NEWS

By GARY MOSS
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Mark Crowell, a Carolina alumnus who successfully led key technology-transfer initiatives at N.C. State University, has been tapped as associate vice chancellor and director of the Office of Technology Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The appointment took effect Sept. 5. Crowell succeeds Francis Meyer, who left UNC-CH to join a Durham venture capital and consulting firm.

"Having a vital and successful technology-transfer program is essential if Chapel Hill is to realize its full potential as one of the major engines of economic development for North Carolina," said Chancellor James Moeser. "I am very impressed by what Mark has accomplished at State, and I look for our program to really soar under his leadership. We want to be a national exemplar in the transfer of technology, and I am confident that under Mark’s leadership we will be."

Crowell served N.C. State eight years. He started as the assistant vice chancellor and director of technology administration and development. Since August 1996 he had been the associate vice chancellor for technology transfer and industry research. At UNC-CH, Crowell earned a bachelor's degree in international studies in 1976 and a master's of regional planning here three years later.

Said Dr. Linda Dykstra, interim vice provost for graduate studies and research and chair of the search committee that recommended Crowell. "Sometimes, there is the right position for the right person at the right time. Here, Mark will be able to take his skills at building a technology development office and apply them in a context with new challenges."

Crowell said he struggled to leave the "dream job" he already had. What convinced him to do so was the opportunity to build the same kind of program at UNC-CH.

After Dykstra offered him the job, Crowell said he asked for a telephone interview with Moeser to make sure the new chancellor’s expectations matched his own. They did.

"He was just wonderfully gracious and available and articulate and exciting and high energy when he expressed his thoughts and goals about technology transfer," Crowell said. "He just didn't say, 'Come on Mark, come home to Chapel Hill.' What he said was, "We are really committed to this, this is what engaged universities need to do well.' "

Crowell said Moeser's insistence that technology transfer would be an "institutional priority" was what he needed to hear before he was willing to give up a job he was already happy with at N.C. State. "I just think there is a commitment to go to the next level, and the thought of doing it on home turf makes it all the more enticing," Crowell said.

The two things that make N.C State's program stand out are Centennial Campus and a venture capital fund for start-ups that the university established two years ago, Dykstra said.

The research components at N.C. State revolve around engineering and agriculture. One key research component at UNC-CH that will be different is the work of investigators in the five health schools and related centers and institutes at Carolina, Dykstra said. "The audience is different, but the practices will be easily translated," she said. "We can take advantage of all of the inventions and the products of our research that are coming from our health affairs campus and try to commercialize those that have potential."

Technology transfer involves taking university-developed technology with practical applications to the private sector so that the technology can lead to new products, services and jobs. The three research universities in the Triangle -- UNC-CH, N.C. State and Duke -- have often been described together as the engine of the state and regional economy. If the universities are the engines of the economy, then technology transfer could be described as the supercharger that has boosted the creation of new companies and jobs to a higher level.

During the eight years Crowell led N.C. State's technology transfer and industry research program, its licensing income increased from $1.5 million in 1992 to almost $7.8 million by 1999. From 1996 to 1999, N.C. State's equity holdings increased from two companies to more than a dozen companies.

N.C. State's technology transfer program was ranked third in the nation this year in a study carried out by the Southern Growth Policies Board's Southern Technology Council. The UNC-CH technology transfer program ranked among the nation's top 16 in the same study. The top 16 were selected from a list of 164 research universities.

In fiscal 1999, research funding at UNC-CH totaled $344.5 million, a $39.5 million increase from the previous year. The university issued 41 new U.S. patents in 1999 as well, bringing to 261 the total of U.S. and foreign patents it has issued. UNC-CH inventions and know-how now in the marketplace have helped spawn 21 new companies that employ more than 12,500 people, and the campus's license income in 1999 totaled $1.7 million.

Dykstra said UNC-CH has a mandate as a public research university to share the fruits of its research with the society it serves. There may be a financial benefit to the campus, but that money is plowed back into financing more research projects.

"The faculty expressed a desire to be educated and to learn about this process and to learn more about the business aspects of commercializing their research," Dykstra said. "Mark was very good at that at N.C. State and welcomes the opportunity to do it here."

Crowell said he and Moeser also talked about the importance of finding new ways to collaborate with both N.C. State and Duke in research efforts. The need for collaboration has been a consistent theme of Moeser's since he took over as chancellor last month.

Crowell said the collaboration should be a little easier now. His successor at N.C. State will be David Winwood, someone he has worked closely with for the past two-and-a-half years. Winwood was recruited to N.C. State after a previous stint at UNC-CH, Crowell said.

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Contact: Mike McFarland