R&D money makes business dreams come true

Boise seminar offers tips on how to get it

Uncle Sam has a lot of money set aside for small and start-up
businesses with good ideas but no money to make them happen.

Michael Journee
The Idaho Statesman

But negotiating the red tape of federal research and development
funding can be a disheartening undertaking:

• The standards are high.

• The deadlines are strict.

• The competition is tough.

• The detail needed can be tedious.

• The emotional roller coaster created by the process can be gut-wrenching.

Maybe that´s why so few eligible Idaho businesses — those with 500 or fewer employees —
take advantage of the opportunity, even though federal grant money can provide the big
break every small business owner dreams about.

“I can´t describe how much it means to a small business to capture that kind of grant money,”
said Bruce Bradley, owner of Rocky Mountain Resource Lab and Microbial Vac Systems in
Jerome. “It´s a lot of money. You can see your dreams come true.”

Bradley is one of a number of experts on Small Business Innovation Research brought to
town by Boise State University´s Small Business Development Center for a two-day seminar
on how to find R&D money. The seminar continues today in the Jordan Ballroom in BSU´s
Student Union building.

While he´s been turned down more times than he´s been given funding, Bradley´s company
has been one of the state´s most successful in attracting R&D dollars.

Bradley´s company — which develops various tools for microbial testing of food — is just one
of about 1,700 Idaho businesses identified by Boise State University´s Small Business
Development Center as being “research and development intensive.”

According to Rick Ritter, a technology services consultant with the SBDC, about 1,400 of
those businesses are totally dependent on R&D for their existence. And about half of those
1,400 struggle to find R&D financing.

“If you´re going around kicking over rocks one at a time, it´s a pretty slow process,” said
Ritter.

Bradley and the other experts — including R&D funding facilitators from the Defense
Department, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation —
gathered at BSU Tuesday and today said the trick is knowing which agency or department
has research and development money up for grabs, what they hope to get in return, and how
to deal with the bureaucrats involved.

According to Ritter, federal agencies in general offer two types of R&D funding:
mission-oriented funding driven by specific agency needs and research-initiated funding,
which rewards innovations on a competitive basis as they are presented to the agency.

Most federal agencies that offer research and development grants allow applicants to
compete for up to two phases of funding.

For example, a company applying to the Department of Agriculture for funding can apply for a
Phase I grant that includes up to $80,000 for six months of R&D work.

The USDA offers research-initiated funding and is one of Idaho´s biggest R&D benefactors.

Ruth Lange, the USDA´s representative at the seminar, said a successful application must
survive exhaustive review by a panel of experts in 10 broad topic areas. Those areas range
from crop production and forest management to rural community development and industrial
application.

But to carry the work on to Phase II — worth two years of funding up to $300,000 — the
business applicant must show that the project met all of its Phase I objectives and can move
forward effectively.

Most federal agencies that offer R&D grants — the most prominent of which include USDA, all
branches of the military, the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection
Agency and NASA — use a similar two-phase grant strategy.

But Vincent Schaper, the Department of Defense representative at the seminar, said the
DOD also offers Phase III R&D funding, which comes from general defense appropriations
and not the typical Small Business Innovation Research fund set aside by Congress for the
agencies.

(To contact the Montana SBIR program please go to: http://www.sbir.state.mt.us/ )

To offer story ideas or comments, contact Michael Journee
[email protected] or 208-377-6465

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