Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, Vol. 91, No. 2 2015

“We are thrilled to support Georgia Tech.”

— Gail S. and Marion B. Glover, IM 1965 This fall, during his 50th class reunion, Marion B. Glover, IM 1965, will be celebrating memories of the joys and successes that marked his days as a Georgia Tech undergraduate.

Born and raised in Walterboro, South Carolina, Glover spent his summers fishing with his father. At Tech, he was a member of Omicron Delta Kappa and Tau Kappa Epsilon, the vice president of Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity, and president of the Society for the Advancement of Management. A Scheller College of Business (formerly College of Management) Distinguished Alumnus, today he remains a leader in the Atlanta community, serving as a member of the Atlanta Roundtable, on the board of directors of the John and Mary Franklin Foundation, and as a trustee emeritus of the Georgia Tech Foundation.

After graduation, Glover earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he received a J. Spencer Love Fellowship. Later, he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. In 1969, Glover began a 14-year career at The Coca-Cola Company, where he was vice president of corporate strategic planning and vice president of corporate financial planning and information systems. He later became president of the Edwards Baking Company and the Peterson Companies.

Glover lives in Atlanta with his high school sweetheart and wife of 46 years, Gail, a graduate of Agnes Scott College who also holds a master’s in mathematics from the University of North Carolina. Together, the two have shared an abiding, lifelong partnership, working side by side every day. Marion serves as president of Glover Capital, a merger and acquisition advisory firm.

The Glovers are devoted to their alma maters and have established endowments at each institution, which will be supplemented through their estate plans. “The most tax-efficient gift is from my retirement plan, and this is where we thought the first dollars to Tech should come from,” he explained. “Our loves are the Georgia Tech Promise Scholarship program, dean’s scholarships within the Scheller College of Business, and athletic scholarships, so we are thrilled to have been able to direct our gift to these areas.”

Avid Yellow Jackets fans, the Glovers have a cherished tradition of driving his gold and black 1931 Model A — very similar to the Ramblin’ Wreck — to campus on football Saturdays. “It’s fun, it has beautiful styling, and excellent performance,” Glover said. “And it reminds me of Georgia Tech.”

Founders’ Council is the honorary society recognizing donors who have made estate or life-income gifts of $25,000 or more for the support of Georgia Tech. For more information, please contact: 404.894.4678 • founderscouncil@dev.gatech.edu • www.development.gatech.edu

Georgia Tech Global Learning Center is the official meeting facility of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association.

Next time you’re planning a meeting or conference – think the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center.

We’ve got meeting spaces, conference facilities, and connected classrooms – perfect for your company’s needs, with the Georgia Tech excellence you expect. Schedule your personal tour today.

Where Meeting and Learning Converge www.gatechcenter.com/alumni

CONTENTS

CO START ME UP P 38

Find out how Georgia Tech inspires and equips students, faculty and alumni to turn innovative ideas into viable businesses.

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features VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

P 50

ENTREPRENEURIAL UPSTARTS

Serial entrepreneur Tom Noonan, ME 83, has uncovered uncanny success in the exciting and often volatile world of tech startups.

These Yellow Jackets stand poised to disrupt entire industries by following their passions and dreams.

WINNING STREAK

P 58

departments p 10

p 16

AROUND CAMPUS

010

016 Pioneering Path Student Rachel Ford thrives in Tech’s startup frontier.

018 Student News 020 10 Questions

p 32

RAMBLIN’ ROLL

082

083 Out & About 084 Weddings 088 Births 089 In Memoriam

025 Anything But Square Explore the epicenter of Atlanta’s tech startup scene.

ON THE FIELD

p 20

029

TECH HISTORY

104

104 Tech Memories Catching up with a historic Tech alumnus, 50 years later.

029 Standing Out These Georgia Tech

athletes deserved their accolades.

105 Time Machine

IN THE WORLD

BACK PAGE

032

032 Dollars & Sense Steve Chaddick, EE 74, MS EE 82, demystifies startup funding.

106

Reminiscing about a helluva entrepreneur.

034 Balancing Act 036 Tech Hack Startup Myavana uses tech to

take the guessing out of hair care.

ALUMNI HOUSE

074

076 A Banner Year for SAA The Student Alumni Association soared in 2015.

078 Alumni Networks & Groups 080 Calendar Save the date for these

upcoming alumni events.

Josh Meister

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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P U B L I S H E R ’S LETTER

PL

A Training Ground for Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Vol. 91, No. 2 PUBLISHER Joseph P. Irwin, IM 80 VP MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS Dawn Churi EDITOR Roger Slavens ASSISTANT EDITOR Melissa Weinman

Henry Ford once said, “If I had

asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” At Georgia Tech, students and faculty and administrators are constantly looking beyond today and imagining what products and services the world will need in the future. They’re not only getting and providing an education, but also together dreaming up new innovations and building companies around these ideas—right here on campus.

It used to be that students would come to Tech so they could get the training they needed to land a prime job with a Fortune 500 company.

But today, rather than work for somebody else’s corporation, many students are coming here to create their own jobs and their own companies. This shift is a trend that President G.P. “Bud” Peterson is distinctly proud of.

Today’s Yellow Jackets are actively involved in understanding and learning about entrepreneurship and how to commercialize their brilliant ideas, from building prototypes to drafting business plans. The InVenture Prize competition and the Senior Capstone Design course are just a couple examples of this. And, of course, entrepreneurship, innovation and startup incubation are at the core of what we do at Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute. The startup bug is catching hold across campus. Former student and tech entrepreneur Chris Klaus recently announced a $2 million gift and investment in our students through the CREATE-X initiative (see page 47) which is designed to build an even more robust curricula to teach future engineers, computer scientists and more how to capitalize on their innovative ideas.

Now, entrepreneurship is not new at Tech. John Imlay, IM 59, is considered by many to be the godfather of Atlanta’s startup community. John built one of the nation’s most successful software companies—Management Science 0 0 6

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DESIGNER Joshua Baker | joshbkr.com COPY EDITOR Rebecca Bowen STUDENT ASSISTANT Kierra Johnson EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Robert N. Stargel Jr., EE 83, Chair Steve W. Chaddick, EE 74, MS EE 82, Past Chair Benton J. Mathis Jr., IM 81 Chair-elect/ Vice Chair of Roll Call Andrea L. Laliberte, IE 82, MS IE 84, Vice Chair of Finance Paul S. Goggin, Phys 91, Member at Large Eric Pinckney Sr., ME 86, M CP 93, Member at Large James E. Trimble, Jr., Mgt 91, Member at Large Elizabeth H. Wallace, Arch 96, Member at Large

America—which became an incubator for technology executives and startup companies in Atlanta. MSA is credited with training more than 300 CEOs and spawning nearly 100 companies.

Sadly, John passed away in March at age 78. (See page 106 for a special tribute.) In addition to his entrepreneurial skills, John was known for his generous spirit, and he served as a mentor to many alumni who wanted to follow in his footsteps.

In this issue, we’ll explore how Georgia Tech is building a strong culture of entrepreneurship, helping students and faculty take their innovations to market, attracting major corporations to participate and making a significant economic impact on the region by doing so. (In 2013, Georgia Tech’s economic impact was calculated at nearly $2.7 billion, almost twice the annual budget of the Institute.) We’ll also look at some of our most successful alumni who are blazing trails with their own companies.

We hope the wide variety of startup stories in this issue of the Alumni Magazine help you pick up on the energy that’s building around entrepreneurship at Tech.

Joseph P. Irwin, IM 80, President & CEO BOARD OF TRUSTEES Stanley E. Anderson, IM 75; J. Paul Austin, Mgt 99; Nathan Bennett, PhD Mgt 89; Jeni S. Bogdan, Mgt 89 MS MoT 96; Arthur O. Brannen, IM 73; Sean L. Corcoran, ChE 95; C. Richard Crutchfield, IM 69; Richard DeAugustinis, IE 92; A. Ray Douglas Jr., Arch 75; W. Keith Edwards, ICS 89, MS ICS 91, PhD ICS 96; D. Shawn Fowler, Mgt 88; Jeanene Fowler, IE 84; Rick L. Garcia, CE 73; Jeffrey V. Giglio, EE 77; John T. Hammond, ChE 72, MS IE 75; Timothy A. Heilig, IE 75; Justin C. Honaman Jr., IE 96; Julie Sumerford Johnson, Mgt 84; Judy W. Liaw, ME 98; Wonya Y. Lucas, IE 83; Errika N. Mallett, IE 96; Michelle D. Mason, ChE 86; James L. Mitchell, CE 05; Whitney S. Owen, IA 03; Anu Parvatiyar, BME 08; Shantan R. Pesaru CmpE 05; Vicky S. Polashock, ChE 90, Phd ChE 95; Michael John Rafferty Jr., EE 02; John L. Reese III, BC 80; Valerie Montgomery Rice, Chem 83; Michael J. Rooney, Chem 73; Kary E. Saleeby, NE 77, MS ME 78; Ricardo Salgado, IE 98; Leslie R. Sibert, EE 85; Tyler A. Townsend, IE 98; Elizabeth Bulat Turner, IAML 04 ADVERTISING Holly Green (404) 894-0765 holly.green@alumni.gatech.edu GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE (ISSN: 1061-9747) is published quarterly by the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313. Periodical postage paid in Atlanta and additional mailing offices. © 2015 Georgia Tech Alumni Association POSTMASTER Send address changes to: Georgia Tech Alumni

JOSEPH P. IRWIN, IM 80

Magazine, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313.

PRESIDENT & CEO

TELEPHONE

GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

Georgia Tech Alumni Association (404) 894-2391

Josh Meister

“My team and I are working smarter and saving money

after earning our project management certificates.

We immediately applied information from the first class and are seeing major changes even to this day. As a business owner, I have the satisfaction of knowing we were trained by the best.�

Matt Rawlins

President, Rawlins Mechanical 2013 Project Management Certificate

Courses, Certificates and Degree Programs Online, Classroom and Blended Formats

www.gtpe.gatech.edu /gtalum

“ FEEDBACK

FB

“What a super job you are doing with the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. Great articles and everything else. It’s at a whole different level. Thanks for what you do!”

Herb Upton, EE 65, Augusta, Ga.

Remembering Herb McAuley and Drownproofing

also a big help in what was a challenging sophomore year academically.

I read of the passing of James Herbert “Herb” McAuley in the last issue of the Alumni Magazine (“In Memoriam,” Vol. 91, No. 1) with sadness. I took his “Drownproofing” class in 1970. I can honestly say that the one-credit-hour class is—after 45 years—the most mem-

Thank you also for noting that his retirement spelled the unfortunate end of “Drownproofing” at Tech. I tell anyone who will listen that this was a huge mistake. It could still be rectified if anyone cared to do so. R.I.P., Herb, and thank you!

orable one I took during my four years at the Institute. The “A” I managed to earn was

Bill Brockman, Mgt 73 Atlanta

The GT-Waffle House Connection Kudos for Klemis Kitchen

The innovation of Klemis Kitchen— as recently featured in the Alumni Magazine (“Sharing Tech’s Bounty on Campus,” Vol 91, No. 1)—is certainly one of the most valued items on campus, helping students in need and reducing waste. Both my wife and I—before we knew each other—had to interrupt our college years to work and provide for ourselves, and I can appreciate the problems of students not having enough money to eat. I’ve enclosed a small check to help with the project.

A.H. McCarthy, IE 50 Humble, Texas

I really enjoyed the Waffle House article (“Always Open,” Vol. 91, No. 1).

Both of my girls went to The University of Georgia (can’t win them all!) but they love Waffle House and I always point out the Tech connection when we go there. I am also a

fraternity brother of Walt [Ehmer] and Will [Mizell] and there could be no finer two to run the operation, however it must be noted their hair was quite a bit darker in the 1980s.

Victor Skalak, ME 87 Martinez, Ga.

Want to get in touch? Send letters to: Editor, Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313, or editor@alumni.gatech.edu.

Comment at gtalumnimag.com or at facebook.com/georgiatechalumni.

View our letters to the editor policy at gtalumnimag.com/letters-policy.

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Waffle House photo by Gregory Miller

DESIGN.PRINT.INNOVATE. Logically connecting concepts and vision through digital design by innovative print and marketing has been our mission for the past 10 years. We’re passionate about printing, and offer an extensive range of solutions – everything from business cards and brochures, to wide format solutions and vinyl banners.

Our new, state-of-the-art facility, soon to be located at 1080 W. Peachtree St. NW, will open its doors this late spring 2015 – and we look forward to working with the Tech community!

mycreativeapproach.com

SERVICES Business cards Postcards Note cards Large Format Solutions Vinyl Solutions Specialty Papers Mounting Solutions

Rack cards Spiral Bound Perfect Bound Saddle-stitched Brochures Scanning Envelopes

Around

CAMPUS

u

Maker Paradise

The Texas Instruments Plaza and Maker Space will be home to a state-of-the-art, project-based workshop for electrical and computer engineering students—and serve as a beautiful outdoor venue—inside and adjacent to the Van Leer Building. Texas Instruments presented a $3.2 million gift to Tech to support construction in the hope these spaces will inspire generations of students to change the world through their ideas and innovations.

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TALK of TECH

A glimpse at the biggest—and, sometimes, the strangest—news from campus.

Innovation Centers Put Big Business on Campus

Roger Slavens

By locating satellite offices and labs at or near Georgia Tech, major companies are tapping into the Institute’s expertise and young talent.

Students aren’t the only ones eager

to get into Georgia Tech. Increasingly, major corporations have come knocking on the door to set up innovation centers right on—or at least right next to—the Atlanta campus. Companies such as Coca-Cola Enterprises, Home Depot and Panasonic now have facilities in Technology Square where they can collaborate daily with Georgia Tech faculty, researchers and students.

“Being here on campus creates an extension of their innovation processes, to better access the exciting discoveries and developments here at Tech, and to work outside the traditional processes at their corporate headquarters,” says Greg King, Tech’s director of strategic partnerships.

“These centers help them quickly present challenges to campus from inside their company and, conversely, draw new ideas and attract talent from campus.”

Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America was the first to establish an innovation center at Tech in the Centergy Building at Technology Square in November 2012. John Avery, engineering group manager at the Panasonic center, says the workspace was originally envisioned as a validation and testing facility for new advances in automotive “infotainment” technologies, but it has since evolved into much more.

The company has tapped into the startup community in and around Tech, as well as the Institute’s talent pool—creating a number of co-op positions for Tech students and •

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∏ An open house for Coca-Cola Enterprises’ new Development and Innovation Lab at Tech Square draws a crowd of interested students and faculty.

hiring some mechanical and electrical engineering graduates for full-time posts. In addition, Panasonic has found it beneficial to rotate employees from its other offices through the innovation center. “It offers a full immersion into ideas for next-generation systems,” Avery says.

Several other companies have followed suit, encouraged by the reputation of Tech Square as an innovation hub, including:

on a national basis and considered what you might call the personality of each university,” says Thomas Felis, vice president of innovation at ThyssenKrupp. “Georgia Tech was a more hands-on school than MIT and certain others—which is what we were looking for.” One of the company’s early projects at Tech was to develop human interface improvements that could enhance elevator technology.

ThyssenKrupp Elevator Americas,

AT&T Mobility,

which opened its innovation center in January 2013. It has a manufacturing plant and research center in Tennessee, but wanted to establish a presence with a major U.S. university. “We evaluated the scores of major U.S. engineering programs

the BASELINE

to pledge support to the Campaign to Change 1st University Direction, a national mental health awareness initiative GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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#

which established the AT&T Foundry product development center in August 2013 at Tech Square’s Centergy Building.

“With its great mix of Fortune 500 companies, world-class research institutions like Georgia Tech and a strong workforce, we beleive Atlanta can truly become one of

years Tech’s ISyE graduate program has been 26 Consecutive ranked No. 1 by U.S. News & World Report

OF COURSE: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP (MGT 4194)

∏ Tech’s Executive VP of Research Steve Cross took a turn at “board-cutting” duties at the grand opening of Home Depot’s new technology center in January. the world’s premier locations for tech innovation,” says AT&T Mobility President and CEO Ralph de la Vega.

Home Depot,

whose Technology Center has been in place since the summer of 2014, but held its grand opening this January.

“Home Depot was attracted to the Tech Square innovation neighborhood because of the exciting work being done here by students, startups and other companies,” King says. “This is their first university-based innovation center ,and we think this is a perfect fit.”

Coca-Cola Enterprises,

which opened the doors of its Development and Innovation Lab at Tech in February and plans to hold a grand opening this summer. Esat Sezer, Coca-Cola Entrerprise’s chief information officer, told his employees: “Working with a respected institute such as Georgia Tech exposes us to a diverse and talented group of students, faculty and a curriculum that we wouldn’t experience if we just stayed in our own office.”

Southern Company,

which announced its Energy Innovation Center in April, and expects to hold its grand opening later this year. “Our customers are looking for solutions, and they want a partner who can make their lives, their quality of life, better,” says Southern Company Chairman, President and CEO Tom Fanning, IM 79, MS IM 80, HON PhD 13.

Worldpay, which began moving its U.S. corporate headquarters to Atlantic Station in Midtown Atlanta in March and announced this January it will also fund a $1 million Financial Technology Accelerator at Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center. “Our commitment is about investing in the smartest, most creative innovators so the next generation of financial technology will be built right here in Georgia,” says Tony Catalfano, Worldpay U.S. president and CEO. NCR Corp., which opened an R&D

center in the Centergy Building five years ago to hire Tech students and develop new technologies, then moved to the nearby Biltmore when it needed more space. NCR will be moving its corporate headquarters to Atlanta by early 2018.

King believes these corporate centers add to a dynamic community of innovation at Tech. “I’ve heard it described this way: Density is destiny, which is very true here at Technology Square. The density of students, startups, campus research and corporate innovation creates more and more connectedness and opportunities,” King says. “The exciting thing here for us is that each company has had a unique approach in how they set up their centers and engage students and faculty. And we’re finding the companies are learning from each other, partnering where it makes sense and sharing their lessons learned.”

students invited to participate in a roundtable discussion with 3 Tech President Barack Obama after his campus visit

Instructor: Robert N. Thomas Objective: Social Entrepreneurship applies innovative solutions to the world’s pressing social problems by having students utilize leadership and managerial skills to address major challenges.

Prerequisites: None Problem Question: “Students often ask, ‘How do I help address social issues I am passionate about while also pursuing my career goals?’

This course helps students explore how to create social value in their roles as donor, philanthropist, non-profit board member, social entrepreneur, volunteer or as part of an organizational team seeking to integrate social value creation into their firm’s products and services.”

Course Project: Student teams will select an organization that excels in creating social value. Teams are expected to share their insights and discoveries with the class through a class presentation and a written report for the instructor. The presentation is expected to engage the class in discussion and learning.

in in-state tuition for the 9% Increase 2015-16 academic year GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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Accomplishments, both stunning and silly, by the alumni of tomorrow.

STUDENT NEWS

(InVenture) Prize Fighters Roger Slavens

Six undergraduate teams duked it out in the finals of Tech’s annual competition that celebrates student innovation.

The ideas and inventions on display

at Georgia Tech’s 2015 InVenture Prize competition—held in April—involved far more than cashing in on a hot new technology. Driving the student innovations are thoughtful solutions to the world’s problems—both big and small. A sensor to warn backyard barbecuers when gas dangerously builds up in their grills. An interactive, handheld device to help learn

Braille more easily and affordably. A surgical tool to fix drooping eyelids more effectively.

More than 500 students participated in this year’s contest, and six teams were chosen as finalists to compete on stage—and live on Georgia Public Broadcasting— for some extremely valuable prizes. The winning team earned $20,000 and the second-place team $10,000 to pursue

commercialization of their ideas. In addition, both the first- and second-place finishers earned free U.S. patent filings

by Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing and a spot in Georgia Tech’s startup accelerator program, Flashpoint.

(See more about Flashpoint on Page 40.)

Finally, a $5,000 People’s Choice Award went to the fans’ favorite invention. Here are the six finalists and the winners.

OCULOSTAPLE

1ST

PLACE

The OculoStaple is a medical device to safely treat ptosis: drooping of the upper eyelid. The team members—Jacquelyn Borinski, Mohamad Ali Najia and Drew Padilla—are all biomedical engineering majors. (Read the story behind OculoStaple, which grew out of the team’s Capstone Design Project, on page 18.)

FLAME TECH GRILL DEFENDER Flame Tech is a safety device for gas grills that alerts users when gas levels become dangerous. Team members were Alex Roe, a computer science major; Scott Schroer, a mechanical engineering major; and Will Sweet, a business administration major.

•

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2ND

PLACE

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from Worldpay to Tech’s Advanced Technology $1,000,000 Gift Development Center to foster financial innovation GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

of high school seniors 3,248 Number accepted to Georgia Tech on Pi Day

PEOPLE’S

CHOICE

EQIP

EQIP is a website marketplace that allows musicians to experiment with expensive audio tools before committing to a purchase. Team members are Shehmeer Jiwani and Adam Szaruga, both computer science majors.

HAPLIT

Haplit is an interactive device for teaching Braille to those who were born blind or are living with degenerative diseases. Team members are Philip Bale, a computer science major; Megan Fechter, a business administration major; and Chandler Matz, a computer engineering major.

SHORTWEB

Shortweb aims to improve the way we access information on the Internet by allowing people to highlight and save text on any webpage and share that information with others. Team members are Ricardo De Andrade, who is majoring in industrial engineering and computer science; and Miguel Oller, a mechanical engineering major.

QUANTABREW

The QuantaBrew is an airtight container that dispenses a set amount of coffee grounds each pour, simplifying the process of making coffee every morning. The inventor is Jack Breen, a mechanical engineering major.

Tech faculty members, Danielle Dixon and Chris 2 Georgia Reinhard, who received a 2015 Sloan Research Fellowship

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STUDENT NEWS

Accomplishments, both stunning and silly, by the alumni of tomorrow.

Entrepreneurial Spirit Melissa Weinman

Tech’s new student startup programs inspire Rachel Ford to open unexpected doors.

Rachel Ford has had a busy year. In addition to being a full-time student—which is no small feat at Georgia Te c h — t h e fi f t h - y e a r b i o m e d i c a l engineering major has also started two businesses, won several awards, established new programs and completed a CEO development program.

“This has all been within the last year,” Ford says. “It’s mind-blowing. If you’d asked me freshman year, I’d never have said I wanted to be an entrepreneur.”

Ford is behind two startup companies that are among the first to emerge

five to 10 years. It’s going to be awesome.”

Ford excelled in chemistry in high school, and came to Georgia Tech with plans to study chemical engineering and go on to medical school to become a doctor.

But during her co-op at DuPont, Ford was exposed to product design and science-based research and development—an experience that made her change course.

“I realized my skillset was building things to enable doctors to help people, rather than being the hands-on doctor or surgeon,” Ford says.

“If Tech didn’t decide to do Startup Lab or Startup Summer, I never would have had the opportunity to do this,” Ford says. from new entrepreneurship classes offered at Georgia Tech, leading her and her teammates to become a showcase for the Institute. She’s even helping teach the second iteration of Startup Lab, which has grown from 30 students in the inaugural class to 120 this year.

“Georgia Tech really promotes what we’re doing,” Ford says. “I can’t even imagine what it’s going to look like in the next •

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So Ford switched to biomedical engineering, and in one of her new classes—BME 2300—she worked with a team to design her first medical device.

“That’s when all this startup stuff came about,” Ford says.

Ford and her team redesigned a pacifier to reduce the dental, skeletal and speech deformations that can be caused by extended pacifier use. Later, the team updated their

creation, dubbed Sucette, so that it would change color to diagnose a fever.

They entered Sucette in Georgia Tech’s 2014 InVenture Prize competition and won second place. Their prize included $10,000 and a free U.S. patent filing.

After that first taste of entrepreneurship, Ford was hooked.

She enrolled in Tech’s first-ever Startup Lab class, where she learned what it takes to create a business—not just how to design a product.

“A lot of times at Georgia Tech we design things because we’re really good at that, but never think of who would buy it,” Ford says.

The class taught her to do market research and find out what kind of products people want before the design process begins.

Ford and her Startup Lab teammates began with the idea of creating a product for breast cancer detection. But after conducting market research, they found that women wanted more education about breast cancer exams, not a product they would need to buy.

The idea for their eventual Startup Lab business came when Ford’s car broke down on the way to her hometown of Powder Springs, Ga. She called classmate John Gattuso, an auto enthusiast, to ask for advice.

It was then that it clicked: Ford certainly wasn’t the only one out there who needed help diagnosing a car problem.

And there were likely plenty of people without someone as knowledgeable as Gattuso in their Rolodex.

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And so FIXD was born: a diagnostic device that plugs into your car to estimate what’s wrong and how much it will cost to fix.

Following the Startup Lab class, Ford was also one of the first students to participate in Tech’s Startup Summer, a 12-week program for student teams to launch startups based on their inventions.

“We were essentially the guinea pigs for all these things,” Ford says.

In a short amount of time, Ford and her teammates have made great strides with both startups. They’ve submitted the formal patent application for Sucette, and FIXD founders Ford, Gattuso and Kevin Miron, ME 14, successfully raised $40,000 from a campaign on the crowd funding website Kickstarter.

“If Tech didn’t decide to do Startup Lab or Startup Summer, I never would have had the opportunity to do this,” Ford says.

Ford knows that her experience at Tech has been unique. But it hasn’t been easy. Ford says she works around 15 hours a day and often sleeps for only four hours at a time.

“Startup life is hard,” Ford says. “But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Ford says she’s also motivated by the recognition she’s receiving for her work.

Among a slew of awards, she was named to the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s list of “30 Under 30” prominent young leaders and received Georgia Tech’s Alvin M. Ferst Leadership and Entrepreneur Award.

Ford says students are hungry for this

of engineering students who spent spring break in 12 Number Bolivia monitoring environmental quality Justen Clay

kind of learning, and Georgia Tech is listening.

