Profiles in Entrepreneurship
Margie Lewis: Nuclear Growth
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One of the advantages ofATDCis the "chance to tap into the student talent and hire them as co-ops, grad students or Ph.D.s, and see whether or not they fit into your culture."
argie Lewis proves that customer service pays off. During 14 years with the Nuclear Regulatory Agency in Washington, Lewis, NE 79, was involved in customer contact and employee performance. "1 thought I could provide a better service to customers than larger companies that were more concerned with just the bottom line." In 1993, she withdrew her $10,000 savings account and started Parallax, an engineering and environmental management company, in partnership with fellow Tech alumnus Dolan P. Falconer Jr., NE 78, MS NE 79. Lewis is president and chief executive officer of the Germantown, Md., firm. Parallax inspects nuclear power plants, puts in place safety procedures and cleans up nuclear and hazardous waste. Her first contract was a $2 million, 18month project with the Department of Energy. By the end of 1993, sales totaled $700,000. A year later, revenues had more than tripled, to $2.2 million. In 1995, when Lewis added sales of nuclear management computer software, sales hit $13 million. Parallax could be a $50 million company within five years, she says. "We're growing, and that's interesting because the [nuclear power industry] market is shrinking."
R&D landing party at Tech provides an entree to the greatest high-tech resource of all: brains. "You get the best window on the folks who are here, and you can develop relationships with faculty that are very productive for everyone concerned," Hodges says. "You have a chance to tap into the student talent and hire them as co-ops, grad students or Ph.D.s, and see whether or not they fit into your culture." At present, Lucent Technologies is supporting a landing party—its formal name is the Atlanta Product Realization Center—working on newproduct development in wireless technology. Due to a lack of space on campus, the staff of 40 is housed in the Georgia Public TV building next door to the Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology. The project manager is Bryant Isaacs. "There are a couple of new areas in wireless we want to explore from the point of view of product realization. Not just research, but it's getting to product and getting to revenue," says Isaacs, who believes an entrepreneurial approach offers many advantages over working in a large lab environment. "We want to make sure we can incubate properly without being sucked into the larger bulk of what's going on around us," he explains. "We're also trying to get a number of things to market quickly, which means the culture we're trying to create here might be different from what we have in our large labs." That culture includes a flatter management structure with fewer layers of approval and other impediments, no large meetings and more creative freedom. "We are viewed as part of a business within Lucent," Isaacs says. "There are some restrictions —I can't solicit investors, for example—but we are trying to take the best of Lucent with us and leave some of the bureaucratic stuff behind. The biggest plus is that you can get on with the job." The Tech connection has paid off well for Isaacs and his wireless entrepreneurs. The Lucent group includes several Tech students and alumni, and it works closely with an ATDC startup called RF Solutions, founded by Tech students. "Georgia Tech, I think, has the right sort of organization for this kind of entrepreneurial R&D activity, and not just the academic side but the commercial side as well," Isaacs says. "It's part of the Georgia Research Alliance, and some of its research centers are basically focused on commercialization of technology. And because it's Georgia Tech, access to resources is easier." GT Gary Goettling is an Atlanta freelance writer specializing in business and technology.
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GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1999