one in Missoula, home of the University of Montana, and another around several small communities in the scenic Flathead Valley.

If Montana can have high-tech, why can’t Alaska?

There’s no reason why it can’t, says Wil Swearingen, director of the MSU Techlink Center. TechLink is a Montana State University center that helps technology-based small businesses in Montana and other Pacific Northwest states form partnerships with secure contracts from U.S. Department of Defense agencies and NASA research labs.

Basically, it has helped jump-start high-tech in Montana.

Lance Miller, executive director of the Juneau Economic Development Council, was so impressed when he visited MSU TechLink in Bozeman with a group of Alaskans last February that he proposed forming the Northern Technology Partnership with MSU to expand the concept to Alaska.

JEDC is a nonprofit economic development corporation headquartered in the state capital. Although its primary focus is Southeast Alaska and Juneau, many of JEDC’s programs have a statewide reach, Miller said.

The technology partnership agreement with MSU was finalized last June. In late October Miller, Swearingen and MSU marketing professor Mike Reilly visited technology firms and start-ups in Juneau and Anchorage who might be interested in forming technology partnerships with federal agencies. Reilly works with MSU TechLink.

Swearingen said he was impressed with the Alaska business owners and entrepreneurs he met. "There are highly innovative individuals in Alaska. We feel they can be successful in developing thriving technology companies," he said.

Miller said he couldn’t identify the companies the group has met with for reasons of confidentiality, but said there are several immediate prospects.

Alaska firms have one advantage Montana doesn’t have in that the major industries in the state, such as oil and gas, mining, fisheries and the military, all use advanced technologies. The support companies now working with these industries use these technologies, Miller said.

Alaska has a good base to build from, he said.

Swearingen said Montana, like Alaska, is heavily dependent on resource industries. Many of Alaska’s existing industries aren’t doing that badly, but Montana’s traditional industries, like mining, forestry and agriculture, are in tough shape. The state is very concerned about diversifying its economy, he said.

A technology industry is one answer. "There are over 90 technology-based companies in the Bozeman area. Many of them are small firms, but some are medium-sized, employing 300 or more," Swearingen said.

JEDC and MSU TechLink want to see similar business growth in Alaska.

"Through sharing these experiences, we can help Alaska get a head start in developing a small technology business sector," Swearingen said.

TechLink is the technology outreach arm of Montana State University, and is focused on the high-tech sector throughout the Northwest. It was recently named one of the 10 exemplary models nationwide of technology transfer by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Swearingen said.

It is funded by the Department of Defense and NASA to create partnerships between those agencies and private industry to develop and move technology to market, he said.

"We have helped more than 150 companies in the Northwest, including 70 Montana companies, develop, license and commercialize new technology through these partnerships," Swearingen said. "We’ve also helped bring $34 million to Northwest U.S. firms, and $18 million to Montana companies, from the federal government over the past three years."

There are several ways these partnerships work, Swearingen said. Basically, federal agencies with research and development budgets over $100 million annually are required to spend approximately 3 percent of their research budget with small businesses. The Department of Defense has the largest R&D budget, and is required to spend over $500 million a year with small business.

"We help small technology companies in the Northwest tap into these funds," Swearingen said. "This funding is competitively awarded, but we have been helping companies successfully compete."

There are 108 Department of Defense laboratories developing technologies, some of which are patented. "We learn about them as they are being patented or after, and then we go out and find companies interested in licensing the technology for commercial or government use," Swearingen said.

"When the technology fit is good, licensing is an outstanding approach for companies. Cutting edge technology can be acquired inexpensively and use to gain a competitive advantage or to develop new products or services," he said.

TechLink also helps establish cooperative projects between companies and federal labs for joint development of technology with both commercial and government applications.

Miller said his interest is in helping foster more of an entrepreneurial culture in the Alaska business community, and to help the economy by connecting Alaska businesses with additional resources and expanded markets. The new Northern Technology Partnership is one way to do this, he believes.

http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/112403/loc_20031124017.shtml

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