“There’s a grassroots movement of students pushing for design and entrepreneurial-based classes,” Ford says.

“Not only professors and faculty, but alumni come out of the woodwork when we are passionate about something.”

Traditionally, Tech students go one of three main directions: Get a job with a corporation, get a job doing research or go to graduate school.

With Tech’s new focus on entrepreneurship, Ford says there is now a fourth option to make not only your own job, but other jobs too.

“Door No. 4 has been opened,” Ford says. She pauses and thinks about this for a second and then says, “Door No. 4 has been pushed wide open.”

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STUDENT NEWS

Accomplishments, both stunning and silly, by the alumni of tomorrow.

From Competition to Commercialization Erin Peterson

Student teams work for months to ready their design projects for the Capstone Design Expo. But for some, the event is a starting point, not an ending one.

For hundreds of thousands of older Americans, a drooping eyelid condition

known as ptosis is more than just an annoyance. It’s downright dangerous.

Ptosis impairs people’s vision and can make activities including driving difficult. Those with ptosis are 10 times more likely to fall than those without it.

But right now, ptosis can only be corrected with a complicated, multi-part surgery that often requires additional procedures, known as revisions, to correct mistakes.

That’s where Georgia Tech students come in. Last fall, as part of the Capstone Design course, a four-student team called OculoSEAL developed an ingenious device to solve the problem. The OculoStaple device they created simplifies the surgery, minimizes patient risk and reduces surgical revision rates.

“The OculoStaple clamp simultaneously cuts away the excess muscle that causes the drooping eyelid while sealing the incision with bioabsorbable staples,” explains team member Mohamad Najia. “With OculoStaple, we have made this surgery so simple that an ophthalmologist could potentially perform this surgery in an office setting with the patient under local anesthesia, instead of in an operating room [where the work is done currently].”

The device has been a massive success: Not only did it win the Capstone Design Expo in December, but it also earned a second-place finish and a $10,000 check at Tech’s InVenture Prize competition in April. And now, three of the four 0 1 8

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team members, along with their advisers, will be taking the next steps to move the project from prototype to commercial product.

Taking great projects to the next level

The success of the OculoStaple project, says Amit Jariwala, Tech’s director of

design and innovation for the School of Mechanical Engineering, is both heartening and increasingly common. About 10 percent of Capstone Design Project participants take their work beyond the expo in some capacity. Some are hired to continue the work with the project sponsor company, some file patents,

Since its Capstone Design win, the OculoSEAL team has filed a provisional U.S. patent and has acquired five letters of intent. and others further projects with new teams the following semester. Even better, Jariwala says, is the fact that the numbers of students taking these options are growing, thanks to targeted coursework, increasingly enthusiastic sponsors and improved funding and resources.

The OculoSEAL students, for example, received critical guidance from faculty and outside advisers including Denise Kim, an oculoplastics fellow at Emory University. Throughout the process, Kim’s field-based knowledge allowed her to steer students away from creative but impractical solutions. “As a surgeon, I bring a practical perspective to the necessary design elements and features for the OculoStaple device to be accepted commercially by physicians,” she explains. The team tapped other experts both inside and outside the Institute to learn more about specific engineering requirements and how to craft an ideal human-machine interface.

Najia says the team was hyper-focused

on creating the best possible technology during the semester-long project, and that the reception they received at the Expo encouraged them to think bigger. “After the Expo, we took a step back to look at the bigger picture of how this device could improve patients’ quality of life,” he says. “With the support of our clinical collaborators, [student teammates] Jackie Borinski, Drew Padilla and I decided to pursue the project further.”

Since then, the team has filed a provisional U.S. patent. They’ve acquired five letters of intent from surgeons who want to use this device upon FDA approval. And they’ve been asked to attend and speak at several conferences. Kim, meanwhile, is thrilled to keep working on the project. “We plan to continue refining the design of the OculoStaple device so that it can ultimately be brought to market,” she says.

Providing the help students need

Tech is committed to helping all students who see potential in their projects take them as far as they can go. “In our course, we have dedicated lectures that cover topics on how to start a company, intellectual property protection options and patent filing procedures,” Jariwala says. “We also have had alumni lawyers who provide pro bono assistance to student teams, and reimbursement to student teams to cover the cost of building a prototype that they can use to raise more capital outside of Georgia Tech.”

In addition, the School of Mechanical Engineering has recently rolled out a post-Capstone Design course that will provide a structured opportunity for students to improve their designs and explore mass manufacturing options to take their products to market.

Jariwala says that there is even more room for Capstone Design to expand its reach. He’s eager to find ways to provide more resources for ambitious students, and he hopes to expand the course’s scope to include more interdisciplinary projects and non-engineering students. “The Capstone Design Expo is the ultimate showcase of what Georgia Tech students can build,” Jariwala says. “It’s helping us build a strong startup culture in Atlanta while providing skilled graduates for local and global companies.”

This is Part 4 in a 4-Part Series on Georgia Tech’s Capstone Design Course.

For more information on how you can support Capstone students, contact Amit Jariwala at Amit.Jariwala@gatech.edu or visit capstone.gatech.edu.

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10 QUESTIONS

A chat with someone who makes Tech tick.

Investing in a New Era For Georgia Tech If you’re plugged into the local and even

What brought you back to work at Tech?

national startup scene, you’re probably familiar with Tech’s long-standing business incubator, the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC). You may also know about Tech’s overarching business outreach organization, the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2). At the helm of both these organizations is Stephen Fleming, Phys 83, an alumnus with vast experience in entrepreneurship, venture capital, angel investing and innovation.

Fleming took time out of his busy schedule to tell the Alumni Magazine why he is so passionate about fostering Tech’s business community.

I was engaged as an alumnus, served on committees and endowed a professorship.

Using that status, I was criticizing some things Georgia Tech was doing 12 years ago. I kept saying, “You can do better.” So the provost at the time said, “Stephen, why don’t you come fix it?” I planned to do this for about two years. It has now been 10 years and I’m still here. I never planned to do this for a living, but I fell in love with this place. Every university claims it’s special, but this one really is. It’s just a wonderful place to spend every day.

You’ve had a pretty wide variety of experiences. Talk a little bit about your career path.

I graduated in 1983 and spent about a decade in the telecommunication industry.

I worked my way up from engineering to management. I worked for big companies and startups, and found I liked the startups. I’d left Atlanta at that time and was able to come back and put together a venture capital firm. I spent about a decade doing that. I looked at tech companies in the Southeast, a lot from Georgia Tech, as well as North Carolina, Florida and others. That gave me a really good background in the right ways and sometimes the wrong ways to do technology-based startup companies.

What led you to venture capital?

I worked in a couple of venture-backed startups and liked the process a great deal.

I realized the venture investors were typically people just like me, and I thought I would fit well in that role. I didn’t have a formal finance background, but I learned it later.

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You are still an active angel investor.

Talk about what kinds of companies interest you.

The space industry is emerging as something that’s a potentially huge part of the economy of the U.S. and world in the next century. I’m of the generation that grew up watching the Apollo missions.

I thought we’d all be living on the moon by now. It didn’t work out that way, but I still really care about that stuff. We’re doing now what should have been done in 1974: Building the vehicles, companies, commercial relationships and all the things you need to have an actual, effective industry. The private sector exploited cars, airplanes and railroads, but that didn’t happen with space. That’s finally changing for a lot of reasons and it’s really exciting. To be a good angel investor is a big commitment. I just got specialized because I don’t have a whole lot of time for it. Some guys play golf. I invest in rocket ship companies.

Why do you believe so strongly in what Georgia Tech is doing to encourage entrepreneurship and partnership with the private sector?

Melissa Weinman

We have both a mission and an obligation to the economy of Georgia by making these economic development activities happen. We’ve taken that role very seriously. Tech, unlike almost any university in the U.S., was created for economic development. We are very unusual. This is just a different way of doing economic development—130 years ago it was textile mills and coal mines. Now it’s creating infrastructure behind innovation neighborhoods like Tech Square. It’s this new economic development model based on brainpower.

We are seeing a lot of growth and investment from the private sector around Tech Square. What do you attribute that momentum to?

This is kind of like the country band that makes it big and people say it’s an overnight success. This really started 15 years ago. It’s taken a lot of work and a lot of effort to make this stuff happen. I do think a lot of people just started to notice. Announcements were made around 1999 and 2000 about Tech Square, and we’re doing a lot of the things Georgia Tech leadership said we were going to do. I don’t know of another place like this in the country. It’s an absolutely unique asset. We’re the first to get an innovation neighborhood right.

Why do you believe Georgia Tech’s location in Atlanta is an asset?

The advantage Georgia Tech has is that we’re a major research university in a major city. That makes a lot of people want to be right here next to Georgia Tech. That makes it an exciting place for our students. They love the idea that they can get a great job and still stay close to campus.

Most schools can’t offer that.

You grew up in Atlanta. What has it been like watching the city grow and change?

It’s been really kind of remarkable. There was a period where everyone was leaving the city and the suburbs were where all growth and activity were going to be. Atlanta was in danger of becoming a Detroit where everything is shaped like a donut. Fifteen years ago, this area [around Tech] emptied out at the end of the day and no one wanted to live here. Now, it’s a walkable, bikeable neighborhood. Tech Square is the sort of neighborhood where you can get to Josh Meister

work early, stay for dinner and feel like you’re in a nice neighborhood, not an office building where they turn lights off at 5 o’clock.

Were you interested in entrepreneurship as a student at Tech? Or is that something you developed later in life?

If there was a class on entrepreneurship in 1983, I didn’t take it. Back then, you didn’t use the word entrepreneur. And if you did, it meant you couldn’t get a job at AT&T. That was the goal back then— you wanted to work for a big company for 40 years.

Talk about Tech’s shift toward hands on, real world experiences.

That’s been a student-driven change. I’m proud of the students for doing that.Their generation’s goal is to create jobs. Not just for themselves, but for a lot of people. These kids are really, truly inspiring with what they want to go off and do, so we’re trying to keep up with them. These resources for entrepreneurial students at Tech are just amazing. In most cases, they’re there because students say, “We want this and we need this, Georgia Tech.

What are you going to do about it?” And we’re scrambling to keep up.

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TALK of TECH

A glimpse at the biggest—and, sometimes, the strangest— news from campus.

Obama Stops at Tech, Holds Secret Meeting with Students

∏ While in Atlanta, President Barack Obama met with Tech students Lauren Milner (far left), Gabriel Galarza (third from left), and Laura O’Connell (right).

OBAMA VISITS TECH Nearly 10,000 students, faculty, staff and guests welcomed President Barack Obama to Georgia Tech on Tuesday, March 10. The president spoke about college affordability and announced the Student Aid Bill of Rights, and gave shout-outs to George P. Burdell, the Ramblin’ Wreck and even thermodynamics homework.

“It’s great to be at one of the finest technical institutes in the world,” Obama said.

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“You’ve got to be if the Ramblin’ Wreck is still running after all these years.”

But three Georgia Tech students didn’t attend the packed event at McCamish Pavilion. Four miles away, Secret Service agents walked them into an empty restaurant. They were told to leave their phones and computers in the car. While their peers sat, cheered and listened to the commander-in-chief, the trio entered Manuel’s Tavern knowing they wouldn’t hear or see anything that happened at McCamish.

Instead, they were getting ready for

their own once-in-a-lifetime moment with the president. Gabriel Galarza, Lauren Milner and Laura O’Connell, along with two students from Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School, spent 30 minutes talking with the president about affordable education, easier access to higher education, and the challenges of finding financial assistance and scholarships while applying for college.

The trio was chosen for the opportunity because of their persistence and success in finding scholarships and applying for financial aid.

MARBLE SELECTED AS NEW CHAIR OF SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Scott Marble has been appointed the new chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture. Marble, who currently serves as an adjunct associate professor of architecture at Columbia University, will start his post on July 1.

Marble is an educator and a practicing architect who will maintain partnership in his firm Marble Fairbanks in New York City. College of Architecture Dean Steven French described Marble as an outstanding designer and innovative educator who will develop a leading curriculum for 21st century architectural education.

TECH RECEIVES FEDERAL GRANT TO PROMOTE STARTUPS AND INNOVATION The U.S. Department of Commerce awarded Georgia Tech a $500,000 i6 Challenge grant to help implement initiatives for entrepreneurship and innovation in downtown Atlanta, Athens and Augusta.

The i6 Challenge is a national competition that seeks to fund small, high-impact initiatives that support startup creation, innovation and commercialization.

The award, which Georgia Tech is matching with an additional $517,787, will be used to provide education, support and programs to develop the entrepreneurial community in the three cities.

REACHING NEW ICY DEPTHS IN ANTARCTICA Georgia Tech researchers used a robotic vehicle to reach depths never visited below Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf. The vehicle, called Icefin, was submerged below 20 meters of ice and another 500 meters of water to record video of life on the sea floor.

Icefin’s readings and video will help scientists understand how Antarctica’s ice shelves are changing and how organisms thrive in cold and light-free environments. The technologies developed for Icefin will also help in the search for life on other planets such as Europa, a moon of Jupiter with ice-capped oceans.

TECH TREASURE A new Student Government Association initiative called Tech Treasure provided students moving out of their dorms this year with an easy way to donate unwanted items. Goodwill donation bins were placed around campus so that items like furniture and clothing could be saved from the dumpster.

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The Leadership Circle is the cornerstone of Roll Call, Georgia Tech’s annual fund. By becoming a member of the Leadership Circle, you help ensure Tech’s prominence and adaptability in an ever-changing world.

Join one of our leadership giving clubs and enjoy benefits such as a limited edition tie or scarf and an invitation to the annual President’s Dinner, Celebrating Roll Call.

A tradition of leadership has evolved at the Georgia Institute of Technology over many generations … we hope you’ll join us.

THE CORNERSTONE OF ROLL CALL IS

LEADERSHIP

“We believe Georgia Tech is a great place to capture a high return. Roll Call giving at the Leadership Circle level enables your gift to grow exponentially as it benefits so many on campus.”

– ANGELA G. MITCHELL PTCH ’04 AND JAMES L. MITCHELL CE ’05 (GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES) 15 CONSECUTIVE YEARS OF ROLL CALL GIVING AND LEADERSHIP CIRCLE SINCE 2006

THE GIVING CLUBS OF THE LEADERSHIP CIRCLE BURDELL SOCIETY a gift of $25,000 in support of Roll Call PHOENIX CLUB gifts between $10,000 and $24,999 TRADITIONS CLUB gifts between $5,000 and $9,999 TOWER CLUB gifts between $2,500 and $4,999 CORNERSTONE CLUB gifts between $1,000 and $2,499

Please send your gift or pledge to: Roll Call, Georgia Tech Alumni Association 190 North Ave., Atlanta, GA, 30313-9806 Donate online at www.gtalumni.org/giving or call (800) GT –ALUMS

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GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

OFFICE SPACE

A peek inside a fascinating Yellow Jacket workplace.

Anything But Square

Melissa Weinman

Tech Square’s brand of unconventional innovation fuels new growth.

Words like “magic” and “secret” and

“organic” are used often to describe Tech Square, an area centered at Fifth and Spring streets.

It is neither shaped like a square nor owned by Georgia Tech. It’s like a research park, but also an innovation hub. It’s part of Tech’s academic campus, and a place where you can grab a burrito or a latte.

It’s difficult to pin down exactly what it is.

“Tech Square is just a name,” says Christopher Downing, associate vice president of Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2), Tech’s chief statewide business outreach and economic development arm.

“It’s amorphous to some degree.”

Amorphous, but also an unqualified success story. The Association of University Research Parks named Tech Square as the most outstanding university research park in 2014. Officials from top universities and municipalities across the world visit Tech Square with hopes of replicating what Georgia Tech officials describe as an “innovation neighborhood.”

Key And Tech Square is far from complete.

Several major new projects are on the horizon, including a new High-Performance Bold red letters like (A) correspond to a location Computing Center (F), a major corporate that can be found on the headquarters (A) and a startup workspace map on the next page. founded by serial entrepreneurs (C), to name a few.

All this buzz might lead some to wonder what exactly is causing the development boom right now in Tech Square. But to Stephen Fleming, vice president of EI2, it’s simply the result of good planning and hard work that began 15 years ago.

What is Tech Square?

If you graduated more than 10 years ago and don’t get back to campus much, you may be totally unfamiliar with Tech Square, a development that has radically altered the character of campus.

“Fifteen years back, this was not a nice neighborhood—there

was razor wire and surface parking lots and broken crack vials,” Fleming, Phys 83, recalls.

Tech was looking to grow, and this area across the highway would better connect the campus to the city of Atlanta. So the Georgia Tech Foundation invested $180 million to anchor the creation of 1.3 million square feet of campus facilities and commercial space, a significant infusion that Fleming says paved the way for the private sector to invest in an area with great potential due to its location in the middle of the city and proximity to Tech’s research and talent pool.

“What Georgia Tech was able to do was make a multi-year, multimillion-dollar commitment to a neighborhood,” Fleming says. “Private companies can’t do that.”

The first wave of development brought a slew of restaurants and retail, including Tech’s official bookstore, as well as academic, office and research space in 2003. Tech officials laid the groundwork for success. But they couldn’t predict the incredible entrepreneurial character that would come to dominate the area.

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

Owen Davey - Folio Art

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∂

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The Changing Face of Tech Square Flip 180° to see what’s south of 5th Street

A. Future home of NCR Headquarters

B. New home of Square on 5th (SQ5)

N W

E S

D. Centergy (fig. 1)

E. Tech Square Research Building (fig. 2)

Moe’s

I. Georgia Tech Global LearningCenter GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

H. Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center

Wal-Mart On Campus 0 2 6

Waffle House

5TH STREET

FIG. 1

C. New home of Tech Square Labs

Centergy Building Tenants 1st Floor : Georgia Power; AT&T Foundry; Southern Company

SPRING STREET

2-5 Floors: Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2); Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC); Worldpay 4th Floor: Coca-Cola Enterprises; ThyssenKrupp 6th Floor: Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI); Technology Association of Georgia; Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) 7th Floor: Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)

8th Floor: Home Depot Technology Center; Georgia Work Force Development Office 9th Floor: Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) 10th Floor: Gateway Development; The University Financing Foundation (TUFF); Panasonic Innovation Center; Georgia Department of Commerce 11th Floor: Accenture 12-13th Floors: Georgia Department of Economic Development

FIG. 2

Tech Square Research Building (TSRB) Tenants 3rd Floor: Interactive Media Technology Center; Literature, Media and Communication 2-3 Floors: School of Interactive Computing; Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center (GVU)

4-5 Floors: Electrical and Computer Engineering 5th Floor: Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology; Georgia Electronic Design Center; Mechanical Engineering

Ray’s NY Style Pizza G. Scheller College of Business F. Future Home of High Performance Computing Center GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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Barnes & Noble

OFFICE SPACE

Innovation Neighborhood

Take a walk down Fifth Street, and you’ll notice students whizzing by, on their way to lunch or class or oblivious to the traffic as they feverishly tap away on their phones.

You’ll also see large office buildings, with professionals in slacks crisscrossing a plaza or enjoying lunch outside.

It’s hard to tell from the outside, but those buildings are home to dozens of startup companies and groundbreaking research.

“I don’t think most people realize the combination of ingredients that are here,” says Scott Henderson, co-founder and CEO of the Sandbox Crew, an organization that promotes community in Tech Square.

“You can’t find that anywhere else in the city or the region.”

The combination of large companies, startups, students and researchers in such a small area is indeed rare. Right now in Tech Square, there are more than 40 startups operating out of the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), one of the oldest university-based business incubators in the country. Seven large corporations,

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A peek inside a fascinating Yellow Jacket workplace.

including Home Depot and AT&T Mobility, have set up innovation centers in Tech Square, and an eighth is on the way. Many of Georgia’s economic development organizations call Tech Square home as well.

David Tyndall, BC 83, along with partner Mack Reese, IM 83, founded Gateway Development, one of Tech Square’s original developers responsible for anchors such as the Centergy (D) and Tech Square Research buildings (E). About a year ago, Tyndall decided he wanted to do something to stir the water in Tech Square.

He reached out to Scott Henderson, who at the time was involved in an energetic work space for entrepreneurs at the nearby Biltmore. Together, the two formed an organization called the Sandbox Crew to create better opportunities for collision and interaction amongst Tech Square’s many innovative people and companies.

“We say we’re the galvanizer of people, companies and ideas in Tech Square,” says Henderson, who prefers “chief connector” to his more formal title of CEO. The Sandbox crew organizes events that introduce people who may not otherwise interact and appeals to the quirkier side of startup culture—from carefully assembled eight-person dinner parties to events where people can fly their drones together at the top of a parking deck. “We’re intending ourselves to be the USB port for Tech Square so it’s easy for anybody to plug in,” Henderson says.

The next big thing coming to Tech Square? Full-time residents.

Slated to open in August, Square on Fifth (B), or SQ5, as it’s been dubbed, is an apartment tower that will include

amenities to draw young, ambitious people into Tech Square full time.

Henderson believes having hundreds of students and young entrepreneurs living in the heart of Tech Square will be a gamechanger. “The serendipity that comes from the density of people living there is going to have a great effect on what’s going on in Tech Square,” Henderson says.

Tyndall is especially excited about “The Garage,” a concrete, subterranean clubhouse below the apartment building. He says it’s a much-needed space for collaboration and creativity where residents and members of the Sandbox Crew can gather, work and hang out.

Tyndall says like many of his fellow Tech alumni, he is very supportive of Georgia Tech’s recent shift toward a more entrepreneurial, hands-on education. He’s very passionate about it and hopes his work in Tech Square will help facilitate innovation and offer a platform for great things to happen. One of his long-term goals is for the Sandbox Crew to offer a sort of non-formal entrepreneurship program for SQ5. But Tyndall is also wise enough to know that he has to tread lightly. “I think it will get some formal structure, but I’m wary of top down control,” he says. “It’s kind of antithetical to the disruptive startup world.”

With so many businesses and people drawn to Tech Square, its character will continue to grow and change.

Downing, who’s been involved in Tech Square since its inception, says one of the greatest things to evolve over the past 10 years is the opportunity for students to engage in more experiential learning—one of the goals outlined in Tech’s long-range strategic vision.

“It’s been gratifying to see just how many people have been able to participate and be a part of this neighborhood and achieve more success as a result,” Downing says.

“One of the strengths of Tech Square is that it has grown organically. It’s doing that because of the flexibility we’ve built in. In many ways, we are just getting started.”

Owen Davey - Folio Art

On the

FIELD

The latest buzz from all of Tech’s teams.

Standing Out

Roger Slavens

These Tech student-athletes broke records and reached new heights during the 2014-15 year, and were recently honored for their achievements at the Georgia Tech Athletic Association’s annual Yellow Jacket Celebration.

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Record-Breaking Athletes of the Year The Georgia Tech Athletics Association named graduating senior Andrew Kosic (men’s swimming) and sophomore Kaela Davis (women’s basketball) as its Athletes of the Year. Kosic (1) earned two All-American swimming honors in 2015, and helped set five new Tech swimming records this season, including breaking the 50m freestyle record three times. In total, Kosic left GT holding eight different records. Meanwhile, Yellow Jacket guard Davis (2) set Tech’s single-season scoring record in women’s basketball with 652 points, averaging 19.2 points per game. She was named to the 2015 All-ACC first team and was chosen as the 2015

Georgia Women’s Basketball Player of the Year by the Atlanta Tipoff Club.

The Kick & The Pick The Georgia Tech football team was named the Best AllAround Team for 2014-15 after posting its fifth 11-win season in team history and its first Orange Bowl Championship since 1952. The Best Sports Moment of the year was the combined plays dubbed “The Kick & The Pick” from the regular season— Harrison Butker’s (3) 53-yard field goal to force overtime and D.J. White’s (4) interception to clinch Tech’s win over the University of Georgia.

1. Steven Colquitt 2. Danny Karnik / Georgia Tech Athletics 3. Danny Karnik / Georgia Tech Athletics 4. Austin Foote / Georgia Tech Athletics

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On the

FIELD

The latest buzz from all of Tech’s teams.

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Ramblin’ Rookies Tech’s Rookies of the Year went to women’s basketball forward Zaire O’Neil (1), who was one of four Yellow Jackets to average double figures with 11.3 points a game and ranked third in rebounding at 5.8 boards a game; and football defensive end KeShun Freeman (2), who was named a national Freshman All-American after leading all ACC freshmen with 9.5 tackles for a loss.

The Total Package Women’s cross country senior Morgan Jackson (3) and golf senior Anders Albertson (4) received the Athletic Association’s highest honor, the Total Person Award. This award reflects the students’ success in Tech’s Total Person Program, which in addition to athletics, emphasizes a well-rounded mix of career ambitions, family relations, health consciousness, self-motivation and community involvement. Recipients also have to be in good academic standing; lettered at least two 0 3 0

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years; achieved ACC, regional or national recognition or awards; and make significant contributions to his or her team. Of note, Jackson also won the GT Leadership Award as the single student-athlete who best demonstrated leadership qualities on the playing field, in the classroom and in the community.

More GTAA Award Winners The Georgia Tech Spotlight Award recognizes one player from each team whose contributions to his or her program go far beyond the scope of athletics.

Recipients were: Tim Byerly (football), Jonathan Gardner (men’s track and field), Alex Grady (men’s cross country), Morgan Jackson (women’s cross country), Aaron Peek (men’s basketball), Antonia Peresson (women’s basketball), Alexis Prokopuik (women’s tennis), Lauren Pitz (volleyball), Efrat Rotsztejn (women’s swimming), Mark Sarman (men’s swimming), Sarah Kate Somers (cheerleading), Morgan Taylor (softball),

Jazmyne Taylor (women’s track), Vincent Whaley (golf), Grant Wruble (baseball) and Daniel Yun (men’s tennis).

Six Georgia Tech student-athletes were honored by the ACC with the league’s Top 6 for Service Award, presented annually to those who demonstrate dedication to community service and outreach programs. GT’s recipients were: Kate Brandus (women’s swimming), Alex Grady (men’s cross country), Morgan Jackson (women’s cross country), Hayley Keady (women’s cross country), Aaron Peek (men’s basketball) and Nathan Rakitt (men’s tennis).

Swimming’s Kate Brandus, football’s Matt Connors and track’s Cole Jackob were honored as Georgia Tech’s ACC Postgraduate Scholarship recipients in February. Golf’s Anders Albertson was chosen as an honorary postgraduate recipient. Each recipient will receive $5,000 toward his or his graduate education.

1. Danny Karnik / Georgia Tech Athletics 2. Austin Foote / Georgia Tech Athletics 3. Danny Karnik / Georgia Tech Athletics 4. Clyde Click

4

In the

WORLD

Ramblin’ Wrecks generating buzz beyond the Atlanta campus.

Dollars & Sense: Steve Chaddick, Mentor Capitalist

Roger Slavens

Following a successful career in the telecommunications industry, Steve Chaddick, EE 74, MS EE 82, has made his mark locally as an active angel investor and a great supporter of Tech’s programs, faculty and students. When our staff wanted to find out more about how startup funding works, Chaddick was the first person we thought to consult.

Where can new companies get the money to get off the ground?

To begin commercializing their innovations or ideas, most young companies need to find seed funding, which can come from government grants, competitions, loans and sometimes even friends, family and maxing out personal credit cards. Such early-stage companies typically aren’t ready for traditional venture capital.

Is that when angel investors become involved?

Yes. Often angel investors are individuals with expertise and interest in specific areas—like mine in telecommunications— who are willing to invest tens to a couple hundreds of thousands of dollars to assist a startup in getting up and running.

What does it take to be a successful angel investor?

You have to set a long-term horizon for company success. Even then, you have to be comfortable with the fact that the success rate for startups is miserable. Typically only one or two companies out of 10 will show enough of a return to keep you going to the next investments. It takes patience and fortitude.

How do you personally decide in which companies to invest?

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they support financially. But I prefer companies where I can get involved and provide leadership and advice. Most importantly, I’m interested in companies that have a clear value proposition that’s easily articulated and defendable—via intellectual property or time-to-market advantage. I also look for the solid beginnings of a management team.

Are there warning signs that turn you off from a company?

One red flag is an uncoachable CEO. Scientists often make lousy chief executives though they can make good chief technology officers. Startups really need someone onboard with solid business and sales acumen. Another warning sign is when a startup’s customer discovery process is based on assumptions (and founder bias) rather than on research and reality.

What should startup founders look for in an angel investor?

Someone who can provide them more than just money. Connections and specific industry experience can be just as important. Someone who can build bridges with other funders, including venture capitalists. Someone who will have patience and

a long-term view on success. Someone who maintains a lean startup methodology, focusing on startup engineering to uncover customer needs.

You’re a member of the Atlanta Technology Angels. What is that, exactly?

Atlanta Technology Angels is a consortium of angel investors that provides investment opportunities in early-stage technology companies, and education to both investors and entrepreneurs in the greater metro area and the Southeast. The ATA’s members often work in groups as a single investing entity rather than as individual investors to fund and foster startups.

How do you lend your startup and investing expertise at Georgia Tech?

I’m involved in a lot of entrepreneurial and startup efforts at Tech. I helped teach the pilot of Startup Lab and Startup Summer last year. I’ve also served as an adviser to the Advanced Technology Development Center’s VentureLab incubator and the Georgia Research Alliance. I’ve personally invested in about 15 companies, many that have come out of the Institute. To me, Tech’s exceptional students, faculty and alumni represent the smartest investment I could ever make.

Steve Chaddick is former chair of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association and a current trustee of the Georgia Tech Foundation. He’s also a member of the Georgia Tech Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni and has endowed the Steve W. Chaddick Chair in Electro-Optics in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Josh Meister

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BALANCING ACT

Tipping our cap to alumni who know how to multitask.

Endevvr Empowers Teens to Become Entrepreneurs

Melissa Weinman

Mary Winn Miller, IE 07, helps teach high schoolers how to build their own businesses.

Teenagers aren’t exactly known for their discipline and focus. But Mary Winn Miller sees in high school students the potential to be successful leaders and create their own companies, despite their young age.

In fact, Miller wishes someone would have taught her about entrepreneurship when she was a teen. That’s why she and her husband Martin created Endevvr, a five-week summer program designed to foster business building and leadership skills through hands-on experiences with working professionals.

“When we first started Endevvr, I always knew there was untapped potential in high school students,” Miller says. “I know because I felt that way when I was in high school. I knew I had the intellectual capacity to learn entrepreneurial skills much earlier and I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I had.”

It turns out Miller’s intuition was right: Over the past two years, the teenage graduates of Endevvr have created unique startup businesses that are alive and well.

Take for example Sam Lurye. At just 16 years old, he’s received $100,000 in venture capital funding for a mobile app called Kiss that he created during the Endevvr program.

Kiss is akin to passing notes in high school, only it’s on your phone. Instead of wringing your hands and wondering if your crush likes you back, the Kiss app allows you to anonymously find out. “Sam even negotiated with his principal to have certain hours off so he could talk with his investors,” Miller says.

If you’re beginning to feel like an underachiever, don’t worry. Miller says recent advances in technology have made all the difference in making startups much more

“We really believe in trying to bring this experience to a lot of different communities,” Miller says. “It’s not about leveraging existing infrastructure but going to places where that community is growing.”

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realistic for enterprising teens.

“Starting a company is so much easier and cheaper than it was even 10 years ago,” Miller says. “The barriers to entry have gone down, which has made this a ripe opportunity for high school students.”

Miller and her husband launched Endevvr’s pilot program in Boston in 2013. Last year, Endevvr’s first official five-week program was held at Georgia Tech, bringing some of the nation’s brightest high school students to campus. This summer, Endevvr will take place in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania.

It’s no accident that over Endevvr’s young life span, the program has been held in three different cities. Miller explains that Endevvr isn’t just about learning what it takes to create a business.

It’s also about exposing the participants to startup communities in new cities each year, as well as introducing those communities to a new class of young and energetic entrepreneurs.

“We really believe in trying to bring this experience to a lot of different communities,” Miller says. “It’s not about leveraging existing infrastructure but going to places where that community is growing.”

So how do teens learn the essentials of business and create a successful company over the course of five weeks?

Miller says it’s a dynamic process and depends a lot on the chemistry of the participants. There are certain things they set out to teach the students, such as a basic business vocabulary, how to put together an income statement and how to project what a company is worth. But Miller says they mostly try to let the students learn by doing.

“It really is very organic and evolves as the program moves on,” Miller says.

Some students come to Endevvr with very developed ideas they hope to turn into businesses. Others come in with nothing particular in mind other than to learn. And that mix is important, Miller says.

One year, she encouraged a team of three students without a solid plan to brainstorm what they have in common— without worrying if it had anything to do with business. It turned out that all three teens had a relative on the autism spectrum. This common bond ultimately sparked their business idea: a company that provides travel experiences geared specifically toward people with autism and their families.

Miller says she always asks her Endevvr students to identify the problem that they’re trying to solve—a lesson she credits as one of the biggest takeaways from her education at Tech. “ There’s a problem-solving mentality that’s absolutely instilled in Georgia Tech students and was definitely instilled in me,” Miller says. “It’s something I try to instill in my students at Endevvr, too. So there’s a ripple effect there.”

Miller doesn’t just talk the talk. Asking herself that same question led to the development of Endevvr.

“For me it was never ‘Gosh, I want to be an entrepreneur.’ It was, ‘What is the problem I’m trying to solve and what’s the best way to solve it?’”

Though she has been working as a business consultant while dreaming up and implementing Endevvr these past few years, the program’s startup curricula finally rubbed off on her.

She recently joined a startup company called Vega Factor that uses everything from the chaos theory of mathematics to the latest psychological research to study what creates a successful business culture. Still, just as she has for the past two years, Miller is looking forward to spending this summer helping teach teens how to become entrepreneurs.

∏ Top: Mary Winn Miller, IE 07, the co-founder of Endevvr. Bottom: Endevvr participants get real-world experience pitching their startups to investors.

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TECH HACK

A look at the latest handiwork of Tech’s tinkerers.

Much More Than a Hair-Brained Idea

Osayi Endolyn

Candace Mitchell, CS 11, co-founded Myavana to eliminate the guesswork from black women’s hair-care regimen by using scientific analysis.

Scope out the hair-care aisle in the

beauty section of any major retailer and you’ll find a familiar scene: a woman with a bottle of shampoo in hand, staring in dismay at the horde of options on the shelves in front of her. Should she pick sulfate-free or biotin add-in shampoo?

Should she be looking for hydration or volume in her conditioner?

The process of reviewing ingredients, comparing prices and questioning the purported hair-care benefits can be overwhelming—particularly for black women, who over the past few years have seen an uptick in the number of products tailored to their specific hair texture needs. The inventory that was once relegated to a small section of a single shelf, or worse, not available in major outlets at all, now spans entire store aisles and endcap displays.

The creators of Myavana, a web-based mobile and social platform, understand firsthand the frustration of the shelf scan.

Computer scientist Candace Mitchell, CS 11, and chemical engineer Chanel Martin launched their Atlanta-based startup in 2013. “The goal was to leverage science and technology to provide women of color with a personalized haircare experience that takes guessing out of the equation and delivers hair nirvana,” Mitchell says.

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Myavana seeks to tap into this ever-expanding market—with an estimated buying power surpassing $500 billion annually— with the goal of providing end-to-end hair-care guidance to women of color. hairstyle tutorials and homemade solutions to hundreds of thousands of subscribers. No doubt social media has helped this movement gain traction throughout the United States and abroad, Mitchell says.

Increasingly, black women are going online to share stories and tips in their journeys as they move away from harsh chemical straighteners and the synthetic products associated with them, and turn toward unprocessed, curly hair styles and natural products. Myavana seeks to tap into this ever-expanding market—with an estimated buying power surpassing $500 billion annually—with the goal of providing end-to-end hair-care guidance to women of color.

Myavana’s linchpin is its new custom hair analysis service that promises to find the right product for each customer. “Yes, we want women to send us their hair,” Mitchell says. “But only a little bit of it, and just long enough to view the hair through a microscope and to offer customers meaningful hair product recommendations.”

Consumers initiate the process on the Myavana website, where a one-time fee of $49 will buy a single Hair Collection Kit. The kit includes a special comb for the sample, instructions for getting a proper cross section, a questionnaire and pre-paid postage. Once the kit arrives at the Myavana lab—the company rents space on campus at the Institute for

Electronics and Nanotechnology—the hair strands undergo a nine-point data analysis.

Let’s say a customer complains of dry and frizzy hair. “We look at a few things,” Mitchell says, “from the porosity of the hair (the ability of the hair to retain moisture) to its elasticity (its ability to go from curly to straight then return to the original curl pattern).”

The customer’s data is then run through Myavana’s recommendation system. According to Mitchell, the company’s database includes analyses of close to 1,000 products, which have been reviewed based on ingredient composition and how they react to different types of hair. The customer is then matched with a set of products based on the analysis, which the buyer receives in the mail. Customers also each receive a personalized hair-care regimen and several sample products chosen specifically to help individual users reach their desired hair goals.

The Myavana report even goes on to

∏ Myavana Founders Candace Mitchell (top right) and Chanel Martin are leveraging web and social media platforms to deliver hair-care solutions. suggest specific hairstyles and salons in the customer’s area. Mitchell says that users can track their “hair journey” over time on the mobile app. “It’s like getting a personal hair coach,” she says.

The company also sells a subscription

service, where for $25 every three months, customers receive sample products with an updated regimen.

Myavana’s current focus is raising cash before the first round of seed funding closes and spreading the word about tis service. The mobile platform already has about 7,000 users, Mitchell says, and the personal hair analysis component exited the beta stage to fully launch earlier this year. The startup also partners with hair product manufacturers such as Eden BodyWorks (founded by Tech alumna Jasmine Lawrence, CS 13), Coco Curls (founded by Tech alumna Jeannell Darden, IE 08), Georgia-based Design Essentials and several others. The companies advertise on the Myavana platform, sponsor events and supply products.

Myavana has great potential—in time, it could become a hair-care lifeline for black women, connecting customers with the products that are best for them, while cutting out the time-consuming waste of trial and error.

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Start Me Up WRITTEN BY VICKEY WILLIAMS

With all apologies to The Rolling Stones, some of the biggest rock stars to ever step foot on campus are the students, faculty members and independent entrepreneurs who’ve partnered with Tech to turn their innovative ideas into new companies. Find out all the ways the Institute helps these upstarts get out of the proverbial garage and onto the big stage.

Long before the word “startup” entered the business vernacular, Georgia Tech

was in the business of helping inventors inside and outside Tech get a leg up creating their own companies, particularly those centered on Tech research. A dozen years ago this was called “new venture formation.”

Whatever the label, these days Georgia Tech’s impact on entrepreneurship is chronicled in what are frequently jawdropping headlines. The most recent tally: Tech-based programs supported 505 technology startup companies that generated capital investments totaling more than $270 million last fiscal year.

Startups can enter the Institute’s mammoth support system through dozens of

pathways, including those dreamed up by Yellow Jacket undergraduates. And more points of entry are on the way—in an ongoing expansion that is both synergistic and deliberate—says Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson.

The godfather of Tech’s startup endeavors is the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), founded in 1980 and still building momentum. Last fiscal year, the ATDC was credited with helping its incubator companies and program graduates achieve more than $1.6 billion in revenue.

Moreover, the Institute’s 25-year strategic plan called for increased support for innovation and entrepreneurship. And many of the scenarios envisioned five years ago have already become reality, Peterson says. Startups are now happening virtually everywhere across campus.

In engineering and computer science labs, through corporate innovation centers springing up in Technology Square and even via loose supper clubs, brilliant ideas are being turned into

viable companies. Gaps are quickly being closed between prototype creation and commercialization in a startup environment where boundaries between the old and new fall away. Name drop that your entrepreneurial effort is based at Tech, and top execs at Fortune 500 companies will take your cold calls and potential customers will make time to answer your surveys.

“Georgia Tech’s focus on research and commercialization, as well its statewide support of industry, is drawing major corporations to campus,” says Executive Vice President for Research Steve Cross.

“They’re coming to co-innovate, explore technical trends and access our outstanding students and entrepreneurs.”

For students at Tech—many of whom are more interested in creating their own jobs than seeking employment in the corporate workforce—the startup bug is easy to catch and hard to shake.

Aaron Finkel is a mechanical engineering student who also works as a prototyping instructor at the Invention

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Studio, an innovation workspace geared for undergraduates but open to everyone at Tech. Think of this studio as a traditional workshop on steroids, where students have access to an incredible array of materials and tools, including 3-D printers.

The startup and “create” movements at the Institute have become so popular, the studio has spilled over from a singular space to multiple locations across campus.

Indeed, the second-floor location in the Manufacturing Research Center where Finkel helps fellow students is often packed with those eager to build prototypes. Asked who else sitting nearby might be thinking of inventing their

own products or building their own company, Finkel’s answer was quick: “Pretty near damned well everybody.”

Finkel, of course, couldn’t help but get caught up in the activity himself.

He’s already applied for patents on two designs of his own: One is a specialized folding knife, the other a laser-cut business card that breaks into its own stand. He expects to start his own company someday, but hopes to explore the Seattle job market first.

Nowhere is the startup vibe higher than in and around the startup neighborhood of Technology Square, a nexus of innovation centered at the intersection of Spring and Fifth streets. (See story on page 25.) Tech Square is a

bustling cafeteria where there’s something for everybody. For the student scientist: help with funding, licensing and more. For the outsider entrepreneur who doesn’t have a background in technology: partnerships with Georgia Tech faculty and access to labs. For both: experienced mentors to help find the answers to “Will it work?” and “Will it sell?”

Read on to find out more about Tech’s strategic vision for building a culture that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship, and meet some of the startup founders—including alumni and students—who are thriving thanks to the Institute’s support.

Born to be Wild

TECH’S INNOVATION INCUBATORS AIMED TO DISRUPT Wrapping your brain around how

Georgia Tech’s startup system works—on one level—is fairly elementary, says Stephen Fleming, Phys 83, vice president of Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2). (See our profile on Fleming on page 20.) “There’s teaching students for the advancement of their skillsets and there’s creating companies for economic development,” he says.

However, once you head past this fork in the road at Tech, he says, things get more complicated. “First off, our startup system is not a conveyor belt,” he says. “There are lots of different moving pieces and not everybody goes through the same way.”

EI2 is one of the nation’s largest and most comprehensive university-based programs of business and industry assistance, technology commercialization and economic development. A couple dozen programs fall under the EI2 umbrella, but the primary doors through which most would-be startups arrive are:

∂ The Advanced Technology Develop-

ment Center (ATDC), an incubator that helps develop new companies—even those that don’t originate at Tech.

∂ VentureLab, which specifically helps

Georgia Tech students, faculty and staff

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commercialize their innovations and research (see related story on page 44).

∂ Flashpoint, a rigorous management

education program that demands a fourmonth, full-time commitment from company founders to use “startup engineering” to find unmet demands in the marketplace and build companies to fulfill them (see related story on page 46).

ATDC, created in 1980, is geared for highpotential, Georgia-based tech companies looking for education opportunities to accelerate growth and commercialization.

It not only provides connections to angel investors and technology-hungry Fortune 1000 companies, but also startup mentors—including “entrepreneurs-inresidence”—who’ve successfully launched their own firms. Typically, ATDC offers a three-year incubation program where companies can lease suite space in the 42,000 square feet available in Tech Square, as well as in 15,000 square feet of wet lab space on Tech campus.

Companies that have graduated from ATDC have attracted nearly $2.8 billion in investment capital to date since the program was founded more than 35 years ago.

“At the ATDC, the metric is not necessarily

∏ (Above) Members of the latest Advanced Technology Development

Center’s (ATDC) Select Class graudated this spring. (Right) The ATDC also recently opened its own design studio to help companies build prototypes.

learning,” Fleming says. “The metric there is jobs in Georgia, the metric there is dollars invested, the metric is dollars in revenue.”

Wayne Hodges, vice provost emeritus of EI2 and chairman of the Tech-affiliated Global Center for Medical Innovation—a non-profit formed to commercialize and develop medical devices—came to Tech in 1970 and has seen an evolution of Tech’s entrepreneurship infrastructure.

He remembers a period some years after the creation of ATDC when economic developers began to look into why more companies had not sprung from Georgia Tech research. “We found there were barriers to faculty developing companies,” Hodges says. “Most importantly, there wasn’t any support system for these faculty members. They were kind of out there on their own, trying to develop and run their companies by themselves with little help from the Institute.”

Consequently, many never made the trek to success. But things have changed.VentureLab was born in 2001 specifically to address this need, and quickly became the model the National Science Foundation uses to help faculty at other universities, Hodges says. (Today, NSF-funded companies participate in VentureLab through the I-Corps program.)

Now when students or faculty who have an idea they think might have promise in the real world, they can approach VentureLab for help in figuring out how to commercialize a product, service or technology. They then may move onto ATDC as their ideas take off and they move closer to going to market. Meanwhile, outside entrepreneurs are still very welcome at Tech, and they can apply directly for help with ATDC

or one of the other EI2 programs geared to spur Georgia-based startups.

“We’re not only accelerating the rate of startup company formation at Georgia Tech,” says Executive Vice President of Research Steve Cross, “we are enhancing their chances of success and willingness to stay in the state by brokering relationships with major corporations in key markets that are of strategic importance to the state of Georgia.”

Both ATDC and VentureLab boast clients who come back for repeat partnerships. Fleming explains the phenomenon of the serial entrepreneur this way: “Some who come though the ATDC process will understand the value of the incubator. The way it typically works, the founder takes the company out, grows it, scales it and hopefully is very successful with it. Then the founder typically sells it. Or merges it with some other entity that doesn’t need

the entrepreneur anymore. So the founder will come back and do it again with another idea or innovation.”

Fleming has observed—and knows first hand—that creating your own companies can be addictive. “After succeeding, it’s hard for them to go to work for a big corporation,” he says. “They want to create their own jobs, they want to be their own boss.”

That’s how it worked for Jim Stratigos, EE 74, MS EE 80, a serial entrepreneur

who in January launched his fifth company, Cognosos. It’s the third he’s run through ATDC, and his company has leased workspace in Technology Square’s Centergy building on Fifth Street. “I think it’s a disease,” he says about his compulsion to create new companies. “I like to tinker, but I’m not a tinkerer for tinkering’s sake, but rather to solve problems.”

The Cognosos tag line is “sensing as a

By the Numbers: EI2 Startup Impact As Georgia Tech’s chief business outreach and economic development organization, the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2) has a broad mission beyond startups. But its impact on helping entrepreneurs and scientists looking to begin new ventures can’t be ignored. In fiscal year 2014, EI2 has: Assisted Georgia Tech faculty members in evaluating 235

research innovations and helped form more than 30 new companies based on this intellectual property. In all, Georgia Tech research innovations drew $33 million in direct investment and created 737 jobs.

Served 505 technology startup companies that generated capital activity (venture capital investment and mergers/acquisitions) of more than $270 million.

Helped Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) companies and graduates achieve more than $1.6 billion in revenue.

Companies associated with the ATDC have attracted near $2.8 billion in investment capital to date.

Helped 20 Georgia companies prepare proposals for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants and win more than $11 million in awards.

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service.” In a nutshell, it couples hardware—low-cost sensors—with wireless data collection to give you a reading on, well, almost anything via a smart device. For example, imagine a sensor to detect the volume of trash in a garbage container to tell a sanitation truck driver whether to stop; sensors in the pavement of a parking lot to indicate the number of spaces vacant; sensors all over a farm that report everything from the moisture in soil to the activity level of a single cow.

The 62-year-old Stratigos tried retirement once but came back.

Companies of 50 or fewer employees are his sweet spot, and he likes the vibe at Tech Square. He’s been through VentureLab programs and also mentored others going through them. Stratigos has also served as a judge for the Capstone Design Expo, a showcase for graduating students’ innovations (see related story on page 18).

He got involved in creating startups in 1983 and has not worked for a large corporation since. His first company was sold to AT&T, the second to Dish Network.

Stratigos is drawn to the ATDC experience for its proximity to campus, the Georgia Resource Alliance seed grants and loans it can connect him with, and the intangible benefits of the environment. He likes taking technology developed here or furthered here and commercializing it. Of the ATDC route, “it’s not a course, it’s an experience,” Stratigos says.

He hopes to have his current company’s services in beta testing in four to six months. After this, will there be another? “Ask me again in two or three years,” he says.

While outsiders generally perceive ATDC as a single incubator, Fleming clarifies that’s not the case. “There are lots,” he says. While ATDC’s main headquarters is in Tech Square, there is a satellite on campus in the Ford Environmental Sciences and Technology Building for life sciences startups. There’s also a satellite facility in Savannah. Two other small facilities will open soon on campus. The planned work in those facilities will complement what’s going on in the Ford Building—one focused on medical devices and one focused on microelectronic systems.

All three of these EI2 programs—ATDC, VentureLab and Flashpoint—boast remarkable outcomes and impacts. Funding for these programs comes from a variety of sources. “We don’t want anyone to fail for lack of capital,” Fleming says.

ATDC itself is funded by a line item in the state budget and its appropriation has been stable for the last several years. VentureLab companies—again, the ones started by Tech students and faculty that involve Georgia Tech intellectual property—can receive assistance in the form of grants, loans or equity investments. I-Corps projects get their funding through NSF grants before being accepted into VentureLab. Of course, entrepreneurs sometimes sustain themselves in the early days of startup formation by bootstrapping via personal savings, help from family or crowdsourcing on the Internet, Fleming says.

He hopes for more investments along the lines of the one recently announced by entrepreneur Chris Klaus, whose CREATE-X gift and investment of $2 million will provide $20,000 in seed money to every undergraduate inventor team enrolled in the Startup Summer program this year and next. “There needs to be a consistent series of donations and investments from alumni to make this real,” Fleming says.

Stratigos agrees: “At my 40th reunion last year, our class targeted our gift to awards for entrepreneurship prizes.”

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A Day in the Life

A LOOK AT ENTREPRENEURS HARD AT WORK Tech Square’s Centergy building— the main headquarters for ATDC, VentureLab and other innovation efforts—bustles with startup activity.

It is late morning and eight startup founders await a 10-minute grilling by a team of veteran entrepreneurs during an ATDC customer discovery session. In a multi-week assignment, they’ve been told to speak to 100 wouldbe users of the product or service they want to launch.

This morning, they stand up in turn to enumerate the number of interviews achieved this week. Did the feedback cause them to “pivot,” or change their plans?

“10,” “19,” “8” … come the answers to the question: “How many interviews this week?”

“27,” “89,” “36,” … come the responses on total interviews. The guy with 89 is told relatives and friends don’t count.

As they report out, time after time the mentors steer them away from frequent lapses into descriptions of their product, their service, their baby.

Instead, the ATDC mentors leading the session want to know what the customers said.

“Where’s the pain point?” Jennifer Bonnett, ATDC assistant director of education and community outreach, asks a female entrepreneur. In other words, what urgent need did a customer express that only her product can fulfill?

“There’s one reason they’ll act and 5 million reasons they won’t,” says another mentor.

Likewise, there will be no discussion today of social marketing strategy or how hard it is to get FDA clearance for a medical device. Bonnett and Entrepreneur-in-Residence Jane McCracken sympathize briefly but steer conversation back to the topic.

A man who wants to launch a service reIn addition to VentureLab’s help in locating lated to the entertainment industry says he’s the right scientists on campus, the exposure picking up in his interviews that men might not be willing to buy it. Finally, the kind of data to other entrepreneurs has been a key the experts want to hear. “Will you proceed?” benefit of his ATDC experience, Leaders says.

The inventor of a device related to oxygen use at home is told he can’t avoid finding some doctors who’ll agree to hear out his plans and say whether they time. He knew measuring flow quantity by ultrasonic means would be likely to prescribe his invention. He says he’s happy there’s wasn’t new, having been widely used in medicine to monitor the no class next week because he needs the extra time. health of developing babies as well as blood flow in heart patients.

VentureLab put him in contact with two faculty members in Meanwhile, in an adjacent office, Jeff Leaders, the startthe School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Tom and up founder of Soneter, has a prototype running and linked to Jennifer Michaels, who have extensive experience in methods for his smartphone, ready to demonstrate how something called ultrasonic measurement. The result of the collaboration is a new SMARTFlow technology works. Soneter is one of the compatype of meter that can sit atop a pipe. It learns flow patterns and nies that just days ago “graduated” from ATDC’s rigorous and can come to discern if usage is via shower, sink or toilet. It can also intensive Select program, and was featured in a showcase event. tell if flow is occurring at a time when the owner is out and send His product is a water meter that tracks flow ultrasonically and an alert. Lowes and Home Depot like it for smarthome do-itcan be installed without the need for cutting pipe. It deploys yourselfers, and it should be in those stores later this year. cloud technology to compute usage and alert homeowners and In addition to VentureLab’s help in locating the right scientists businesses of their data via phone or other smart device. on Tech’s campus, the exposure to other entrepreneurs has been a Leaders’ route to becoming an ATDC partner was atypical in that he brought a technology concept “from the outside in,” looking for help to make it real. He’s a graduate of the University of Kansas and Iowa State University with a background in urban planning.

Leaders says he was he working in the multifamily housing industry and frequently heard apartment dwellers complain of unfairness in their water bills. Because the complex was on a single meter, someone who traveled for work and left her home vacant a large part of the month paid the same as a family with several kids who consistently consumed large quantities for showers and laundry. He went to a plumber and learned converting to multiple meters would be costly.

At the same time, droughts were raising awareness of the need for green solutions to protect water resources overall. “Even the trickle from a bad commode tank flap wastes nearly 60 gallons of water an hour,” he says.

“Until now, tracking water usage was largely something you did in the rear-view mirror, if you think about it,” Leaders says.

Short of a catastrophic problem, the leak usually goes undetected for a while. Additionally, the tools for finding problem spots could be pretty elementary, such as putting water pucks into the ground to find areas of unusually high moisture. ∏ Rigor, founded by Craig Hyde, CmpE 05, is one ATDC Select company So about five years ago he set to work on a making quite a buzz. The Technology Association of Georgia recently named the software company the most innovative startup in the state. simple add-on meter that would work in real GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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key benefit of his ATDC experience, Leaders says. It also helped him qualify for a Georgia Research Alliance research grant. In its first seed-funding round, Soneter recently obtained $6 million from GRA Ventures—the commercialization arm of the Georgia Research Alliance—and Flextronics.

Leaders envisions keeping the company in Atlanta. He has eight full-time engineers on staff, all Georgia Tech graduates, and says he’s looking for three more.

“I saw this big pain point in the market and nobody was addressing it,” Hyde says. He was introduced, by Jordan Rackie, a friend and GT classmate, to David Cummings who invested in the idea and helped co-found the company. Once off the ground, Hyde and Hubert Liu, a fellow Tech grad who is now Rigor’s chief technology officer, put their heads down for about 18 months, writing code to build a software solution.

“They have a plaque on the wall of all the companies that graduate,” Hyde says. “You’ll see just about every major software company in “You’ll see just about every major software the city of Atlanta has its roots in ATDC.” company in the city of Atlanta has its roots in And some of those founders come back as entrepreneurs-in-residence.

ATDC,” says Craig Hyde, founder of Rigor.

“That’s one of the most important things, the level of people that come back to be Another ATDC startup making headlines for its success mentors,” he says. “They’ve ‘been there, done that’ multiple is Rigor. times.” Hyde remembers—with affection—ATDC Entre“They say it’s rare to learn in college what you actually preneur-in-Residence Dan Ciprari, CEO and co-founder do in the real world, but I’m pretty much doing exactly of Pointivo, challenging him to “quit going slow and invest what I set out to do at Georgia Tech,” says Craig Hyde, more into what’s working.”

CmpE 05, founder of Rigor, another member of the reAnother major benefit was connecting with other startcently graduated class of ATDC Select companies. “I was ups at the weekly roundtables, Hyde says. “Not only was it a computer engineering major, went to the Scheller Colthe first time I’ve ever done something like this, but you’re lege of Business and got an entrepreneur’s certificate, out on an island as an entrepreneur,” he says. “So it’s good to and here I am at working at a software company that I have a network of people who are showing signs of success started.” you can bounce things off of.”

Rigor deploys software as a service (SaaS) technology to Hyde ticks off a heaping handful of other advantages monitor and troubleshoot their websites and related appliculled from the ATDC experience, including the muscle of cations. Clients include MTV, Belk, Home Depot and The it being state-supported, the Tech Square location and help Weather Channel. with recruiting. “Some of the smartest kids in the world are After graduating from Tech, Hyde was a business conwalking past this place every day,” he says. sultant for a couple of companies that were focused on In the last few months, the Atlanta Business Chronicle network and infrastructure testing and management. picked Rigor to top its small employer category for its best With the advent of cloud computing, companies no lonplace to work, the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) ger own the infrastructure their technology is run on. Hyde labeled it the most innovative startup in the state, and the didn’t like what he saw coming forth as the new options for MAX awards named it the top startup in Georgia.For the monitoring traffic flow, discerning when trouble occurs entrepreneur, competitions and awards like these “provide and then fixing it. some social proof that we’re the real deal,” Hyde says.

Learning to Fly

VENTURELAB HELPS MAKE GEORGIA TECH IDEAS TAKE OFF Walk into VentureLab and you’ll see a wall covered with 140 multicolored sticky notes. They’re arranged in columns labeled Thesis, Discovery, Validation, Creation and Growth. A smaller box at the far right has an additional 25 notes labeled Trophy Case.

The 140 sticky notes represent the companies under active tutelage at VentureLab, headquartered on the fourth floor of the Centergy One Building at Tech Square, as well as at which stage they reside, says Director Keith McGreggor, CS 82, MS CS 87, PhD CS 13.

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growing every day,” McGreggor says. “Not all of these are formed companies at all. Maybe 30 are legal entities, but remember we get them early and we shepherd them through deciding whether they should even be a company or not.”

The 25 in the Trophy Case are those that have graduated.

“They’re who we brag on,” says Colin Ake, Mgt 09, an entrepreneur and VentureLab principal.

Founded in 2001, VentureLab helps Tech students, faculty and researchers bridge the gap from the lab to commercialization. It also collaborates with the College of Engineering to provide undergraduates with hands-on

∏ VentureLab Director Keith McGreggor (above) and his staff teach Tech students and faculty how to take their ideas and build companies around them. educational programs such as Startup Lab and Startup Summer (which now are being rolled under the new CREATE-X initiative—see story on page 47).

McGreggor says his organization is scaling rapidly to meet the demands of faculty and students interested in creating startups.

VentureLab is not only big, but also effective. It was ranked No. 2 among U.S. university business incubators by UBI Index, a Stockholm-based consulting group, and placed No. 17 globally. Since its inception, VentureLab has launched approximately 150 companies and helped them attract more than $1 billion in outside funding.

“Sometimes we work with people who walk in the door with the barest sketch of an idea,” McGreggor says. He has been known to uncover a great business idea by digging into the invention disclosures Georgia Tech researchers file when they lay credit for something new. More often these days, these researchers know to come to him and his team for help in commercializing their ideas.

Because VentureLab doesn’t take any equity or royalties from the entities it helps, it can give unvarnished advice.

Last year the Enterprise Innovation Institute, VentureLab’s parent organization, reports having assisted Georgia Tech faculty members in evaluating 235 research innovations and helping form more than 30 new companies

based on this intellectual property. In all, Georgia Tech research innovations drew $33 million in direct investment and created 737 jobs.

“We usually see two new opportunities every single day based on the work of Georgia Tech students, faculty and staff,” McGreggor says. That’s a lot of innovation, perhaps an overwhelming amount that would scare away those with limited capacity.

“But that’s not the way we do things,” he says “The challenge for growing VentureLab was to create a group of people

“It’s not that you want to find the right executive team, you don’t need to write a business plan or have investors in mind,” he says. “But if you don’t have a customer, you don’t have a company— you have a hobby.”

McGreggor says that entrepreneurs who come from a science background tend to fixate on getting the science or the technology perfect. “So we tell them: ‘Let’s pretend, just for a little while, that everything you wanted to do technologically has been done. It has worked out beyond your wildest dreams’,” he says.

This forces them to focus on the customer, which almost always proves startling for the science-minded entrepreneur. “Guess what happens? Almost every time what a team realizes is that it should not build what they thought they were going to build and they discover what they ought to build instead,” McGreggor says. By doing this, entrepreneurs save precious time—as well as a lot of money—trying to perfect a technology that might not have a customer.

Another hallmark of VentureLab’s skillset is matchmaking. McGreggor says inventors can come as an individual or a team, but sometimes co-founders surface through the work.

“For example, if somebody comes in with a great sensor, we can connect them with alumni who work on batteries and capacitors, too,” he says.

“The challenge for growing VentureLab was to create a group of people and a process that could scale with Georgia Tech and manage that infall,” McGreggor says. and a process that could scale with Georgia Tech and manage that infall.”

When an idea comes in the door, “we really don’t know if it’s fantastic or horrible,” McGreggor says. “So how do we figure out whether it’s worth pursuing? The answer turns out to be you have to go back to business basics.

Every successful company has a customer with a specific need.”

VentureLab asks its clients to learn “who those customers might be and why they might be motivated to buy,” McGreggor says. “Just that. But that turns out to be the hardest thing ever.”

Often, he finds the inventor has been focused on other considerations.

Lessons learned through VentureLab, ATDC and those surfacing via the more recent Flashpoint initiative give Tech’s startup programs long legs, says McGreggor. VentureLab has partnered with seven universities throughout the South, and has taught a session in Puerto Rico and will soon teach its second in France.

“Many Tech alumni will recall the rigorous drownproofing class that was required for decades,” McGreggor says.

“We see entrepreneurship as a new kind of life-saving drill. We teach students how to build startups without sinking or drowning.”

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Good Vibrations

FLASHPOINT EMPHASIZES MAKING POSITIVE SOCIETAL IMPACT Flashpoint is one of the newest players in the startup

s y s t e m at G e o r g i a Te c h — a r r i v i n g o n the scene in 2012— and it’s also one of the most demanding and unusual. It’s a management and educational program geared to help early-stage startups find authentic demand and minimize risk through a process called “startup engineering.” Flashpoint requires an intense, full-time engagement for at least four months from company founders who apply for a seat in the program. ∏ Flashpoint’s Merrick Furst uses “startup engineering” to teach company Founder and director Merrick Furst—who founders how to find authentic demand for their products and services. calls Flashpoint a first-of-its-kind program the duration of the startup partnership, as well as the renationally—hopes its techniques will be broadly shared to sources the startup must commit and what it receives as a help unleash the inclinations of the millennial generation to participant in the program. While stressing the model has better the world, not just make money. (However, making changed and will likely change again, Flashpoint typicalmoney is fine, too.) ly invests a small amount in the startups it accepts—around The process accentuates finding authentic demand, while at $20,000 each or about an 8 percent stake—though it can the same time tamping down founder bias. Flashpoint began vary, he says. Furst says Flashpoint aspires to eventually be a by working with startups exclusively, but now helps corporate net generator of revenue. clients as well, and a team from Coca-Cola Enterprises partic“The situation with startups is they need cash and they ipated in Flashpoint’s last session. can’t pay for things,” he says. “So if you want to work with Moving the venture from a gamble to something closer to them, you have to allow that your upside might come a sure thing is what drives Flashpoint, explains Furst. “We’re through appreciation of shares. You have to find a structure that works The 45 startups that have completed the that’s affordable for them and actually gives you a chance of ever seeing engagement so far have attracted more than a return.” $150 million in venture funds from first-tier The competition for seats at investors, and their combined portfolio value is Flashpoint is fierce. The acceptance rate of applicants hovers more than a half-billion dollars, Furst says. around 6 percent. But those who get in frequently flourish. Though Furst takes care to not overpromise, but the numbers are trying to turn something from being artisanal to being indusimpressive. The 45 startups that have completed the entrializable,” Furst says. “If you’re just rolling the dice, looking for gagement so far have attracted more than $150 million a big upside, we think you can make it happen versus just hopin venture funds from first-tier investors, and their coming that it happens.” bined portfolio value is more than a half-billion dollars, If that sounds positive, know that Furst is known as a particularhe says. ly tough startup mentor. He once recalled to an audience of Atlanta business leaders an instance when he’d made an entrepreneur Furst has kept a foot in the worlds of both academics and busiweep. And in a recent Forbes magazine interview, he emphasized ness throughout his career, which includes faculty positions at unbridled candor as a key attribute for founder teams. the University of California at Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon beFurst also is a master of the double negative, explaining the goal fore coming to Georgia Tech a dozen years ago. Flashpoint itself is to deliver a product or service the customer “cannot not buy.” is his eighth startup.

A true experiment, elements of Flashpoint’s operational It was envisioned as a one-year experiment, and from model remain in flux—on purpose. Furst continues to hone the start Furst and his colleagues did their best to avoid the 0 4 6

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common traps that prevent success. “The agreement was it would take a small amount of funding and it wouldn’t come from an existing organization,” Furst says. “What we know about innovation is if you ask an existing organization to fund another that might disrupt it, that always fails.”

The truth is, Furst says, most startups don’t succeed.

And their failure is often rooted in old, antiquated approaches that no longer work.

“That’s just the way it is,” Furst says. “So we wondered, ‘Might there be a single root cause of most of the failure that we could find a way to manage around?’”

Furst says he believes it is nothing less than the builtin bias inherent in every human being.

“There is a replica of the world we carry around in our heads, a mindset we have, that we don’t even notice we have,” he says. “We think we know how the world works.

But that replica is just not that accurate or realistic.”

So when Furst and others at Flashpoint mentor entrepreneurs in the program, they often have to contend with idealistic or otherwise biased preconceptions that don’t match reality. Founders are biased in ways they can’t see, says Furst, especially as they envision getting people to buy their new products. These biases come out and “rub up against the real world in a bad way,” he says.

Beyond the internal bias of the investor, there is a second problem, Furst says. To get customers to buy something from you, you have to get them to change their behavior, too. “Founders have to accept that they have to help them manage this change,” Furst says.

Change is also something that often needs to happen within the startup itself. “Change is incredibly hard,” Furst says.

So dispelling myths on all three levels is required, as Furst puts it: “You have to see the world, see how the world has a problem changing, and then you have to see how you have a problem changing in order to make it possible for the world to change. You have to tend to all three because if you don’t, your startup will have an extraordinarily high chance of failure.”

The Enterprise Innnovation Institute’s Stephen Fleming believe that the unconvential Flashpoint approach is working. “A lot of companies have raised a lot of money, been successful, shipped a lot of products,” Fleming says. “Some of the things learned out of Flashpoint have been filtered back through other programs on campus and it has also extended far beyond.”

Furst—in his goal to make a positive societal impact—wants to share the Flashpoint model with others. Flashpoint sometimes sponsors free workshops, such as recent sessions where a couple of hundred inventors were invited to hear about startup basics and angel investors got advice on making better decisions, Furst says.

“From our position, it’s important that we help startups and their processes in any way we can,” he says.

“We’re quite interested in making it accessible. We think it’s new and we believe it runs counter to a lot of approaches out there.”

We Will Rock You STUDENTS PIVOTAL TO TECH’S STARTUP SUCCESS Yellow Jacket undergraduates have always been invited to develop their ideas and build their own companies using Tech’s startup resources.

And Institute leaders, faculty and alumni continue to work hard to ensure students play an integral role in the system. “We kept having undergraduates come knock on the door at Tech Square and say ‘Can you help?’” says EI2’s Stephen Fleming.

“We’d always say ‘Sure, come on in.’ And then another one came, and another one.” And while students were never turned away, Fleming and others knew there needed to be a more systematic way to funnel their enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit.

Earlier this spring, former student and technology entrepreneur Chris Klaus upped the ante by supporting CREATE-X, a new initiative from the Institute and the College of Engineering that formally unifies several startup programs geared for Tech undergraduates.

Klaus has dedicated $2 million to the effort, including a $1 million “founding gift” for CREATE-X operations that should fund it for at least three years. The other $1 million serves as seed in- ∏ SonoFast president Keller Tomassi vestment money for Startup Summer teams—$20,000 each—for which a student startup fund will receive about a 7 percent stake, regardless if the teams succeed or not. “There’s no expectation on them, except that they’ll explore the startup process and try to commercialize their ideas,” Klaus says.

As an undergraduate computer science student at Tech in the early 1990s, Klaus came up with an idea for a software company to help protect corporate networks from online attacks. “I didn’t have many startup resources available to me at Tech, so I took a break from school to focus on my company,” Klaus says. “I want today’s undergraduates to be able to stay in school while they’re pursuing their startup ideas. CREATE-X will be a revolutionary program for Georgia Tech, and I’m thrilled to help the Institute’s efforts in getting students excited about innovation and entrepreneurship.”

Klaus turned his idea into a company called Internet Security Systems, a very successful venture that eventually sold to IBM in 2006 for a whopping $1.6 billion. He’s currently the CEO of Kaneva, a social gaming company, and is a huge supporter of Tech innovation. As most on campus know, Klaus is the namesake for the Klaus Advanced Computing Building.

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finished its pilot run last year, helping to launch eight companies during an intensive 12-week session where student teams worked together to build businesses based on their inventions.

Startup House—a dormitory floor that is currently the penthouse of the John Patrick Crecine Apartments that opened in the fall and is overseen by VentureLab—was well-received, as was Startup Lab, a semester-long course that went from 30 student enrollees in its first run to 120 in its second.

Even earlier, students have been encouraged to invent and cre-

Tomassi says. “We got accepted into several accelerators but opted to stay at Georgia Tech because we’d heard great success stories from VentureLab’s Startup Gauntlet. The resources here at Tech are invaluable. We have access to state-of-the-art wet lab space, renowned chemical and material science faculty and active entrepreneurs, as well as an extensive research network and hospital affiliations.”

An early pitch positioned the pad as allowing an OB-GYN office to distinguish itself for increased customer satisfaction. “We have pivoted and found new entry market applications,” Tomassi says. Namely, SonoFAST might have even greater potential for use in lithotripsy, the treatment of kid“I didn’t plan my sophomore year to go ney stones through targeted shockwaves. this route. But if you have skills to make a “Some complications arise through the use of liquid gel. The procedure lasts 30 to 40 minutes and air product to better people’s lives, it’s worth bubbles form,” Tomassi says. This makes the gel less it to take a chance,” Tomassi says. effective for transmitting shockwaves and dissolving the kidney stone. “The SonoFAST pad replaces the ate their own companies via two high-profile competitions—the gel and creates a more consistent and effective coupling medium.”

Capstone Design Expo and the InVenture Prize—as well as by take Tomassi says the entrepreneurial movement among students advantage of a high-tech campus workshop, the Invention Studio. grew during his time at Tech and, for him, the seed took root as he Craig Forest is an associate professor of bioengineering who has been spent time building working prototypes for his ideas at the Invena driving force behind all three, co-founding the InVenture Prize (see tion Studio. “I didn’t plan my sophomore year to go this route,” he related article on page 14) and Invention Studio, and leading a masays. “But if you have skills to make a product to better people’s lives, jor overhaul of the Capstone Design Expo (see related article on page it’s worth it to take a chance.”

18), a showcase for seniors in their final semester.

Leading CREATE-X will be Raghupathy Sivakumar, a professor The 2014-15 Capstone Design Expos—one last fall and one this of electrical and computer engineering, who as a serial entreprespring—attracted 172 teams, composed of about 900 students with neur has taken all three of his startups through VentureLab. The 5,000 attendees in the audience, Forest says. “In many ways, it is now message he wants to get across about CREATE-X—loud and a larger celebration of our graduating seniors than commencement,” clear—is that any student pursuing a degree in any discipline can he says. “I mean imagine it: the students standing there with a workhave a way to explore entrepreneurship at even the earliest stage of ing prototype of their invention to show off to fellow students, faculty, his or her college career. potential investors and employers. This is the proudest moment of Sivakumar envisions a day when 300 undergraduate startups their college career.” could be formed every year at Tech. Along with teaching and reThe InVenture Prize student innovation contest started in 2009, search, he says he sees exposure to entrepreneurial thinking as “the and the final round each year is televised on Georgia Public Broadthird leg of what universities must do.” It’s an ambitious goal, but he casting for all of Atlanta to see. “When you have the InVenture believes in five or six years, it could be the norm, given the growth in Prize—with 500 students competing to go on stage for the six fiinterest from students and financial support from companies, invesnalist positions—you know what that does?” Forest says. “That tors and friends like Klaus. changes the conversation. That student on stage is a rock star, that He learned three powerful lessons—all of which will be applied to student is a celebrity on campus.”

CREATE-X moving forward—from the student pilots he co-faciliKeller Tomassi, BME 14, benefitted from a number of the starttated with Keith McGreggor and others from VentureLab. The first up programs after he and three co-founders—formed SonoFAST was that every student who participated in these programs said they for their Capstone project. Tomassi serves as president. SonoFAST changed their lives and their worldviews. The second is that interdisaims to produce a single-use pad to replace the gel currently ciplinary teams work better than teams whose members come from used as a coupling medium in capturing ultrasound images and just one background.And the third lesson is that Tech can’t wait until the transmittance of shockwaves. It is a Class II medical device, just before graduation to introduce students to the startup process. It which requires FDA clearance through a 510(k) filing. has to be introduced early and often.

Upon graduation, the founders saw the company accepted for “Entrepreneurship has to be a mindset we cultivate in students the inaugural run of Startup Summer, during which VentureLab and give them nourishment throughout their undergraduate cafaculty put the company through its paces and it gained a $15,000 reers,” he says. Then, by the time they “get out” of Tech, he adds, seed grant. SonoFAST also took part in an I-Corps South Life Scistudents will have a great deal of startup experience in their arsenal, ence Accelerator specifically designed for health care ventures. and the quality of their work will be that much greater.

Tomassi says the company is finishing up its non-provisional Even if undergraduates don’t go on to become lifelong entreprepatent application and running some pilot testing at Atlanta hospineurs, they’ll gain “entrepreneurial confidence” for more traditional tals. “We’re actively seeking investors for an equity stake that would careers, Sivakumar says. Georgia Tech leaders stress that the maprovide us the funds to complete the process,” he says. And obtainjority of Tech tudents will still look to land corporate positions with ing 510(k) clearance can take a year. established companies in their fields, and that’s a perfectly fine opThe pad idea was originally pitched as a means of increasing pation. But with the experience and skillset that they can learn through tient comfort and saving time by cutting out the cleanup process startup programs, Yellow Jackets will be well equipped to foster inrequired by gel use. “We had a lot of positive feedback from the start,” novation wherever they land and be highly sought-after employees.

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My Generation

WHY STARTUPS RESONATE WITH TODAY’S STUDENTS AND ALUMNI With the who, what, where and how of the Georgia Tech

startup tour covered, the only thing left to ponder is the why.

Institute leaders are eager to explain this by citing both the successes as well as the constant need for innovating their processes and programs.

“Fifteen to 20 years ago, I heard engineering students say they wanted to be a manager,” Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson says. “Today, if you ask that question, they want to start their own companies.”

VentureLab’s Keith McGreggor thinks all graduates should know how to create their own jobs, whether they use that knowledge immediately or never at all. Entrepreneurship should be a “fundamental life skill,” McGreggor says, like balancing a checkbook or driving a car.

He suspects the increased demand being seen for that skillset might be, in his words, “a serendipitous collision of influences.”

“We have a generation arriving that seems to be less riskaverse than ever,” McGreggor says. “We also have a time in technology when it’s very easy to build things,” he adds, noting the 3D printers and other complex tools available to the Tech community in the Invention Studio.

“And, at the same time, we have a definite change of perspective on the part of the faculty and staff that we want to encourage this commercialization and this entrepreneurship.

So these forces are coming together to create a nice nexus of things.”

Flashpoint’s Merrick Furst agrees, but takes it a step further. “I think the notion that there are large corporations and stable societal structures and organizational jobs that people can move into and keep their whole life may not be true anymore,” Furst says. “And I think young people are at least worried about it.”

However, Furst finds another factor more interesting. “There are a lot of young people who aspire to make the world a better place,” he says. “Young people are really interested in purpose and meaning and to be able to have the tools to solve problems through technologies they can create.”

It is bigger than finding a career, says CREATE-X’s Raghupathy Sivakumar. “Georgia Tech students are coming in with the need to change the world,” he says.

companies. The percentage of new jobs created by small startups is quite staggering. Our numbers speak for themselves.”

Likewise, the move toward projects that include a hardware element was a natural one. Peterson cites the work of the Global Center for Medical Innovation and the medical devices it has brought to market in the last few years.

“Starting companies that are based on software and apps is not nearly as costly,” Peterson says. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech has the resources to help with making the hardware, finding a manufacturer, developing the processes—all of which can be especially complicated in the biomedical industry, including the approval process, Peterson notes.

The Enterprise Innovation Institute’s Stephen Fleming and others admit that while there have been great outcomes, Tech’s startup ecosystem isn’t perfect nor would they expect it to be with its rapid growth in recent years. Higher education is generally considered about as nimble as the Queen Mary, and he acknowledges that, while working to get past the last vestiges of change, resistance continues.

“I came thinking I’d fix this in two years and that was 10 years ago last month,” Fleming says. “We’re not expecting things to change overnight. But we do expect change, so things have to be moving in the right direction. The executive leadership team gets that this is part of what a public research university should be doing. That’s not always the case everywhere in the country.

“Georgia Tech students are coming in “We also have some advantages that some other with the need to change the world,” schools like us don’t have, which is where we’re sitting,” Fleming continues. “We created Tech Square Sivakumar says. here in Midtown Atlanta and now we’re taking adPeterson emphasizes that Tech’s focus on innovation, startvantage of Tech Square. There are plenty of great college ups and expansion also are intended to capitalize on a track towns, but unfortunately for those communities, that’s it— record of success that’s been coming out of ATDC programs for they’re just college towns. From where we’re sitting, you could more than 35 years. “With the recession that occurred starting throw a rock and hit the local headquarters of AT&T, and in 2008, there became a tremendously increased interest in you’re going to be able to stumble out of our parking deck and terms of ‘How do we create jobs?’” he says. into NCR’s headquarters. You’ve got these companies right “People very quickly realized the best way to create jobs is in the middle of where Georgia Tech has been sitting for a not by trying to expand major corporations. It‘s by trying to hundred years, and having that sort of interaction is really bebe innovative and creative and trying to create new startup coming valuable to us.”

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What’s up with this shoe?

Keep reading to find out.

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Winning Streak WRITTEN BY OSAYI ENDOLYN | PHOTOS BY JOSH MEISTER

Serial tech entrepreneur and investor Tom Noonan, ME 83, is a perfect 10 for 10 with the companies he’s helped create, beating the long startup odds by following his passions and never giving up.

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If

passion for your work is the key to career success, it’s no wonder Tom Noonan has such an outstanding track record. Over the past two decades, the serial tech entrepreneur and investor says that not one of the 10 businesses he’s launched has failed. Even for someone as practical as Noonan, that’s putting it mildly. His achievements are stunning.

During that time, Noonan has launched a bevy of tech companies such as LeapFrog, Actuation Electronics and Endgame, but he might be best known for the 2007 sale of Internet Security Systems Inc. (ISS)—a firm he co-founded with former Tech student Chris Klaus—to IBM, which carried the impressive price tag of $1.6 billion. The Atlanta-based firm offered security services and software to companies and governments in 48 countries.

Three years later in 2010, Noonan and a few former ISS employees founded JouleX, where they figured out how to control the energy consumption of internet-ready devices. Noonan led the charge as JouleX CEO, all the way to its $107 million acquisition by Cisco less than three years after founding the company.

Today, Noonan is a founding general partner at TechOperators, an Atlanta cyber security and IT solutions firm that selects startups to invest in and helps them grow. Noonan often acts as an adviser, offering guidance to newbie CEOs and making sure the right people meet each other.

But don’t say he’s just a coach. Noonan and his business partners take an active role in the companies they choose to invest in, always considering what contribution a new business will make to the world of tech. That 10-0 winning streak is not just for show. And the game is still very much in play.

“There aren’t too many hard lessons left for me to learn when it comes to building companies,” Noonan says. “Entrepreneurship hasn’t always been the glamour industry it is now, but I’ve always had a passion for it.”

The man has certainly never been afraid to work. An Atlanta native, Noonan grew up off of Briarcliff Road and snagged his first paper route at the age of 8. He delivered the Atlanta Constitution, as it was known then, riding his bike—until he got a better gig at a country club when he turned 12. (It paid $1.60 per hour.) By the time Noonan got to Georgia Tech, he’d

figured out he was wired differently than some of his classmates who were most interested in landing solid jobs with Fortune 500 companies. He converted old Coca-Cola vending machines so that they sold beer cans instead, and placed them (where else?) in houses up and down frat row.

After getting out of Tech, Noonan went on to earn an MBA from Harvard University in 1988. He then worked for a handful of large companies where he probably wasn’t as appreciative of the learning opportunities as he could have been.

No matter. Noonan would soon find himself in a baptism by fire of his own making, one that would test his commitment and business mettle, and teach him all he’d ever need to know about maxing out Visa credit cards.

“For a person to leave a good paying job, to take that risk, to abandon the idea of work-life balance,” Noonan muses about entrepreneurship, “a virus must have gotten into his head.”

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“For a person to leave a good paying job, to take that

risk, to abandon the idea of work-life balance,” Noonan muses about entrepreneurship, “a virus must have gotten into his head.”

It’s true. There is a thing that entrepreneurs get, but they don’t call it a virus. They call it an idea. Chris Klaus had such an idea based on preemptive enterprise security in the burgeoning days of the Internet in the early 1990s.

He wanted to help businesses protect their networks from threats that weren’t even potential threats yet. Klaus left Tech to pursue what would become ISS, and he soon brought Noonan on board as co-founder and CEO to leverage his tech industry expertise and business savvy.

Together, their mission was to be proactive and practical, to build the technology to automatically assess where their customers were weak, then protect those weaknesses with the intrusion prevention technology they were pioneering.

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“Those shoes became a symbol for the company from that day on. It was about the desire to keep fighting, despite all odds.”

ISS would eventually boast 3,000 employees and 8,000 customers, and have marquee representation on the NASDAQ and the Tokyo Stock Exchange. But long before all that, the company was bleeding money, which is to say that Noonan was almost completely out of cash.

“I’d invested all my savings in ISS, but we didn’t have paying customers yet,” Noonan remembers.

The stress of the period has alleviated with time and repetition, but it was a difficult experience. With a résumé as long as his, Noonan naturally gives a lot of speeches about entrepreneurship. This part of the story—about being broke, five months behind on the mortgage payment, and all with a wife and three kids at home—is a dramatic point in the 0 5 6 0 5 4

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repertoire. But so is what happened next.

To save the company from immediate ruin, Noonan applied for a Visa card and withdrew a cash advance. Then he applied for another and withdrew more cash. Then another. He got up to 37 fully maxed out cards, and he still needed more cash before his product would be ready.

Something about hitting 38 was just too much. He’d had enough of Visa. Noonan asked another Tech alum for help. He called John Imlay. (Note: Sadly, John Imlay passed away in March. See the tribute to him on page 106).

“I’ve had a lot of mentors in my day, starting with my father,” Noonan says.

“But John has shared his most unbelievable gift of salesmanship with me. He taught me that if you want to do just about anything in life, you better learn to sell.”

Noonan was a student when he met Imlay, who spoke at an executive roundtable on campus. Now, years later, here was Noonan seeking him out for critical advice and capital. Noonan’s sales pitch delivered, because Imlay was impressed.

In addition to offering a few life lessons, Imlay invested $100,000 in the company, the first six-figure win for Noonan.

Around this time, when ISS was just starting out, Noonan was being recruited by the CEO of a large tech company in California. The CEO wanted him to serve on his executive team, and Noonan, who’d been vice president of marketing at Dun & Bradstreet, had the necessary experience.

He wasn’t sure what to do—see his company through, or head off to Redwood City?

Ultimately, Noonan says, he sent the CEO an email that explained how he was going to start an internet security firm.

“My secretary intercepted his reply,” Noonan says. “His response was, ‘That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. If you ever get any money in that company, I’ll come to Atlanta and drink champagne from a prostitute’s shoe.’”

Noonan didn’t hear about the email when it first came through, but his secretary didn’t forget about it. Nine months later, when ISS secured $3.5 million from the top names in venture capital (Greylock, Kleiner Perkins), Noonan says his secretary bought a pair of the “gaudiest

purple high-heeled shoes she could find.”

She presented the shoes and a printout of the email to Noonan for the first time. An engineer was in on the joke, and brought homemade apple cider to the office that day—they might have been recently funded, but the company was still too broke to buy champagne. “We popped open the bottle of apple cider and drank from the purple shoes,” Noonan says. “Those shoes became a symbol for the company from that day on. It was about the desire to keep fighting, despite all odds.”

Once ISS started shipping product, money was coming in and they built a reputation that changed the nature of global internet security. Even the purple shoes had a role to play, traveling to meet customers, presented at global conferences, and appearing in employee photos in Italy, at the Great Wall of China, at the Kremlin, President Bill Clinton’s White House, and the emperor’s residence in Japan. Twelve years later, Noonan was helping integrate ISS into IBM. Even though Noonan had launched several companies before this juncture, the serial aspect of his entrepreneurship really comes to light at this point. Noonan stayed on with IBM as a general manager of the newly acquired ISS business division, and he transitioned out in spring of 2008. That summer, he founded Endgame, a cyber operations company that works with the U.S. intelligence community. In the fall of the same year, he helped co-found TechOperators, a company that would set its sights on investing in Atlanta tech companies, and would help extend Noonan’s unbreakable spell.

As TechOperators got off the ground, the partners were able to invest funds in Endgame. Another company that TechOperators invested in was JouleX. So from 2008-10, Noonan served as an active founder of the new venture capital firm and the chairman of Endgame, and at the same time was moving JouleX forward.

Once Cisco bought JouleX, Noonan stayed on as a general manager, working on integration and helping to transition the company and its processes. Today, between his full-time commitments at TechOperators and Cisco, and the many

Advice You Can Take to the Bank With more than 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, investor and mentor—not to mention his uncanny track record of success—Tom Noonan knows what it takes for a new company to not only get off the ground, but also to achieve longevity. Here are some of his tips, recommendations and lessons for anyone considering the entrepreneurial life.

For college students eyeing the entrepreneurship route: “Getting through college is important. I think you can do both. While everyone is not cut out to be an entrepreneur, everyone is capable of innovation. Moonlight before taking that kind of risk.”

For those who’ve been in the workforce for a while: “Build a business plan. Look at the industry and market data, do the research, build prototypes and get a foundation. Too many people get an idea and immediately quit.

They have no income and they start ice cold.”

Get inspired, find the path that doesn’t exist: “Spend time with bright, passionate people who see things as they are and know there’s a better way.”

Really own it: “When you’re building a company, the stakes are so high. You’ve got to build the kind of company that you feel an obligation to succeed.”

When it’s wise to ignore your gut: “At my age, I think I’m completely instinct-driven. But there are times when I can’t follow my instincts. That’s usually when I’m integrating a company into a larger bureaucratic machine, when process and protocol trump wisdom and good judgment.”

Test your market, and test it again: “Product and market fit is not an instant thing. It requires enormous amounts of discipline and many iterations.”

Watch the money: “I am extremely frugal when I build businesses. That doesn’t mean I don’t pay well or invest wisely. But I obsess about every dollar spent, especially at an early stage.”

On failure: “I think of failure as a hypothesis that simply hasn’t proven to be true. I look at failures as learning experiences—steps towards a solution—because now you know what the answer is not. You don’t celebrate failure, you accept it.”

Zero-tolerance mistakes: “I tend not to be very tolerant of mistakes related to morality and malice, like if someone disparages the company or other employees.”

Be the change: “Leaders are the ones who drive great execution from everyone else.”

Company culture starts with you: “It’s ‘do as I do,’ period, cut and dry, end of story.”

The toughest lesson to learn: “Patience. Entrepreneurialism and patience tend to be in conflict.”

And on that note: “Everything takes longer than you think.”

Understand the risk: “I’m always reminded of the entrepreneur’s motto: ‘I started off with nothing and still have most of it left.’”

On being flexible: “There’s no single path to success.”

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10 for 10: Noonan’s Serial Successes Building one successful startup is hard. But 10?

That’s almost unheard of. It’s a feat of perfection Noonan accomplished only by bringing his tech savvy and entrepreneurial passion to each company he’s helped launch—and by turning temporary failures into hard-earned wisdom.

3. Internet Security Systems Inc. Founded 1995, Atlanta Roles: Co-founder, chairman, president and CEO

1. Actuation Electronics Founded 1986, Boston Roles: Co-founder and president

2. LeapFrog Software Founded 1987, Boston Roles: Co-founder and president

Invented the industry’s first intelligent network security systems with network-based intrusion detection and automated vulnerability detection systems for enterprises. The company grew to $500 million in revenue and nearly $100 million in annual profit. ISS was publicly traded on both the NASDAQ and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). More than 3,000 employees operated in 48 countries and served 8,000 enterprise customers worldwide. In November 2006, IBM acquired ISS, Inc. and ISS KK (Tokyo-based) for a combined total of approximately $1.6 billion dollars in cash. Noonan left IBM in 2008.

Designed and developed precision motion control module for low-end programmable logic controllers. After hiring three employees, the company was unable to fund further growth. Noonan sold it to their largest customer for $250,000 in 1987.

Designed and developed first object-oriented programming environment for programmable logic controls. Though never launched commercially, the technology and intellectual property was sold to a Midwest systems integrator for about $300,000.

4. Endgame Inc. Founded June 2008, Atlanta (now headquartered in Arlington, Va.) Roles: Co-founder, founding investor, chairman and continues as board member

6. JouleX Founded January 2010, Atlanta Roles: Co-founder, investor, chairman, president and CEO JouleX pioneered the first network-based energy management system that only utilizes IP protocols. The JouleX Energy Manager was the industry’s first automated software application capable of monitoring and controlling the energy consumption of any IP-connected device.

Within 18 months, the company grew to 49 employees in eight countries. By 2013, they serviced more than 100 customers and 10 strategic partners. In March 2013, Cisco Systems made a preemptive offer to acquire the company for $107 million in cash. The transaction was completed in June 2013, and JouleX remains a part of Cisco Systems.

7. Phantom Cyber Founded 2014, Palo Alto, Calif.

Roles: Founding investor and board advisor

8. NexDefense Founded 2013, Palo Alto, Calif., then moved to Atlanta Roles: Founding investor and board member

Phantom Cyber is developing the industry’s first automated cyber security response application that will rapidly remediate systems compromised by malware or intrusions on corporate networks. The company now has 20 employees and has delivered the first version of the technology to 15 early adopter customers.

NexDefense is pioneering the industry’s first cyber defense system to combat sophisticated cyber threats against the nation’s critical infrastructure. NexDefense protects the systems that control the operations of electric plants, nuclear reactors, oil and gas equipment, and military equipment from cyber attack.

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Established to create the first cyber operations platform for the U.S. intelligence community and Department of Defense. The company recently launched a commercial version of this platform for large enterprises, such as global financial service institutions. Endgame now employs more than 200 employees and has raised nearly $75 million in investment capital.

5. TechOperators Founded October 2008, Atlanta Roles: Co-founder and partner Noonan and three other Atlanta entrepreneurs wanted to increase the investment capital in the city’s technology market, with a focus on early-stage companies. Today, TechOperators is one of the preeminent venture capital financiers in Atlanta. Their first funding round has already returned three times the capital invested in six years. The second fund, just recently raised, is three times larger than the first.

9. Defend7 Founded 2014, Menlo Park, Calif.

Roles: Founding investor and board adviser Defend7 dynamically discovers the security topology within the corporate enterprise firewall and improves the security posture for enterprise applications. The unique approach looks beyond the network layer and includes data, API and database calls to formulate a holistic understanding of behavior and protect critical applications.

10. Cylent Systems Founded 2014, Boston Roles: Founding investor and board member Cylent has created a new form of endpoint protection, integrating technology originally developed by DARPA researchers with modern behavioral analytics and software-as-a-service flexibility.

The solution provides performance and simplicity while detecting and disrupting modern sophisticated malware and attacks. Cylent has raised $10 million dollars and grew to more than 20 employees in the first six months.

other companies he helped found where he still is called into consult, the man is always working on some part of the entrepreneurial process.

Here lies the passion. Because in his many years of running companies, selling them, and guiding others in their quest to do the same, there is not one stage that Noonan hasn’t come to love. He’s always all-in.

“My favorite part of being an entrepreneur is experiencing the excitement when someone brings their idea to you,” he says. “Then, I like the struggle to find the right product and market fit. It can be the most time-consuming, but it’s the most important aspect of an earlystage company.”

According to Noonan, it’s one that first-time entrepreneurs frequently overlook. But not on his watch.

Startups get a lot of benefits when TechOperators brings them into the fold.

Noonan says in addition to the obvious capital, new firms receive hands-on support, everything from operations to customer development. Everyone wants a better return, so no one glosses over the basic foundational elements of structuring the business.

The next phase is building the business out, continually refining the idea as the product and market become more clear. “I am unreasonably focused on getting the product and market fit with the technology before I invest a lot of money,” Noonan says. The last element, he says, is “building a great work culture.” And he does mean great.

“I’m a huge believer that culture comes directly from leadership,” he says. “It comes from great execution. You can’t just write it down. You’ve got to live it.”

Noonan says that being an entrepreneur—the constant risk of failing—has taught him a unique kind of security, or inner confidence. The journey has brought him success, but he’s also made wrong turns, which has taught him the art of humility. Noonan knows what it takes to run a tech firm, and he won’t hesitate to tell inquiring minds what he thinks they ought to know about that. But to this day, he says, he won’t even consider applying for a credit card with Visa. And he still has those original purple shoes.

“I’m a huge believer that culture comes directly from leadership. It comes from great execution. You can’t just write it down.

You’ve got to live it.”

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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BY ROGER SLAVENS

INTRODUCTION

UP

THESE GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI STAND POISED TO DISRUPT THE MARKETPLACE — AND EVEN ENTIRE INDUSTRIES — WITH THEIR INNOVATIVE IDEAS AND THE BUSINESSES THEY’VE BUILT AROUND THEM.

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Patrick Whaley, ME 10, Founder and CEO of TITIN

 ∏ (Left) Patrick Whaley (Right) NFL hopefuls model TITIN weighted training shirts.

ENTREPRENEURIAL

STARTS TITIN OVERVIEW

It’s been a challenging road to suc-

cess for Whaley and TITIN, one that started with a near-tragedy when Whaley was shot during an armed robbery in 2009 while still a student at Tech. He used a prototype of his weighted training shirt—which distributes eight pounds of gel inserts strategically across the upper body— to gain strength and accelerate his recovery. He entered TITIN into the 2010 InVenture Prize competition,

STARTUP PATH: Whaley built TITIN upon an idea he had in his youth, when he used to fill up his backpack with books to build strength. At Tech, TITIN won $20,000 from InVenture Prize, and later another $30,000 of in-kind services from the Georgia Tech Business Plan competition, both of which helped pay for patent and early-stage manufacturing expenses. His weighted shirt system, which

won it, graduated from Tech the same year and then focused on turning his idea into a viable company. Today, TITIN sales average about $1 million a month, and there’s seemingly no shortage of opportunities. “Our shirts and shorts are now widely sold at Dick’s Sporting Goods,” Whaley says. “And we just finalized a deal to be the official training sponsor with the Pittsburgh Steelers.” The training gear, however, is not just for serious athletes, Whaley

says. “Weekend warriors don’t have a lot of time to train, and they’re even wearing TITIN under their business suits during the work week.” There are medical applications, as well. “The weighted gel inserts can be heated or frozen, meaning they’re perfect for thermal therapy,” he says. “They can be like a mobile ice bath after a therapy session.” Even chiropractors are interested in TITIN since it promotes postural alignment, Whaley says.

retails for $249, was so successful he couldn’t keep up with demand. That’s why he went on ABC’s Shark Tank last year to secure additional funding to optimize his supply chain and manufacturing efficiencies.

determination that will be the keys to success. Follow your gut. Try to drown out the naysayers—treat them as nothing but white noise. At the same time, value your support system: your friends and family. Starting a business is a roller coaster ride with a few ups and lots of downs, and you’ll need their support and optimism to help you overcome your business failures and learn from them.”

WORDS OF WISDOM: “Sometimes you have to do it virtually all on your own,” Whaley says of being an entrepreneur. “Ultimately it’s your drive and

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∏ Unnava

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U P S TA R T

Partha Unnava, Co-founder and CEO of Better Walk

BETTER WALK OVERVIEW As a biomedical engineering student

at Tech, Unnava had an entrepreneurial breakthrough shortly after breaking his ankle. He spent six miserable weeks moving around on crutches, and became determined to find a better solution. With the help of some fellow students, co-founders Frankie Swindell and Andrew Varghese, he built a prototype for a new crutch that distributes the body’s resting weight more efficiently. His idea drew a lot of interest, and he built a company called Better Walk to commercialize it. He took a break from

classes to focus on refining his new crutch and get it ready for manufacturing.

“We’ve redesigned it to make it more cost-efficient to produce,” Unnava says.

“It’s just the reality of ∏ Partha Unnava turning a prototype into a real-world product.” The first Better Walk crutches are scheduled to come off the manufacturing line this summer.

Along the way, Unnava has consulted with many movers and shakers, including President Barack Obama when Unnava was invited to attend the White House Maker Faire last year. “That was pretty unbelievable,” he says. He was later named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List in Manufacturing. “I’ve wanted something like this since I was 16 years old,” he says. That’s not the only list Unnava found himself on recently.

Elle Magazine named the 22-year-old as one of its 41 Most Eligible Bachelors. Whoever said running a startup wasn’t sexy?

STARTUP PATH: Unnava built the prototype for his Better Walk crutch at Georgia Tech’s Invention Studio, and he says he used the biomedical engineering machine shop a lot. He also received great business advice from department chair Ravi Bellamkonda who was very supportive of Unnava and his

idea. Better Walk was a finalist in Tech’s 2014 InVenture Prize competition, and Unnava then took it to the Zero to 510 accelerator in Memphis, Tenn., where he secured venture capital funding. Better Walk is currently based in Atlanta, and Unnava is back on campus helping to teach Tech’s Startup Semester course.

WORDS OF WISDOM: “My biggest advice to other entrepreneurs is to find some experienced mentors and spend as much time as you can learning from them,” Unnava says.

“Ultimately, you’re going to make many mistakes along the way. And while you may feel like you should avoid them, you need to let yourself fail so you can learn from them.”

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∏ Kathy Pham (pictured right, with her brother, David) is happy to be working for the U.S. Digital Service, which reports to the White House.

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U P S TA R T

Kathy Pham, CS 07, MS CS 09, Founding Member and Health Data Advisor of U.S. Digital Service

U.S. DIGITAL SERVICE OVERVIEW Shortly after many of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest leaped to help the U.S. government shore up its problematic Healthcare.gov website, Pham found herself ditching a dream job at Google to go serve her country. She was enlisted to help build a White House startup—the U.S. Digital Service—designed to tackle technology issues across federal agencies and make online services easier for citizens to use. Pham has been concerned about public health

issues and the nation’s health care system from an early age and originally thought she would become a doctor. Later, when her mother was diagnosed with leukemia, Pham witnessed firsthand how complex and frustrating the system can be, and she decided she wanted to use her computer science and analytics skills to help fix it. “It never crossed my mind, however, that my public service outlet would involve working for the government,” Pham says. Today,

she’s helping to solve problems such as improving health care data interoperability among Veterans Affairs, the Department ∏ Kathy Pham of Defense and the private sector, as well as building out the Precision Medicine initiative .

STARTUP PATH: Pham launched her first startup (of sorts) when she was a student at Tech. She established the Atlanta chapter of Unite for Sight, a nonprofit aimed at raising awareness about eye health and eradicating preventable blindness in the

world. “I was a one-person roadshow, selling the idea and raising funds all over campus and around Atlanta,” she says.

Pham says. “But at the USDS, it’s at a completely different level. Tons of heavy hitters have come from the corporate world to help their government solve the nation’s technology problems. I’m so lucky to be working with all these amazing, passionate people.”

WORDS OF WISDOM: “When I was at Google, I worked with some pretty cool people,”

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U P S TA R T S

Stanley Vergilis, ME 13, Co-founder and CEO; and AJ Alix, EE 13, Co-founder and COO, of Hux

∏ Hux COO AJ Alix (left) and CEO Stanley Vergilis

HUX OVERVIEW Hux wants to do for housecleaning— and other local services—what Uber has done for transportation. “The process of booking a local service provider like a housecleaner or handyman is very time consuming and inefficient and frustrating,” says Alix. “We built Hux to fix that.”

At the Hux.com website, consumers can see local service providers, read their reviews, check their schedules, book them, pay them and then provide feedback after the service is complete. The company has started in the Atlanta market focusing

initially on housecleaning services with ambitions to expand into other areas in the near future. In just one year, Hux is now the No. 1-ranked provider for housecleaning services locally on Yelp, he says. The company is also piloting service providers in the Charlotte, S.C., market and hopes eventually to extend the Hux marketplace throughout the U.S. In addition to offering a painless process for consumers, the Hux model delivers more affordable prices while providing more income for its service providers. “Big cleaning services like

Molly Maid charge $40 an hour, but much of that money goes toward corporate overhead while the actual cleaners get paid minimum wage,” Alix says. “Hux removes a lot of these hidden costs, consumers pay $20 to $30 an hour, and the cleaners get to take home more.” Hux has more than 35 cleaners on its roster in Atlanta, serving thousands of customers. “Our housecleaners are making an average of $3,000 a month—much more than they’d do on their own or by working for a big cleaning company,” he says.

Startup Path: Stanley Vergilis got the idea for Hux when he was in high school.

He had started his own tutoring service and realized that he spent way too much time trying to manage his quickly growing business on his cellphone. So he built a simple website that touted himself and his business, listed his tutoring availability and fees, and even posted reviews

from customers. Parents could even pay for tutoring sessions online using PayPal. Later during a Tech internship, he met co-founder James Loper—who had built up his own Apple computer repair service—and the two struck a deal to grow Vergilis’ business model. They formed Hux in 2014, and Alix quickly joined to help the duo scale the business.

Words of Wisdom: “It’s important not

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to forget about startup opportunities that aren’t easily apparent,” Alix says. “The personal services industry is ready for disruption—even Amazon is entering the space via Amazon Home Services. We never thought as engineers that we’d be running a housecleaning company, but here we are and we’re excited.”

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U P S TA R T S

Barry Givens, ME 08, Co-founder and CEO; Mario Taylor, Mgt 08, COO; and Donald Beamer, Econ 05, President, of Monsieur

MONSIEUR OVERVIEW Monsieur has been described as a robotic bartender, but it’s perhaps more equivalent to a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine that can serve a perfect martini. The brainchild of Barry Givens, Monsieur not only expertly mixes alcohol with fresh ingredients inside a high-tech, wirelessly connected cabinet, but also can make your drinks just how you like them. It’s available in both commercial and home models, but it’s in the commercial market that it’s starting to take off. A partnership with Levy Restaurants put it into a trial at Atlanta’s Philips Arena last summer—which proved to be such a success that the foodservice company rolled it out to other locations, include nine machines at Churchill Downs just in time for the 141st running of the Kentucky

Startup Path: Monsieur currently holds

a slot in Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) and maintains offices in the Centergy Building at Tech Square. The Institute helped Monsieur’s executive team to connect with serial entrepreneur and investor, Paul Judge, MS

∏ (L-R): CEO Barry Givens, COO Mario Taylor and President Donald Beamer Derby this year. Sports and entertainment venues, hotels and upscale movie theaters seem to be the sweet spot for Monsieur. “We have orders and inquiries from 42 countries, but we’re staying focused on the U.S. market for now,” says COO Mario Taylor. “We’ve grown to nine full-time employees, mostly

Tech alumni, and we’re trying to grow even more. Last winter, we closed our seed round and raised $2 million.” Alumni will be able to test Monsieur this fall, as machines will be installed at Tech Terrace during the upcoming Florida State and University of Georgia football games.

CS 01, PhD CS 02, who serves as the company’s chairman and the team’s mentor.

it for granted, but it’s not easy to find the right people at the right time. Luckily, we have found some great people from Georgia Tech that have joined us on this journey—which is not for the faint of heart. Our education at Tech certainly has helped us prepare for it.”

Words of Wisdom: “Being able to at-

tract, motivate and retain talent to build a company is a lot of work,” says President Donald Beamer. “Some people take

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∏ Growing guayule (left) as a commercial crop presents big opportunities for Jeff Martin (right) and Yulex Corp.

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U P S TA R T

Jeffery Martin, Text 82, CEO of Yulex Corp.

YULEX CORP. OVERVIEW Guayule (why-YOU-lee) is a flowering shrub indigenous to the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. It’s also a virtually untapped resource that may be the key to developing a thriving natural rubber industry in the U.S., says Martin. He founded Yulex as a biomaterials company in 2000 to pursue exactly this possibility. The natural rubber market is huge, with 40,000 products made from the material that account for upwards of a half-a-trillion-dollar market globally, Martin says. “Right now, the U.S. is dependent on 95 percent of its natural rubber imports from Southeast Asia,” he says. “We’ve developed tools to take guayule from a

wild crop to a commercial crop, and we use processes to extract the natural rubber from the plant and start making products.” In 2014, Yulex scored its first consumer product—an award-winning wetsuit it developed with adventure retailer Patagonia that replaces neoprene with an environment-friendly, non-allergenic, guayulebased fabric. “Guayule truly is a sustainable resource that requires low input costs and can produce quality and high quantities of natural rubber,” Martin says. Yulex has many other other products in the pipeline, including yoga mats, footwear, chewing gum and hopefully soon—the big user of natural rubber—automotive tires.

STARTUP PATH: Martin had worked in materials science for the likes of Kimberly-Clark Corp. and Safeskin (a startup eventually acquired by Kimberly-Clark) for nearly 15 years before venturing out on his own with Yulex. During this time, he worked on a lot of products that used latex and natural rubber, and learned to recognize an opportunity when he saw one. “More and more companies are moving away from petrochemical materials and want more sustainable and ecological alternatives,” Martin says. He found out about the potential of guayule through research being conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA licensed its technology to Yulex, and Martin then began hiring experts from a wide range of fields, including agriculture, genetics and manufacturing to

turn his idea into reality. Since Yulex’s inception, it’s raised $80 million in capital. “Agricultural-based businesses take a long time to develop,” he says. “You have to prove a crop is viable and that there’s a market for it once you’ve shown you can grow it. The typical venture capital model is 3 to 5 years for achieve a positive return, so I had to find investors with patience.” That patience is finally starting to pay off.

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WORDS OF WISDOM: “What’s served me the most over the years was getting as much experience as possible in different business areas beyond my technical background in engineering,” Martin says. “I think entrepreneurs often have to go out of their comfort zones to succeed.”

PROVIDED BY GEORGIA TECH'S OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT

Campaign Georgia Tech hits $1.5 billion, many goals remain

STATE STREET ENTRY TO CAMPUS

THE

IMPACT

OF

PHILANTHROPY

AT

GEORGIA

TECH

Engineered Biosystems Building reaches private funding goal Cooper Carry + Lake | Flato

9.19.2012

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Engineered Biosystems Building BOR #J-198

Naming opportunity remains available for signature facility Momentum is building in dramatic fashion for support of the Engineered Biosystems Building (EBB), completed in early March.

Following on the heels of an anonymous $8.5 million commitment made last summer, an anonymous $17 million donor, along with our research and innovation partner in pediatrics — Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta — has made the Engineered Biosystems Building a philanthropic success. These three commitments to the $113 million project bring the facility’s private funding total to its goal of $34 million. State appropriations provided $64 million, with Institute funds providing $15 million.

“Children’s will have a significant presence in EBB and throughout the Georgia Tech campus as we grow this partnership and together transform health care for children,” said President G.P. “Bud” Peterson.

“EBB will integrate biosciences, bioengineering, and biotechnology with the goal of dramatically improving the human condition. These donors are giving the gift of hope on a grand scale.”

The Impact of EBB

has been designed around the concept of “research neighborhoods,” each with a specific focus, bringing together faculty from a variety of disciplines to share not only laboratories but also common spaces that will nurture the informal collaborations and conversations that can lead to new ideas and solutions.

The ultimate goal of EBB is to combine Georgia Tech’s expertise in the sciences and engineering to study — and combat — diseases, from cancer, diabetes, and osteoarthritis to Parkinson’s, cardiovascular disease, immune disorders, and a host of pediatric research initiatives and technologies.

“Disease is not simple,” said Paul Goldbart, dean of the College of Sciences. “To understand it and to redress it, we must quantify, analyze, and manipulate the cellular logic of life. The research neighborhoods in EEB have been designed and programmed to facilitate this vision. The fundamental discoveries made through the collaborations that will occur in EBB will lead to new insights that will ultimately help save lives.”

In addition to vastly improving disease diagnosis and treatment, EBB will also play a powerful role in the economic arena, an aspect highlighted by University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby

The Engineered Biosystems Building aims to understand and combat

at the facility’s 2013 groundbreaking. “[EBB] has the potential to

multifaceted diseases through the power of shared resources, spaces,

take Georgia Tech’s science and engineering programs to the next

and expertise. EBB is a visionary partnership between Georgia Tech

level — and it will enhance Tech’s commercialization efforts, stimulate

and the State of Georgia, an investment in the future of the biosciences

job growth in Georgia, and generate new startup companies.” n

and a transformative approach to diagnosing and treating disease.

Comprising 200,000 square feet of advanced research space, EBB GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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PROVIDED BY GEORGIA TECH'S OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT

Campaign Georgia Tech hits $1.5 billion Campaign Georgia Tech will conclude in December 2015. But as 2014 drew to a close, something remarkable happened: the $1.5 billion goal had been met.

The Campaign is the largest in the Institute’s history. It is twice the size of the previous campaign, which was twice the size of its predecessor. More than 60,000 donors have participated to date. Buildings have been renovated and constructed. Colleges and schools have been named. Eighty-eight new endowed faculty chairs and professorships have been established. And hundreds of undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships have been funded.

In spite of reaching this milestone more than a year ahead of schedule, the vision and the drive behind the Campaign continue unabated and will not subside until 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2015. Many goals, and much work, are yet to be completed in the year ahead. They include: n Every college and school reaching their individual goals (four colleges, five schools remaining) n Creating 100 new endowed chairs and professorships (12 remaining) n Ensuring that all colleges have a named Dean’s Chair (two remaining) n Completing the funding for three major Athletics renovation projects: Noonan Golf Facility, Russ Chandler Stadium, and the Edge Center n Naming at least one more college or school “Knowing that we hit our overall goal well before the end of the Campaign timetable is exciting. It is an impressive accomplishment for Georgia Tech,” said John F. Brock III, ChE 1970, MS ChE 1971, Campaign co-chair. “We are looking forward to carrying the momentum of our success thus far into the last year of the Campaign,” added fellow co-chair Mary Rockett Brock, Honorary Alumna. “I have no doubt that it’s going to be the best year yet.”

“We are very grateful to the Brocks for their tireless energy and commitment in leading the public phase of Campaign Georgia Tech,” said President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. “Reaching the $1.5 billion goal a year early is a testimony not only to their leadership, but to the ongoing engagement and loyalty of the entire Georgia Tech community. Together, we are pressing forward to accomplish all of our major Campaign goals in the remaining year so that the entire campus may celebrate the success.” n

Alumnus Bo Godbold inspires and challenges with new scholarship commitment Georgia Tech alumni are renowned for their love of competition and a great challenge, and 50th Reunion Chair Francis S. “Bo” Godbold, IE 1965, is no exception.

Since 1999, he and his wife, Betsy, have supported the Godbold Scholars program at Tech, with more than $2.5 million in philanthropy providing life-changing support to 50 out-of-state students. Recently, they decided to commit another $2.5 million to the program, which will ensure that at least 100 Georgia Tech students receive scholarship support.

Godbold, retired president of Raymond James Financial, is himself the recipient of a full academic scholarship as a Tech undergraduate. He appreciates that his education was integral to his later success. “I felt it incumbent upon Godbold Scholar Weston Jefferson (center) with Betsy and Bo Godbold at a campus reception for Godbold Scholars. Jefferson credits the Godbolds’ generosity with making his Georgia Tech education possible.

me to repay this moral obligation,” he explained. “What better way to do that than through scholarships for bright, financially challenged, out-of-state students whose dream school was Georgia Tech?” n

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GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

PROVIDED BY GEORGIA TECH'S OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT

Endowed chair established in Computing, philanthropic momentum building in Asia A trailblazing entrepreneur has made a gift that will be transformative for the College of Computing and set a new standard for philanthropic aspirations in Asia.

“James” Jian Zhang Liang, ICS 1990, MS ICS 1991, a native of Shanghai, China, has made a $1.5 million gift to establish the J.Z. Liang Chair in the College of Computing.

Liang is the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Ctrip.com, a leading travel service provider that offers hotel reservations, airline tickets, and packaged tours to business and leisure travelers in China. Before founding Ctrip, Liang held a number of technical and managerial positions with Oracle Corporation between 1991 and 1999 in the United States and China, including serving as the head of the ERP (enterprise resource planning) consulting division of Oracle China.

“This is a historic gift to the College of Computing and to Georgia Tech,” said Zvi Galil, Dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair.

“We are grateful for James Liang’s exceptional generosity and for his trust. We will do everything to justify it.”

The J.Z. Liang Chair will allow the College to meet one of its most basic needs by providing a resource to attract and retain distinguished faculty scholars today and in the years ahead. It is an essential component in maintaining and building on the high caliber of teaching and research in which the College is engaged.

“We were very impressed when my family visited Georgia Tech and the College of Computing last summer,” Liang explained. “I am very pleased with the direction the program has taken and the leadership of Dean Galil. We are honored to be able to help out with this gift.”

(Left to right): Shelton Chan, managing director of development-Asia Pacific; Catherine Liang; James Liang; and Marta H. Garcia, associate vice president for international devlopment.

Liang’s gift provides great momentum to Tech’s international development program. Having the ability to reach out to the international community of alumni and friends through a directed and organized program is crucial to Georgia Tech’s future.

“With the benefit of accomplished and knowledgeable alumni, parents, friends, and corporate partners, we are expanding the Institute’s role as a leader in global technological education,” said Marta H. Garcia, associate vice president for international development. “Their support and advice are invaluable and much appreciated.”

Working closely with the campus community, the international development team will continue to nurture these relationships and resources for the benefit of Georgia Tech, pursuing the engagement of alumni and friends in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. n

College of Sciences surpasses Campaign goal As 2014 drew to a close, the College of Sciences became the second of Georgia Tech’s colleges to surpass its goal within Campaign Georgia Tech. An $8.5 million commitment (see EBB cover story) pushed the College’s Campaign total past the $85 million mark, well beyond its goal of $80 million.

“This is a wonderful achievement for the entire College of Sciences family,” said Dean Paul M. Goldbart. “I want to thank all of the alumni, corporations, foundations, faculty, staff, and other friends whose generosity and commitment have made this happen.

of the success we celebrate today.”

Goldbart continued, “While we certainly want to celebrate this milestone, we are also keenly aware that there are many more highly strategic needs to be met during this final year of the Campaign.”

Among those high-priority needs, Goldbart said, are the endowment of additional scholarships and fellowships and a postdoctoral fellows program, as well as faculty chairs, professorships, early career professorships, teaching excellence recognition awards, school chairs, and a dean’s chair.

The College of Sciences joins four other academic units that have surpassed their Campaign goals: the College of Computing, the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, the School of Materials Science and Engineering, and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. n

I also want to recognize my predecessors in the Dean’s Office, Paul Houston and Gary Schuster, for their fine work in laying the foundations Paul M. Goldbart

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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PROVIDED BY GEORGIA TECH'S OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT

Tech Promise Challenge exceeds goal Almost eight years after its launch, the G. Wayne Clough Georgia

in response to the challenge and will be matched dollar-for-dollar

Tech Promise Scholarship program has surpassed its Campaign

by the anonymous donor in 2023. n

goal of securing a $50 million endowment.

That milestone would not have been possible without the hundreds

Tech Promise Challenge exceeds goal

of alumni, friends, foundations, and corporations who shared in

the vision of making a Tech degree accessible to qualified young

sustain this program for the future. So many individuals, families, and private entities have embraced the program with gifts and commitments.”

“It is difficult to measure how important this program is to the institution, to our state, and to the young people whose lives it touches,” said President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. “This is an invaluable investment in Georgia’s future, and we are extremely grateful to all of those who are helping to ensure that a Georgia Tech education is within reach of all the people of Georgia.”

At press time, the endowments identified below had been created in response to the challenge and will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the anonymous donor in 2023. n

Almost eight years after its launch, the G. Wayne Clough Georgia Tech

people for whom that wouldprogram otherwise be out of reach.

Promise Scholarship has surpassed its Campaign goal of securing a $50 million endowment. That milestone would not have been possible

Following thewithout outpouring of philanthropic inand the last quarter the hundreds of alumni, friends, support foundations, corporations who shared in the vision of making a Tech degree accessible to bright, talented of 2014, the $7.5 million Tech Promise Challenge (launched by an young men and women for whom that would otherwise be out of reach.

Indeed, the outpouring philanthropic support in the last anonymous donor infollowing December 2013)ofsurged to $8.1 million inquarnew

ter of 2014, the $7.5 million Tech Promise Challenge surged to $8.1 million in

new gifts and commitments directed to endowment support endowment for the program. gifts and commitments.

Today, the program’s overall Today, the program’s overall endowment stands at $62.9 million.

stands at $62.9 million. “‘Transformational’ is how our Tech Promise participants describe the im-

To inquire about making a gift or commitment in support of the G. Wayne Clough Georgia Tech Promise Scholarship program, contact any development officer or Associate Vice President Dorcas G. Wilkinson at 404.894.4540 or dorcas.wilkinson@dev.gatech.edu.

pact the program has had on their lives,” said Marie R. Mons, director of the

At press time, the endowments identified below had been created Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid. “And,” she added, “that’s exactly how we describe the Tech Promise Challenge. Transformational. It has helped raise awareness as well as strengthened the endowment to support and

$ 7. 5

M I L L I O N

C H A L L E N G E

From $1,000,000

C O M P L E T E D

New

Through December 31, 2014 Harry N.“Bosco” DuPre Jr. Scholarship Endowment

Coca-Cola Foundation Scholarship Endowment

New

New

From $500,000 to $999,999

Bonnie W. and Charles W. Moorman IV Scholarship Endowment

Through December 31, 2014 Francis M. Lott Scholarship Endowment

NCR Corporate Foundation Scholarship Endowment

Shaw Industries Scholarship Endowment

From $250,000 to $499,999 Through December 31, 2014 AGL Resources Foundation Scholarship Endowment

Peggy and Keith Cooley Scholarship Endowment

Melba and Alfredo Trujillo Scholarship Endowment

From $100,000 to $249,999 Through December 31, 2014 Arby’s Scholarship Endowment

Susan F. and John B. Carter Jr. Scholarship Endowment

Martha D. and Basil W. Elliston Scholarship Endowment

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Scholarship Endowment

The University Financing Foundation Scholarship Endowment

Alex Windsor Scholarship Endowment

New

New

New

Giglio Family Scholarship Endowment

Jack and Anne Glenn Scholarship Endowment

Kathy B. and Richard W. Hall Scholarship Endowment

Dancy H. and Charles S. Wynne Scholarship Endowment

New

New

From $25,000 to $99,999

Prescott-Thrasher Scholarship Endowment

Through December 31, 2014 Elizabeth W. and John C. Bacon Scholarship Endowment

New

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CAMPAIGN QUARTERLY • WINTER 2015

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

New

H. Francis Brantley Family Scholarship Endowment

Dr. Robert Burnett Scholarship Endowment

J. Gary and Judy M. Butler Scholarship Endowment

Cutler Family Scholarship Endowment

New

New

New

James A. and Wyndee P. DeBardelaben Scholarship Endowment

Everett Family Scholarship Endowment

Frederick L. and Kathryn J. Eyerman Scholarship Endowment

Fitzgerald Family Scholarship Endowment

Lisa N. Fridrichsen Scholarship Endowment

Thomas W. Gaylord Scholarship Endowment

Glass Family Scholarship Endowment

Huling Family Scholarship Endowment

James D. Hunt Scholarship Endowment

Michelle E. and James S. Jarrard Scholarship Endowment

J. Denise Johnson Marshall Scholarship Endowment

Bobbie J. and Warren T. Jones Scholarship Endowment

Eugene Kim Scholarship Endowment

Richard H. Maddux Jr. Scholarship Endowment

Sheree and Robert D. Martin Scholarship Endowment

McKenney’s Scholarship Endowment

Morris Mitzner Scholarship Endowment

Cherie L. and John H. Morris Scholarship Endowment

Nikoukary Family Trust Scholarship Endowment

Donald S. and Patricia F. Pirkle Scholarship Endowment

J. Lamar Reese Jr. Scholarship Endowment

Elizabeth H. Wallace and Christopher G. Scislow Scholarship Endowment

Peggy C. and James F. Simmons Scholarship Endowment

Robert S. and Frederika L. Sitkoff Scholarship Endowment

Sovchen Family Scholarship Endowment

Jocelyn M. and Robert N. Stargel Jr. Scholarship Endowment

Karen C. and Mark K. Thurman Scholarship Endowment

Stephen A. Webber Scholarship Endowment

Wells Fargo Bank Scholarship Endowment

White Family Scholarship Endowment

Chad Wright Scholarship Endowment

New

6

Harriet and Pamela H. and William P. Bland Jr. Kenneth G. Bonning Jr. Scholarship Scholarship Endowment Endowment

New

New

New New

New New New

New

New

PROVIDED BY GEORGIA TECH'S OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT

Klaus brings passion, vision to new initiative The name Christopher W. Klaus,

the leading startup campus in the world. Campus startups, based

Class of 1996, is a familiar one at

on exciting engineering problems being solved, will create new

Georgia Tech. A signature building

jobs and opportunities that will have global impact,” Klaus said.

in the College of Computing bears

“The startup innovation will now occur at the campus level, and

his name, and for the past 15 years

not after graduation. It will grow the startup culture at Georgia

he has been deeply involved in the

Tech, and really make it unique and differentiate it among peer

life of the Institute in myriad ways.

engineering schools.” n

That engagement now includes a $1.1 million gift as part of a multimillion-dollar commitment to support the newly established Create-X, an

Christopher W. Klaus

initiative designed to

enhance

entrepreneurial confidence among Georgia Tech students. Open to all

undergraduates, it offers a multitude of courses and extracurricular experiences for students to learn how to launch their own business startups.

Ravi Bellamkonda, the Wallace H. Coulter School Chair in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, said, “Klaus’ support enables us to begin a larger, more ambitious journey — where Georgia Tech becomes a magnet for undergraduates interested in fearlessly turning ideas into reality, and where entrepreneurial confidence will be a hallmark of a significant number of students

Visionary philanthropy is essential to the transformative potential of the new Create-X initiative.

here. We are very grateful to Chris for his leadership and vision.”

“This initiative is transformational for Georgia Tech to become

Benatar Entrance dedicated On November 21, 2014, friends and family of Louise and Leo Benatar, IE 1951, gathered at McCamish Pavilion to dedicate the Louise and Leo Benatar Entrance — the McCamish Pavilion East Entrance, adjacent to the Callaway Club. Mike Bobinski, Georgia Tech’s director of athletics, honored the family in a ceremony before the Yellow Jackets took on Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. A trustee emeritus of the Georgia Tech Foundation, Benatar is a life member of the Alexander-Tharpe Fund and has given to Roll Call for more than 50 consecutive years. In 1994, he was named a College of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus and in 2001 he was elected to the Engineering Hall of Fame. Leo and Louise Benatar are members of The Hill Society. n

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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PROVIDED BY GEORGIA TECH'S OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT

Reunion Giving gears up with early philanthropy Michael A. Neal, IMGT 1975, former vice chair of General Electric and former CEO of GE Capital, is chairing his 40th Reunion Committee. And he is setting the pace, having recently directed, together with his wife Beverly through a donor-advised fund, a grant for the creation of the Neal Family Chair in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.

divided equally in support of four existing endowments across the Institute.

One day, the funds (all of which bear the couple’s names) will benefit significantly from the Glovers’ generous philanthropy: a Georgia Tech Promise Scholarship endowment, established in 2010; a Dean’s Scholarship, created in 2012 and matched by a challenge grant, in the Ernest Scheller Jr. College of Business; a dean’s

“Mike and Beverly’s extraordinary generosity will make an enormous

discretionary fund, also in the Scheller College and also qualifying

difference for the Nunn School, its faculty, and students,” said Joseph

for the challenge; and an athletic scholarship endowment fund,

R. Bankoff, professor and school chair. “Their demonstration of

established in 2010 and providing support for student-athletes at

support will further cement the Nunn School’s position among its

the direction of the athletics director.

peer schools of international affairs at the nation’s top institutions

Gail is an Agnes Scott College alumna who will celebrate her

of higher education. We could not be more grateful for Mike’s

own 50th reunion next year. Together, they have demonstrated

outstanding example as a member of our advisory board and as a

visionary support for both schools — just one example of how

leading donor to the Nunn School.”

they have approached almost everything in their lives together,

In 2013, Neal retired as vice chairman of General Electric Company

as a true partnership.

and as chairman and CEO of GE Capital after 34 years with the

“Our education meant a lot to both of us, as far as what we’ve

company. During that time, he and Sam Nunn, HON Ph.D. 2008 —

been able to accomplish,” Gail Glover explained. “We each felt like

who served on GE’s board from 1997 to 2013 — developed a close

we wanted to give back to our respective alma maters, and we have

friendship. Establishing this chair is a reflection of the significance

been committed to doing that.” Their philanthropic support for

of their connection, and their shared commitment to advancing

athletic scholarships comes from awareness that, when it comes to

the School.

student-athletes excelling on the playing field and in the classroom,

“The Neals’ generous gift to the Nunn School is terrific, and I

Georgia Tech stands apart from most Division I schools. “When

am grateful to Mike and Beverly for their substantial and timely

you support athletics, you are giving to students who are truly

support,” said Nunn. “Mike’s advice and guidance as a member

benefiting from their participation in a wide variety of sports. We

of the advisory board is also a wonderful gift of his valuable time.

thought it was especially important at Tech, because we provide

Both the resources and time made available by the Neals are a

both a quality education and a quality athletics program.”

source of validation and inspiration to all of us who support the

Marion and Gail Glover started Glover Capital Inc., and Glover &

Nunn School of International Affairs.”

Associates Inc. investment banking and financial advisory firms,

Glover commitment adds momentum to 50th reunion

in 1985. n

At the same time, in celebration of this year’s 50th Reunion, Gail and Marion B. Glover Jr., IM 1965, have made an estate provision

Alumni leader Roe Stamps receives honorary degree At last fall’s Commencement ceremony,Georgia Tech conferred an honorary doctorate upon E. Roe Stamps IV, IE 1967, MS IE 1972.

A longtime alumni leader and principal philanthropist of his alma mater, Stamps is a private investor and co-founder of the Boston-based private investment company Summit Partners and a former lieutenant in the United States Navy Reserve. Summit Partners has grown to be one of the largest and most successful investment firms in the country.

Born in Waycross and raised in Macon, Georgia, Stamps went on to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School after completing his two Tech degrees. Through the Stamps Family Charitable Foundation, he and his wife, Penny, have invested in Georgia Tech’s most promising undergraduate students for more than 14 years, beginning with gifts in support of the President’s Scholarship Program in 2000.

They expanded their support through the launch of the merit-based Stamps Leadership Scholars Program in 2006. This visionary initiative became a prototype for the program that has expanded on a national basis to include scholars from more than three dozen universities from coast to coast. Of the 583 current scholars nationwide, 51 are from Georgia Tech.

Roe and Penny Stamps currently serve as honorary chairs of Campaign Georgia Tech. n

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GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

“ You have to work really, really hard.

You have to make good decisions and avoid bad decisions. You have to invest in yourself. You have to protect [your future] as your most valuable asset, because it really is.”

E. Roe Stamps IV

PROVIDED BY GEORGIA TECH'S OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT

Capital Projects Update as of December 31, 2014 Alumni Center

Engineered Biosystems Building

Location: North Avenue Construction start: To be determined Construction completion: To be determined

Location: Corner of Tenth Street and Atlantic Drive Construction start: Fall 2012 Construction completion: March 2015

STATE STREET ENTRY TO CAMPUS

Copopomrtpunliteytsteildl av!ailable

Naming

Private funds raised:

$2 million

Private funds goal:

$20 million (preliminary)

Total project budget:

$20 million (preliminary)

Noonan Golf Facility Location: 14th Street Construction start: Spring 2015 Construction completion: Spring 2015

Cooper Carry + Lake | Flato

Private funds raised: Private funds goal: Total project budget:

$7.0 M completed

$100,000 approved Improvements: $3 million

Land: $8.9 million $11.9 million

Location: Corner of Ferst Drive and Fowler Street Construction start: Fall 2014 Construction completion: Spring 2015

Private funds raised: Private funds goal: Total project budget:

$2.5 million challenge

Private funds raised:

$34 million

Private funds goal:

$34 million

Total project budget:

Russ Chandler Baseball Stadium Renovation — (Phase 1)

$800,000 completed

$5 million (Phase 1) $5 million (Phase 1)

High Performance Computing Building

Location: Technology Square

9.19.2012

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Engineered Biosystems Building BOR #J-198

$113 million

Arthur B. Edge Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Center Location: Corner of Techwood Drive and Bobby Dodd Way Construction start: To be determined Construction completion: To be determined

Private funds raised: Private funds goal: Total project budget:

$3 million challenge To be determined To be determined

Library and Tower Renovation Location: Corner of Cherry Street and Bobby Dodd Way Construction start: To be determined Construction completion: To be determined

Construction start: To be determined Construction completion: To be determined

Total project budget:

14

To be determined

CAMPAIGN QUARTERLY • WINTER 2015

Total project budget:

$85 million (preliminary)

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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PROVIDED BY GEORGIA TECH'S OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT

www.development.gatech.edu

Campaign Georgia Tech Update

Campaign Georgia Tech Steering Committee

July 1, 2004 through December 31, 2014

HONORARY CHAIRS

Funds Raised v. Required

Warren L. Batts, EE 1961 Chicago, Illinois Shawn & Brook Byers, EE 1968, HON Ph.D. 2010 Menlo Park, California

1,600 1,500 1,400 1,300

$1,532.6

1,200

900 800

Millions

700

Average Required Funds Raised

600 500 400

200

$1,019.0

$1,115.2

Jun-09

Jun-10

Jun-11

Jun-12

$1,248.3 $1,421.8

Jun-15

$862.8

Dec-15

$713.1

Jun-14

$615.2

Jun-13

$428.2

Jun-08

$255.1

Jun-06

Jun-04

Jun-05

$124.1

0

Jun-07

100

Funds by Source 220%

225.5%

224.0%

200%

Susan & Michael T. Duke, IE 1971, HON Ph.D. 2011 Bentonville, Arkansas

Joseph W. Evans, IM 1971 Atlanta, Georgia

Progress Toward Goal

160%

132.4%

120% 100%

90.6%

126.8%

120.1%

Time Elapsed — 91.3%

80%

97.8%

96.3%

40%

$679.5

$391.1

$238.4

$108.1

$13.4

$63.4

$11.6

$27.1

Alumni

Corporations

Foundations

Other Organizations

Faculty/ Staff

Friends

Parents

Surviving Spouses

$400M

$180M

$90M

$6M

$50M

$12M

$12M

Goal: $750M

120%

113.4%

110%

101.1%

100.5%

Time Elapsed — 91.3%

90%

70.2%

60% 50% 40%

20% 10% 0%

Goal:

$606.4 Endowment

$600M

$226.1 Facilities

$225M

$122.9

$566.9

Equipment

Current Operations

$175M

$500M

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GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

Lawrence P. Huang, IMGT 1973 Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida John R. Huff, CE 1968 Houston, Texas Andrea L. Laliberte, IE 1982, MS IE 1984 Jacksonville, Florida John S. Markwalter Jr., IMGT 1981 Atlanta, Georgia David M. McKenney, PHYS 1960, IE 1964 Atlanta, Georgia

Deborah A. Nash, IE 1978 Medina, Washington

Rodney C. Adkins, EE 1981, HON Ph.D. 2013 Somers, New York

Charles D. Moseley, IE 1965 Atlanta, Georgia

Michael A. Neal, IM 1975 Stamford, Connecticut Lawton M. Nease III, IM 1965 Atlanta, Georgia

David W. Dorman, IM 1975 Hillsborough, California

Parker H. Petit, ME 1962, MS EM 1964 Marietta, Georgia

Francis S. “Bo” Godbold, IE 1965 Tierra Verde, Florida

Beverly J. Seay Orlando, Florida

Gary T. Jones, GMGT 1971 Atlanta, Georgia

C. Meade Sutterfield, EE 1972 Atlanta, Georgia

Frances G. Rogers, ECON 1993 Atlanta, Georgia

Howard T. Tellepsen Jr., CE 1966 Houston, Texas __________________________________

William J. Todd, IM 1971 Atlanta, Georgia Stephen P. Zelnak Jr., IM 1969 Raleigh, North Carolina ___________________________________ AT-LARGE MEMBERS

For more information about the stories excerpted here, contact any development officer or Vice President for Development Barrett H. Carson at 404.894.1868 or barrett.carson@dev.gatech.edu. If you would like to receive a complimentary copy of or subscription to Campaign Quarterly, contact Belinda Harding at 404.894.1622 or belinda.harding@dev.gatech.edu.

Hubert L. Harris, IM 1965 Atlanta, Georgia

VICE CHAIRS

Joseph W. Rogers Jr., IM 1968 Atlanta, Georgia

30%

David D. Flanagan, IE 1976 McLean, Virginia

Robert A. Milton, IM 1983 Godalming, Surrey, England

80% 70%

Thomas A. Fanning, IM 1979, IMGT 1980, HON Ph.D. 2013 Atlanta, Georgia

Mary R. & John F. Brock III, ChE 1970, MS 1971 Atlanta, Georgia ___________________________________

Kenneth G. Byers Jr., EE 1966, MS 1968 Atlanta, Georgia

Funds by Use 100%

Carolyn & H. Milton Stewart, IE 1961 Vero Beach, Florida

CO-CHAIRS

60%

0%

Penny & E. Roe Stamps IV, IE 1967, MS 1972, HON Ph.D. 2014 Miami, Florida

Alfred P. West Jr., AE 1964, HON Ph.D. 2010 Oaks, Pennsylvania ___________________________________

140%

20%

Progress Toward Goal

Anita P. & Julian D. Saul, IM 1962 Dalton, Georgia

Suzanne & Michael E. Tennenbaum, IE 1958 Malibu, California

180%

A. Russell Chandler III, IE 1967 Atlanta, Georgia William R. Collins Jr., ME 1957, MS IM 1963 Atlanta, Georgia

Roberta & Ernest Scheller Jr., IM 1952, HON Ph.D. 2013 Villanova, Pennsylvania

300

Charles W. Brady, IM 1957 Atlanta, Georgia

Roberta & Steven A. Denning, IM 1970 Greenwich, Connecticut

1,100 1,000

G. Niles Bolton, ARCH 1968 Atlanta, Georgia

H. Inman Allen Atlanta, Georgia

EX OFFICIO William W. George, IE 1964, HON Ph.D. 2008 Minneapolis, Minnesota James R. Lientz Jr., IM 1965 Atlanta, Georgia Robert N. Stargel Jr., EE 1983 Alpharetta, Georgia

THOUSANDS OF PROUD RAMBLIN’ WRECKS HAVE ALREADY DEMONSTRATED THEIR BELIEF IN

Georgia Tech HAVE YOU?

BY PUTTING THEIR NAMES ON THIS LIST.

CHECK THE LIST OF DONORS HERE:

gtalumni.org/donors

Make your gift to the 68th Roll Call: gtalumni.org/giving ROLL CALL, GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 190 North Avenue | Atlanta, Georgia 30313-9806 or c a ll (8 0 0)GT-ALUMS

alumni

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GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

THE LAST PARTY (AT TECH) Soon-to-be Yellow Jacket graduates go out with a bang at Ramblin On 2015, a free bash hosted by the Student Alumni Association.

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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alumni

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>>

Visit the Alumni Association's website at gtalumni.org and register to see what's new.

A Banner Year for SAA

Roger Slavens

Student Alumni Association membership and programs reached new heights in 2015.

∏ Georgia Tech students and alumni get to know each other during an SAA speed-networking event.

With exceptional programs such as Mentor Jackets—which annually pairs

students up with alumni based on shared interests—it’s no wonder why Georgia Tech’s Student Alumni Association continues to set new records for engagement and philanthropy. A total of 5,281 students joined SAA during the 2014-15 academic year, up a whopping 26 percent over the previous year, and solidified SAA’s rank as the largest student group on campus.

“Our student leaders were extremely effective at recruiting more members to SAA this year,” says Catie Miller, STC 07, director of student outreach for the Georgia Tech Alumni Association. “And 0 7 6

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

the word of mouth was incredible. The value of the organization—and what you get for just a $10 donation—has gone viral across the student body.”

Miller says that one of the strategies for growth this year was to get other student groups to pledge 100 percent participation in SAA. “Twenty-eight groups, including Student Ambassadors and many fraternities and sororities, went all-in this year,” she says.

SAA’s in-demand programs include Expert Jackets, which gives students the opportunity to meet and hear success stories from some of Tech’s top alumni. This year, members were able to connect with the likes of Alan

Warren, Phys/Math 78, vice president of engineering at Google; Paul Brown, Mgt 89, CEO of Arby’s; and Decie Autin, ChE 80, global operations manager at ExxonMobil, just to name a few.

Students, of course, love a free meal, so the SAA Dinner Jackets program again was completely booked this past year. Alumni stepped up to treat SAA members to 37 dinners this year at their homes and at restaurants, and provided students with a welcome evening away from their studies.

One SAA offering proved extremely popular and successful this year. The “Get Ready for the Real World” speednetworking event gave the roughly 200

A total of 5,281 students joined SAA during the 2014-15 academic year, up a whopping 26 percent over the previous year, and solidified SAA’s rank as the largest student group on campus. students and 200 alumni in attendance a chance to connect one-on-one in relatively rapid-fire fashion. It was named the Best On Campus Event by the Presidents Council Governing Board and will likely see an encore next year.

Other key SAA programs this past year included a Women in Technology Panel, the Ramblin On graduation party (see photos on page 74) and the Gift to Tech (see story below), which expands student Yellow Jackets' involvement in philanthropic efforts.

SAA and its programs routinely rank among the best of their kind in the nation. SAA was recently named the most outstanding student alumni organization by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education Affiliated Student Advancement Programs (CASE ASAP) for regional District 3, while the speed-networking event won the most outstanding internal program. Both SAA and its speed-networking event will vie for national honors this summer.

∏ Mentor Jackets fostered 1,122 alumnistudent pairs in 2015.

Gift to Tech Goes to Improve Campus Mental Health Services

When Georgia Tech students voted

on how to spend the SAA 2015 Gift to Tech funds, their votes spoke profoundly of what they value on campus: mental health services.

This year's Gift to Tech amounts to more than $36,050 and will go to the Institute’s Counseling Center, which will use the gift for the continued implementation of recommendations issued by the

Mental Health Task Force in 2013. Some of those initiatives include suicide prevention and education programming, expanding the new Burdell’s Buddies peer counseling program, and supporting outreach and recovery programs.

The director of the Counseling Center, Toti Perez, says he and his team were both humbled and surprised to be among this year’s finalists, which included a campus concert series and outdoor solar-powered charging stations.

“It’s so different from any other funding we may get,” Perez says. “It represents the voice of students who over the course of the years have started to regard emotional wellness and healthy lifestyles as a critical part of their success at Tech.”

The Gift to Tech is funded through donations from SAA members. When students join SAA, they make a $10 donation, $5 of which goes to the Gift to Tech fund. This year, a matching gift of $10,000 came from Ken Townsend, ME 64, and his son, Tyler, IE 98.

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GREEK GREATS Six incredible Yellow Jackets were selected as the 2015 inductees to the Greek Hall of Fame this spring. The Greek Hall of Fame recognizes alumni for their notable contributions to their fraternities and sororities, as well as to their communities, professions and Georgia Tech. While these honorees may look just a tad older today, they still represent their letters proudly.

Rodney C. Adkins, EE 81, MS EE 83, Kappa Alpha Psi: Adkins is the senior vice president of corporate strategy at IBM. He was inducted into the National Academy of Engineers in 2005 and is a member of the executive leadership council for the National Society of Black Engineers.

Adkins is recognized as the founder of Tech’s Kappa Alpha Psi chapter.

James R. Borders, ME 83, Phi Delta Theta: Borders is the founding president and CEO of Novare Group, a property development firm based in Atlanta.

Borders has served as an officer on his fraternity’s alumni association board and helped create the chapter’s strategic plan. Borders has also been active with the Institute, serving on several boards and giving generously as a member of the Hill Society.

Joseph W. Evans, IM 71, Tau Kappa Epsilon: Evans is the CEO of State Bank Financial Corp. and its subsidiary, State Bank and Trust. He has served on the Scheller College of Business Advisory 0 7 8

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Find an Alumni Network or Group at gtalumni.org/networksandgroups.

Board and founded the Dean’s Scholarship Program in 2009. He regularly visits the Tau Kappa Epsilon house to speak with members about his experiences and offer advice.

Valerie Montgomery Rice, Chem 83, Delta Sigma Theta: Montgomery Rice is the president and dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine.

She also founded Meharry’s Center for Women’s Health Research in Nashville. She serves on the College of Engineering External Advisory Board and on the Alumni Association Board of Trustees. She has also contributed to her sorority chapter through housing initiatives and homecoming activities.

Jane Skelton, IM 77, Alpha Gamma Delta: Skelton is the CFO of InfiCorp Holdings Inc. She served as the financial adviser to her sorority chapter for 19 years following graduation. She also co-sponsors the Gamma Phi Memorial Scholarship that supports current members facing financial hardship.

Skelton is a generous donor to Tech as a member of the Founders' Council.

Janice N. Wittschiebe, Arch 78, M Arch 80, Alpha Xi Delta: Wittschiebe is a principal at the architecture firm Richard Wittschiebe Hand. She has served as chair of the Alumni Association Board of Trustees and as a member of the Athletic Association Board and Georgia Tech Foundation. She has also served as the vice president of operations for her sorority’s house corporation and has led capital campaigns.

Alumni Award $350,000 in Scholarships for Incoming Yellow Jackets Georgia Tech Alumni Networks and Affinity Groups donated more

money than ever for scholarships earmarked for incoming Yellow Jackets.

Together the networks and groups awarded a total of $350,000 for the freshman class entering Tech this fall.

More than 2,400 applicants from across the globe sought out these scholarships, and the award decisions, as you might imagine, were incredibly difficult since this was one of the most talented Tech classes ever. More than 150 students received the one-time-only scholarships, which averaged $2,333 each.

The largest single scholarship was $15,688 and the smallest $500.

The scholarship monies included $41,000 in matching funds from the Georgia Tech Foundation.

Alumni from more than 59 Networks and Affinity Groups held events—ranging from local Pi Mile Runs to benefit dinners—to make sure they could give back to future generations of Tech students. Of note, two new organizations offered scholarships this year: the Georgia Tech Women Alumnae Network and the Detroit/Motor City Network.

Kudos to everyone who participated and helped make life a little easier for incoming freshmen this year!

Want to pitch in or learn how your future Yellow Jacket can apply for a scholarship next year? Contact Kathryn Ballou at kat.ballou@alumni. gatech.edu for more information about the program. Alumni scholarship applications will be available online beginning in Nov.ember 2015. All students who have applied to attend Tech as incoming freshmen will receive email notifications regarding scholarship availability and eligibility.

Philanthropy at Work “Income from the KUKA Chair enables us to do early research without worrying about particular research agencies. And that is the work that is absolutely essential to our long-term success.”

Henrik I. Christensen, Ph.D. KUKA Chair of Robotics in the College of Computing Christensen is the executive director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines and a professor of interactive computing. He is a renowned researcher in systems integration, human-robot interaction, mapping, and robot vision. He holds an endowed chair established by KUKA, the German manufacturer of robots and solutions for factory automation.

Henrik I. Christensen coordinated the efforts of a group of universities to formulate a national strategy for robotics. The strategy was adopted by President Obama for his National Robotics Initiative.

Hometown: Frederikshavn, Denmark Education: Ph.D., Faculty of Technical Sciences, Aalborg, Denmark Hobbies: Photography and cooking

The goal of creating 100 new endowed chairs and professorships is a top priority for Campaign Georgia Tech, the $1.5 billion effort to enable Georgia Tech to define the technological research university of the 21st century.

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Discover more Alumni Association happenings at gtalumni.org/events.

SAVE THE DATE! JULY 31

Alumni Admissions Forum

Things have likely changed quite a bit since you applied to Tech. If you have a child or grandchild in grades 8-10, then the time to start thinking about college is now. The Alumni Admissions Forum provides

AUGUST 7

Make sure to put these upcoming Alumni Association events on your calendar.

alumni and their middle and high school age students with critical information about how to apply to selective universities like Georgia Tech. You’ll hear a presentation from Tech’s Admission Office, receive

information about financial aid, tour campus and have the opportunity to talk with current students. There is a $25 charge for each family. For more details, visit gtalumni.org/ alumniadmissionsforum.

Alumni Association Travel Preview Are you ready for an adventure? There’s no better way to see the world than traveling alongside members of the Georgia Tech family. The Alumni Association offers dozens of incredible journeys around the world each year. Join us on campus Aug. 7 for lunch and a special preview of the exciting trips that await you in 2016. Whether you’re a frequent traveler or just exploring the options, this event is not to be missed. Get more info at gtalumni.org/travel.

SEPTEMBER 8-20

Wreck The Irish

Don’t miss the chance to take part in an age-old rivalry. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets will be playing the Notre Dame Fighting Irish for the first time since 2007. Join the Alumni Association for a special “Wreck the Irish” travel package to Chicago and South Bend from Sept. 18-20. Tour

OCTOBER 22-24

packages include hotel accommodations in Chicago for two nights, a Friday night fan party at the House of Blues, and transportation to and from South Bend on the Ramblin' Wreck Express train. There are limited spots remaining—don’t miss out! For more details, go to gtsportstours.com.

Homecoming and Reunion Weekend Ahhh, Homecoming. There’s really nothing better than enjoying the beautiful fall weather at Georgia Tech as you cheer on the Yellow Jackets!

There will be a lot of excitement at Bobby Dodd Stadium as the Jackets take on the reigning ACC champion

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Florida State Seminoles. But there is so much more than football in store during Homecoming and Reunion Weekend Oct. 22-24. Make plans to join us in Atlanta for this exciting weekend! For more details, go to gtalumni.org/homecoming.

Sign up with Commerce Energy in Georgia & enter to win 2 FREE season tickets.* Commerce Energy, a leading natural gas provider serving the greater Georgia area has an exceptional commercial offer for GA Tech Alumni! Commerce Energy not only serves many businesses and homes with natural gas, they are also a valued partner of the GA Tech Alumni Association. This partnership supports our many programs and activities that benefit our alumni across the country.

Why Commerce Energy?

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For large commercial quotes, please call 1-845-228-3401 or email Affinity@CommerceEnergy.com

Visit www.CommerceEnergy.com/GT to enroll online * For GA residents only. For additional details and Sweepstakes Official Rules, visit www.commerceenergy.com/GT. Certain Terms and Conditions apply. This offer is valid for new service for natural gas provided by Commerce Energy. **For commercial properties which consume more than 3000 therms per year. This offer cannot be combined with any other offer or promotion code. Offer expires July 31, 2015.

Yellow Jackets on the Move Another benefit from the Georgia Tech Alumni Association Preferential YELLOW JACKET treatment * * * * * * *

Minimum of a 55% discount on all interstate relocations.

Free Full-Value Coverage up to $50,000.

15% discount on all Georgia and Florida intrastate moves.

Guaranteed on time pick-up and delivery.

Personalized attention from start to finish.

Top rated drivers will be assigned to all Yellow Jacket shipments.

Sanitized air-ride vans.

Contact Tom Larkins (The Ramblin’ Relocator) for details on this program

1-800-899-2527 or e-mail him at tom.larkins@atlanticrelocation.com

Atlantic Relocation Systems/ Interstate Agent for

ATLAS VAN LINES 1909 Forge Street Tucker, GA 30084

* A portion of the proceeds collected from the transportation costs will be paid to the Georgia Tech Alumni Association

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1950s Jean A. Mori, ME 58, was inducted into the Phi Delta Theta Hall of Fame of Georgia. Mori is the chief executive officer of Mori Luggage and Gifts.

Have a new job or other news to share? Email details to ramblinroll@gtalumni.org.

Fred A. Ware Jr., ME 57, retired from Valdosta State University after 42 years on the College of Business faculty. After Tech, he served in the US Army Ordinance Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, was employed as a value engineer and management systems analyst at Lockheed Martin in Marietta,

Ga., and chair of the management & information systems department at Georgia State University. Leading international management study-abroad programs became the eventual focus of his academic career. Ware is a fellow of the Southeast Case Research Association.

Emrich selected as AIAA Engineer of the Year Bill Emrich, ME 73, was honored as the 2015 AIAA Engineer of the Year for his innovative NASA nuclear thermal propulsion research and testing. The award is presented to a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics whose recent use of scientific and mathematical principles has lead to a significant accomplishment or event.

Emrich is working at the forefront of research that could propel humans to Mars.

He conceived, designed and now operates the megawatt-class Nuclear Thermal Rocket Element Environment Simulator, or NTREES. NTREES allows engineers and researchers to perform realistic, non-nuclear testing of nuclear rocket fuel elements in an environment that reproduces the power, flow and temperature conditions expected during actual nuclear engine operation.

This produces a substantial savings in both time and costs by eliminating many of the safety concerns associated with testing in a radiation environment.

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tackling a three-year project to demonstrate the viability of nuclear propulsion system technologies.

“These technologies have the potential to drastically reduce travel time to Mars and other destinations by providing high thrust at efficiencies at least twice that of today’s best chemical engines,” Emrich said.

Emrich is currently an engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Emrich is only the second Marshall team member to win the AIAA award.

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Out & About 1

Donald B. Bivens, MS ChE 63, PhD ChE 66, is the 2015 chair of the research administration committee at the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

Sam Nunn, Cls 60, PhD 08, was inducted into the Phi Delta Theta Hall of Fame of Georgia. He is the co-chairman and chief executive officer of Nuclear Threat Initiative. Nunn is also a distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia tech and chairman of the board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

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1970s Jay Benesh, IM 70, was inducted into the U.S. Army Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame located in the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning, Ga. Benesh was selected for his performance in combat operations while serving as an infantry platoon leader with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade in South Vietnam in 1968.

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Richard Gregory, Bio 71, retired from the University of Virginia in February and is enjoying this new stage of life alongside his wife, Gail, in Charlottesville, Va. Uday R. Bhate, MS GeoS 72, was inducted into the Alabama Construction Hall of Fame.

1980s R.G. ‘Kelly” Caldwell Jr., EE 88, brought economist Stephen Moore to Venice Senior High School to speak. Caldwell is CEO and president of Caldwell Trust Company, which recently moved to Venice, Fla.

1. Georgia Tech-Shenzhen students met up with several Georgia Tech alumni based in Hong Kong to hike up Lion Rock, a granite hill 1,625-feet in elevation located in central Hong Kong.

The GT-Shenzhen students completed their undergraduate studies in the U.S., Taiwan, or mainland China and matriculated to the GT master’s of science in electrical and computer engineering program in Shenzhen last August. Students and alumni plan to hike again in another part of Hong Kong later this year. 2. Ten Tech students enrolled in CEE 4803—a course called Environmental Technology in the Developing World—traveled to Bolivia this spring for a 10day trip to evaluate methods for testing air and water quality. They braved extreme conditions at high altitudes to complete their work, but of course they all had a blast. 3. The Houston GT Alumni Network hosted its own Pi Mile race on March 14 (3.1415, so to speak). More than 75 alumni and friends helped raised $1,450 for scholarships. 4. Kathy Pham, CS 07, MS CS 09, was an honored guest of First Lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden at the 2015 State of the Union address in January. The former Google employee works for the U.S. Digital Service, a startup aimed at making the federal government more tech-savvy (see related story on page 61), including improving digital healthcare for veterans. Joining her on this historic visit was her brother, Cpt. David Pham, Mgt 10, who earned a Purple Heart while serving in Afghanistan with the U.S. Marine Corps.

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1. Anna Burwell, IE 01, and Derek Tiedemann on Nov. 8, 2014. They live in Smyrna, Ga. 2. Anna Earley, ALIS 11, and Mohamed Elzain on Nov. 7, 2014 (legally Jan. 17, 2015). They live in Columbus, Ga. 3. Shannon Langston Foster, Mgt 08, and Dan Foster, on Dec. 31, 2014.

Shannon is a consultant. They live in Denver.

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4. Griffin Elizabeth Hunt, Mgt 13, and Killian Monley, ME 13, on Aug. 23, 2014, in Alpharetta, Ga. Griffin is an accounts coordinator. Killian is an officer in the Navy. They live in Charleston, S.C.

Stat 12, and Mathias Rost, Mgt 12, on Sept. 21, 2014, in Roswell, Ga. Melissa is a research scientist at GTRI. Mathias is a consultant at Deloitte. They live in Atlanta.

5. Benjamin Jones, STC 06, and Shannon Elder, on Dec. 13, 2014, in Dahlonega, Ga. Ben is the founder and owner of AngelDown Studios LLC.

7. Rolieria West, Bio 08, and Justin Deadwyler, PolyE 08, on June 9, 2013.

Rolieria is a research scientist.Justin is a senior facilities manager at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. They live in Stockbridge, Ga.

6. Melissa Hopkins Rost, AM 11, MS

Dan Carey, AP 85, is one of only 100 people to proceed to the third round of the Mars One Astronaut selection process. If he makes it through the fourth and final round, he will become one of 24 persons training to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars beginning in 2025.

Donald E. Gaston Jr., ME 80, was named president and chief executive officer of Prairie State Energy Campus. Don and his wife, Susan, live in Swansea, Ill. Linda Henson Sorrow, IE 84, opened Aberdeen Fine Properties Inc. as broker/owner for Peachtree City and Newnan. In addition to real estate sales, the company will also handle residential property management and serve the new Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayetteville.

Katherine Porter Taylor, EE 84, MS EE 86, PhD EE 91, earned her MD degree from Morehouse School of Medicine in December and will be starting residency at Floyd Medical Center in July.

1990s North Allan, ICS 90, was promoted to CEO at Think Ministry Inc. Glynn M. Harden, ME 96, received a master of divinity degree from the Regent University School of Divinity. Harden is a chaplain and retired naval officer.

Marc D. Miller, IE 98, MS IE 00, was promoted to partner at ScottMadden Management Consultants.

Miller leads ScottMadden’s public power and electric cooperatives practice.

Mark Tabladillo, MS HS 91, PhD IE 97, is now senior data scientist at Predictix/LogicBlox in Midtown Atlanta.

Tabladillo is a senior member of the Association of Computing Machinery.

Law honored with Carter Mathis Award for commercial real estate achievement William F. “Bill” Law Jr., IM 58, was honored with the 2014 Carter Mathis award by the National Association for Industrial and Office Parks Georgia. This award honors an individual with a demonstrated track record of achievement.

Law is currently the chairman emeritus of Colliers International-Atlanta.

According to the the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Law was involved in organizations promoting the growth of Atlanta and Georgia when many national developers were coming in, making for an exciting time in commercial real estate.

Law was behind several multi-million dollar sales in Atlanta such as One Georgia Center and Executive Park. He was also involved in assembling land for the Northeast Atlanta Industrial Park, the Life of Georgia headquarters site and Midtown Plaza One and Two, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

He has served on the boards of the Midtown Alliance and the Atlanta Botanical Garden and long been a supporter of Families First, a nonprofit that works with families in crisis. He has also been heavily involved with the Alliance for Christian Media, an organization that sponsors religious broadcasts and The Study Hall, a learning center for elementary school children in the Peoplestown neighborhood of Atlanta.

2000s Rahul C. Basole, PhD IE 06, was named editor-in-chief of the Journal for Enterprise Transformation. Basole is currently an associate professor of the School of Interactive Computing and associate director of the Tennenbaum Institute for Enterprise Transformation at Georgia Tech.

Justin Deadwyler, PolyE 08, was promoted to senior facilities manager at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Rolieria Deadwyler, Bio 08, completed her Master of Science in Biology in 2014 from Western Kentucky University.

Jonathan F. Gerhard, ME 98, MS ME 01, received the Going the Extra Mile Award from his company Allconnect, where he is director of

software development.

Ryan Kaysen, ME 05, has joined the strategy and operations service line of Deloitte Consulting LLP as a senior manager. He specializes in supply chain planning within the consumer packaged goods industry. Kaysen is based out of New York City.

Deanna C. Mathis, IE 09, received the Women in Manufacturing STEP Award from the Manufacturing Institute. The STEP Award honors women who have demonstrated excellence and leadership in their careers and represent all levels of the manufacturing industry. Mathis was selected for her leadership in managing Shaw’s parcel carrier transition from UPS to FedEx. She is the supply chain business solutions manager at Shaw. Mathis is also the co-president of the Northwest Georgia network in Dalton.

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Martin named dean of business school at Louisiana Tech Christopher Martin, PhD Mgt 87, has been named Dean of the Business School at Louisiana Tech in Ruston, La. Martin currently serves as dean of the Frost School of Business at Centenary College in Shreveport, La. Pending approval from the University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors, Martin will bring 21 years of administrative experience at public and private institutions to

Louisiana Tech, with the last 13 years spent leading Centenary College’s business school.

Prior to his position at Centenary, Martin served as the department chair for management and marketing as well as a professor of management at LSU-Shreveport from 1988 to 2001.

He was also a visiting professor for the summer Tech Rome program at Louisiana Tech in 1992 and 1993.

In addition to his deanship at Centenary, Martin has held the Rudy and Jeannie Linco Eminent Scholars Chair of Business Administration since 2001.

S. Tyrone Pelt, MS ECE 06, is now a licensed professional engineer. He is an electrical engineer at the U.S. General Services Administration in Atlanta.

Andrew W. Smith, Mgt 08, joined J.P. Morgan Private Bank as an associate in Tampa, Fla. and is responsible for advising high net worth clients on investments, liquidity and credit management, and tax and estate planning.

Vrinda Upadhye, MS Mgt 01, is now an institutional consulting analyst at Graystone Consulting.

2010s Kendrick Treadwell, EE 10, is now an associate engineer at Google supporting Google Fiber.

Kurtz, Navy’s oldest active fighter pilot, retires after 28 years Tim Kurtz, ME 83, the Navy’s oldest active fighter pilot, officially retired in January. Kurtz ended his 28-year career with a ceremonial landing of his F-18 strike fighter jet at New Orleans’ Lakefront Airport.

After landing, Kurtz’s friends and squadron-mates surrounded him and soaked him to make sure that he’d been thoroughly “watered down,” a Navy tradition that marks a squadron member’s final flight, according to an article in the New Orleans Advocate.

It’s unusual for a Navy fighter pilot to still be flying at 54-years old. Pilots have to maintain a high level of physical fitness to cope with the forces of gravity during acceleration and at supersonic speeds.

Kurtz was a member of Strike Fighter Squadron 204, known as “the River Rattlers.”

Squadron 204 members travel around the country to perform war game exercises with squadrons of younger pilots. Each exercise is filmed, then carefully analyzed afterward to teach young pilots how to meet mission objectives while staying alive.

Eliot Kamenitz for The New Orleans Advocate

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Community leaders.

Business achievers. Talented artisans. Teachers, as well as entrepreneurs. It’s a remarkable gathering of fascinating individuals. So maybe it’s no coincidence that they all chose a place to call home that’s also quite accomplished.

Lenbrook is the only Continuing Care Retirement Community in Atlanta to achieve national accreditation.

This rigorous third-party evaluation means Lenbrook meets more than 1,100 standards for excellence and ensures active representation of Lenbrook residents in the governance of the community.

Accomplished is one of the great words that describe Lenbrook.

And value is another. It’s your best investment in life. Call 404-857-2345 or visit Lenbrook-Atlanta.org for your free information kit.

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

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BIRTHS

Welcomed a future Yellow Jacket into your family? Send a photo and note to ramblinroll@gtalumni.org.

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1. Terry Chang, EE 92, and his wife, Janet, welcomed son Kaeson Paul on Mar. 15. Kaeson joins sister Kaela Eden. They live in San Jose, Calif.

2. David Andrew Claxton, ME 12, and his wife, Kacy, welcomed daughter Karsyn DeLaine on Dec. 30, 2014. Andrew is an engineer at Toyota. They live in Georgia.

3. Nicole Erickson Roe, BC 09, and Geoff Roe, BC 09, welcomed Charlie Ash on Feb. 3. He’s the grandson of Robert Erickson, IE 79.

4. Jesse Foley, ME 06, and his wife, Jaime, welcomed son Weston Alexander on Dec. 26, 2014. They

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live in Johns Creek, Ga. 5. Tiffany Johnson Forkner, CS 04, and Kyle Forkner, CS 04, welcomed daughter Sophia Grace on Oct. 27, 2014. They live in Denver.

6. Tina Herington, ME 96, and Marshall Herington, CE 94, MS CE 95, welcomed son Andrew Paul on Jan. 23. They live in Duluth, Ga. 7. Stephanie Martinez, Mgt 09, and her husband Robinson, welcomed son Asher Esteban on Nov. 19, 2014.

8. Andrea G. Parker, PhD HCC 11, and Lonnie T. Parker, PhD ECE 12,

welcomed daughter Olivia Simone on Aug. 18, 2014. Andrea is a professor at Northeastern University. Lonnie is a researcher for the Department of Defense.

9. Whitney Setzer Owen, IA 03, and Jay D. Owen, HTS 03, welcomed son Andrew on Nov. 18, 2014. Andrew joins big brother James. Whitney is a director in the health division at LMI and serves on the Alumni Association Board of Trustees. Jay is an attorney at the Department of Justice.

10. Darryl Tomlinson, ME 07, and his wife Sally, welcomed daughter Cora Lynn on Dec. 27, 2013.

They live in Memphis, Tenn.

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memoriam 1930s John Imlay Jr. TITAN OF ATLANTA’S TECH STARTUP COMMUNITY

James G. Brown, EE 36, of Bradenton, Fla., on Feb. 19. Production engineering officer, Army (2nd Lt.). WWII. General Electric. Patent holder. Douglas Aircraft Corporation. Lead missile engineer, General Dynamics Convair. Manager, Aerospace Corporation. Martin-Marietta Skylab.

1940s J

ohn Imlay Jr., IM 59, of Atlanta, on March 25. Imlay was a founding father of Atlanta’s tech industry and an angel investor whose backing helped start many successful businesses. Imlay’s business career took off in 1971, when he became CEO of Management Science America Inc., known as MSA. According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Imlay was recruited at age 33 to help lead the ailing corporation out of debt in 1971. Imlay did away with the company’s dozens of business lines and decided instead to focus on its software business. MSA emerged from bankruptcy and grew to be a software powerhouse. With Imlay as CEO, MSA grew from $2 million in revenue in 1970 to $280 million when the company was sold to The Dun & Bradstreet Corp. for nearly $400 million in 1990.

Imlay was also a generous supporter of innovative new businesses. According to the Business Chronicle, he set aside about $4 million from the MSA sale to invest in startups. Over the next two decades, Imlay backed more than 120 technology companies with a focus on software businesses. Imlay was the second investor in Internet Security Systems Inc., a business started by Tech student Chris Klaus and alumnus Tom Noonan. The company went public in 1998 and was sold to IBM Corp. in 2006 for $1.6 billion.

Imlay is also credited with persuading Georgia Tech leaders to partner with the private sector at a time when the school was primarily focused on military business, according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution. In addition to his business acumen, Imlay was also a minority owner of the Atlanta Falcons and a published author. His industrial management book, "Jungle Rules: How to Be a Tiger in Business" was published in the U.S. and abroad. In 1994, Imlay was inducted into the Technology Hall of Fame for Georgia and received the Entrepreneur of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

Arnold Broyles Barrett, ME 43, of Evans, Ga., on Jan. 22. Navy. WWII. Korean War. Vice president, Riverside Mills. President, Barrett Textiles Sales Inc. President, Society of the Cincinnati.

Lawrence Crooks, CE 49, of Greer, S.C., on Jan. 8. Army. WWII. JE Sirrine Co. Will Doc Fowlkes Sr., IM 49, of Decatur, Ga., on Feb. 24. Navy Air Corp.

Mead Packaging.

Dave Gammill, IE 47, of Jackson, Miss., on Dec. 12. Phi Delta Theta fraternity. Navy (Lt.). Oil producer. Owner, president, Tideway Oil Co. Founding member, Annadale Golf Club.

Bruce F. Harrison, IM 49, of Milan, Tenn., on Sept. 5.

Harold Hedrick, ME 47, of Huntsville, Ala., on Feb. 19. Army. WWII. Woodworker.

Delphin D. Hebert Jr., MS ME 48, of Lafayette, La., on Jan. 13. Army (Capt.). WWII. European African GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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memoriam Middle Eastern Campaign Medal.

Two Bronze Stars. American Campaign Medal. Victory Medal. Army Reserves (Lt. Col.). California Oil Co. Mathematics department, University of Southwest Louisiana.

Donald Clark Hulbert, CE 41, of San Diego, Calif., on Jan. 26 . Navy (Cmdr.). WWII. Civil engineer.

Conrad Kinard, Cls 45, of Denton, Texas, on Feb. 19. Internal medicine and cardiology. Air Force.

Samuel Warren Magruder, ME 47, of Cashiers, N.C., on Jan 5. Navy. Corporate vice president, consultant, The Coca-Cola Co. James H. McLemore, IM 49, of Atlanta,

>> on Feb. 1. Army Air Corps. WWII. Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

Standard Oil Co. Southeastern marketing services manager, Chevron Corporation.

John Van Horne Miner Jr., CE 47, MS CE 48, of Atlanta, on Feb. 23.

Navy. WWII. U.S. Public Health Service. President, Taulman Sales Co. Board member, AlexanderTharpe Athletic Fund. Hunter.

Fisherman.

William Joseph “Bill” Reese, IM 49, of Atlanta, on Jan. 26. Army Air Force. Retail advertising department, Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Burke, Kuipers and Mahoney. Manager, Katz Agency. Co-founder, Crawley-Reese.

Jerry Abbott ENGINEER AND DEVOTED YELLOW JACKET

J

eremiah Ellsworth "Jerry" Abbott, CE 55, of Birmingham, on March 8. Abbott had a successful engineering career and a lifelong commitment to Georgia Tech. While a student at Tech, Abbott was a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity, Phi Kappa Phi academic honor society, Tau Beta Pi Engineering honor society and Scabbard and Blade Army honorary. After graduating from Tech, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserves. Abbott and his wife, Mary Frances, moved to San Francisco where he worked for the Western Pacific Railroad. He was called into regular Army service and completed a tour of duty in Wiesbaden, Germany. Over the course of his career, he worked for Wallace McRoy Engineering, Southern Natural Gas, and retired from Vulcan Materials after 30 years. After retiring, he volunteered with Living Waters for the World, providing engineering consulting services to bring fresh drinking water to La Gonave, Haiti. Abbott was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham where he served as a deacon, ordained elder, Sunday school teacher and clerk of the session. He was active in Georgia Tech Alumni Association’s Birmingham Network and was named the 2009 Alumnus of the Year. He was also a member of Mensa, Sigma Chi Alumni Association, American Society of Civil Engineers and held his Professional Engineer designation. Abbott was described as a loving husband, father and friend to many.

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GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

John Shealy Reiser, ChE 45, of Jacksonville, Fla., on Jan. 8. Navy.

WWII. Wyeth Laboratories.

James Allen Russell Jr., ChE 47, of Bluffton, S.C., on Feb. 27. Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. Marine Corps (2nd Lt.). Korean War. Coatings and resins industry. Technical director, PPG Industries. Grandson: Mark L. Russell, Cls 2015.

John Mankin Slaughter, ChE 48, of Germantown, Md., on Feb. 14.

Son: John T. Slaughter, EE 89, MS EE 90.

Charles Mack Stacy, EE 49, of Fort Worth, Texas, on Feb. 22. Army. Arkansas Power & Light. Radio operator.

Convair Aerospace. General Dynamics.

Richard Hansford Wood, IE 49, of Nashville, Tenn., on Dec. 23. Army Air Corps. Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

Minneapolis Honeywell. Southern Sales Co. William “Bill” Ziegler Sr., IM 41, of Marietta, Ga., on Dec. 24. Army.

WWII. Ford Motor Co. President, chief executive officer, Ziegler Tools Inc. President, Southern Industrial Distributors Association.

1950s William E. Barlow, IM 53, of Morganton, Ga., on Jan. 30. Owner, Transportation Safety Contractors.

Army. Korean War. Joseph Lawrence Coggan, Arch 52, of Fort Worth, Texas, on Feb. 20.

Navy. Architect, engineering division, Army/Air Force Exchange Service.

David P. Cole, IM 58, of Addison, Vt., on Feb. 14. Director of operations, Bronx Zoo.

Malvern Rogers Crutchfield Jr., ME 53, of Anderson, S.C., on Jan. 1.

Engineer.

Monroe Fletcher, EE 50, of Tallahassee, Fla., on Dec. 7. Air Force. WWII. Bridge engineer, assistant engineer of structures, Florida Department of Transportation.

Jackie Travis Foster, ME 59, of Greenville, S.C., on March 2. Navy.

Registered professional engineer, J E Sirrine Co. Ford, Bacon and Davis.

Patent holder.

Charles Edgar Frazier, Cls 55, of Santa Barbara, Calif., on Sept. 17. Minister of education, First Methodist Church in Athens, Ga. Director of youth work, North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church. Associate minister, First United Methodist Church of Evanston, Ill. Assistant administrator, United Methodist Homes and Services in Chicago.

Assistant general secretary, UMC. Executive director, Vista del Monte Retirement Community.

General manager, Western Lines, Norfolk Southern Railway. Son: Thomas Emory Gurley Jr., ChE 83.

Charles Irvin Hancock, ME 56, of Thomasville, Ga., on Feb. 1. Federal Reserve Bank. Navy. Korean War. Radiation Inc. Georgia Baptist Hospital.

Atlanta Orthopedic Clinic. Medical director, Georgia Baptist Medical Center. Instructor, Georgia Baptist and Scottish Rite residency program.

Thomas County Chamber of Commerce Humanitarian Award. Georgia Tech Engineering Hall of Fame.

Charles Edward Johnson, IM 51, of Charleston, S.C., on March 3. Alpha Tau Omega. Army Air Force(Lt. Col.). WWII. Korean War. Vietnam War. AT&T division comptroller. Disbursements accounting management, Bell System. Son:

Kenneth W. Grubaugh, Arch 51, of Davis, Calif., on Feb. 3. Fighter pilot, test pilot, plant representative, procurement manager, director of procurement, Air Force (Col.). WWII. Korean War. Vietnam War. Legion of Merit award. Bronze Star. Distinguished Flying Crosses. Air Medals.

Yolo County Purchasing Agent. General services administrator, city of Davis.

Hiram Sidney “Sid” Long Jr., ME 56, of Pensacola, Fla., on Feb. 15. Navy.

Korean War. Chemstrand/Monsanto. Son: Greg “Gonca” Long, ME 80.

David Leopold Lowi, ChE 52, of Gadsden, Ala., on Feb. 21. Owner, L.B. Chemical Co. Army (Lt. Col.). Brother: Alvin Lowi Jr., ME 51, MS ME 55.

William Joseph Lutz Luckett, CE 50, of Madison, Miss., on Feb. 15. Army Air Corps. WWII. Air Force. Korean War. Civil engineer. Eagle Scout.

John R. “Jack” Paterson, IM 58, of Clearwater, Fla., on Dec. 29. President, co-founder, Underground Atlanta.

Riccardo Ingram LEGENDARY ATHLETE AND COACH

Luther Gerald Granger, Text 59, of Kennett, Mo., on Dec. 10. Son: Greg Granger, IM 85.

Hugh L. Gordon Jr., IM 51, of Marietta, Ga., on Jan. 2. Army. Director of personnel, Lockheed-Georgia Co. Regional executive, Region 4, National Alliance of Businessmen.

Charles E. Johnson Jr., BM 73.

Brother: Vernon Ellesworth Johnson, Arch 53.

R

iccardo Ingram, Mgt 00, ofLilburn, Ga., on March 31. Ingram was a star athlete who left a legacy on the Yellow Jackets’ football and baseball teams. In his senior year at Tech, Ingram was a leader on both teams and became the first Tech athlete to win the McKevlin Award, given annually by the ACC to its top male athlete. In football, Ingram had 79 tackles leading to All-ACC honors in 1986 as a defensive back. He was named the 1987 ACC Player of the Year in baseball after hitting .426 with 17 home runs and 99 RBI. He ended that season by helping the Yellow Jackets win the 1987 ACC title in baseball. After leaving Tech, Ingram focused his athletic career on baseball. He was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the fourth round of the Major League Baseball Draft in 1987. He played for two seasons in the major leagues, with the Tigers in 1994 and the Minnesota Twins in 1995. He then spent nine years playing in the minor leagues and was later hired as a coach by the Twins.

Thomas Emory “T.E.” Gurley, CE 52, of Alpharetta, Ga., on Feb. 2. Army.

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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in

memoriam Fred L. Pfarr, EE 51, of Bloomington, Ind., on Feb. 1.

Dixon Gray Potter, IM 57, of Hermitage, Tenn., on Jan. 4. Army (Capt.).

Genesco. Suntrust.

Frank Repult Jr., Arch 52, of Dallas, Texas, on Dec. 23, 2014. Owner, Frank Repult Junior Architects.

James Kelly Sharp, EE 52, MS EE 54, of Long Beach, Miss., on Feb. 20.

Sperry Corporation. Stennis Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Billy Joe Snyder, ChE 52, of Lexington,

>> Ky., on Jan 2. Army. Armco Steel.

W. Jefferson Stroud Sr., AE 59, of Harrisonburg, Va., on Feb. 25.

NASA. Lecturer. Co-developer, PASCO. NASA Software of the Year Award. NASA Exceptional Service Medal. Author. Researcher.

Albert Clinton “Al” Tumlin, Text 51, of Rock Hill, S.C. on Jan. 31. Navy. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. John Frank Turner, ChE 51, of Charleston, S.C., on Feb. 2. Petroleum engineer, Navy. Grandson: Jackson Crumbley, AE 14.

Mark Hampton RESPECTED ARCHITECT AND GENTLEMAN

M

ark Hampton, Arch 48, of Coconut Grove, Fla., on Feb. 28. Hampton was a successful architect whose work included modern homes as well as commercial projects such as the Wolfsonian Museum and Bal Harbour Shops. As part of an exhibition of his work in 2010, the University of Miami School of Architecture described Hampton as an architect “known for pioneering sustainable tropical houses, which were simple, concrete and designed to catch the tropical breezes. Hampton’s style is characterized by a remarkable awareness of space and meticulous attention to both interior and the exterior design.”

According to his obituary in the Miami Herald, the modernist architect was inspired by south Florida’s natural beauty. Hampton’s design work on the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum transformed a former storage building into a museum, akin to “a historic grand hotel,” a Miami Herald architecture critic once wrote. In 1965, Hampton partnered with the Miami firm Herbert H. Johnson & Associates that designed the Bal Harbour Shops, which opened that year. In 1971, when Neiman Marcus became an anchor store at the upscale mall, it carried Hampton’s design. Hampton served as a captain in the U.S. Army Infantry during World War II before attending Georgia Tech. In 1974, he opened his own architecture practice in Coconut Grove, Fla. The same year, he earned a fellowship in the American Institute of Architects.

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GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

William Charles “Bill” Warfield, ChE 58, of Rancho Mirage, Calif., on Jan. 16. Pennwalt. Kaiser Chemical and Aluminum. Founder, J&B Resources. Golfer.

William Derrell “Bill” Warren, ME 50, of Indian Land, S.C., on Jan. 20.

Kraft Foods Dairy Group. Pilot, Navy.

WWII.

1960s William Allen “Bill” Barnes, IE 62, of Sun City, Ariz., on Dec. 15. Army. Engineer. Pilot.

Harry Duane “Hal” Beaver Jr., IE 64, of Atlanta, on Jan. 2. Army Engineering Corps (Capt.). Airborne Rangers.

James “Jack” Blue Jr., MS IE 64, of Weaverville, N.C., on Dec. 6. Air Force. WWII. Korean War. Vietnam War. James “Jim” Davis, EE 64, of Carol Stream, Ill., on Feb. 28. Navy. Bell Labs. Developer, instructor, TRA. Frederick Byron “Fred” Dyer, Phys 57, MS Phys 61, of Dahlonega, Ga., on Feb. 13. Radar research.

Thomas H. Farrow Jr., EE 61, of Indian Shores, Fla., on Dec. 8.

Henry “Lewis” Faucett, ChE 60, of Florence, Ala., on Feb. 11. Chemical engineer, Tennesee Valley Authority.

President, TVA Credit Union. Treasurer, Shoals Community Theater.

Lawrence Evan “Larry” Frase, MS EE 61, of Dallas, Texas, on Dec. 27.

Air Force (Capt.) Engineer, Collins Radio. Texas Instruments. Bell Helicopter. Merit badge instructor, Boy Scouts of America Troop 82. Adjunct professor, Southern Methodist University.

John O’Neal Hammons Sr., IM 61, of Memphis, Tenn., on Dec. 11. Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. Humble Oil and Refining Co. Board member, director, Dunes of Destin Homeowner’s Association. Son: John O’Neal Hammons Jr., IM 80.

Paula Stevenson Humphreys CHEMIST AND PIONEER FOR WOMEN AT TECH

W. Harold Long, IM 67, of Palm Coast, Fla., on Feb. 23. Executive, Parker Hannifin.

Charles Edward “Buddy” Sawyer, IE 64, of Birmingham, Ala., on Dec. 27.

William A. Schmieman, PhD IE 68, of Richland, Wash., on Jan. 21. Radio operator, tail gunner, Army Air Corps (Tech. Sgt.). Antenna engineer, Federal Civil Service.

John L. Scott, IM 69, of Gainesville, Fla. Attorney, City of Branford.

Billy A. “Bill” Spinks, IM 63, of Lilburn, Ga., on March 3. Owner, operator, Spinks Mechanical.

Jack M. Spurlock, MS ChE 58, PhD ChE 61, of Leesburg, Fla., on Dec. 27. Munitions Officer, Air Force (2nd Lt., Capt.). Autolite. Assistant director, Applied Sciences Laboratory, Engineering Experiment Station, Georgia Tech. Professor, School of Chemical Engineering, Georgia Tech. Martin Company.

Atlantic Research Corporation.

Co-founder, Versar Inc. Co-founder, Health and Safety Research Institute. Jonas and Associates.

Co-author, Research and Development Management. Principal research engineer, director of interdisciplinary programs, director of the Bioengineering Center, associate vice president for research, Georgia Tech. Owner, Spurlock and Associates Automated Systems.

Adjunct professor, Barry University. Adjunct professor, Webster University. Chi Phi fraternity. Sigma Xi. Joint patent holder. Sons: Paul A. Spurlock, NE 85; Scott E. Spurlock, Cls 81.

P

aula Stevenson Humphreys, Text 58, of New York City, on March 15.

Humphreys was an ambitious woman who broke barriers at Georgia Tech and went on to share her passion for chemistry with others. When Humphreys arrived at Tech in 1954, she was one of just a handful of women on campus and remembers being treated “like a leper.” Undeterred, Humphreys went on to become a student leader and was involved in many organizations and activities on campus.

She became Georgia Tech’s first drum majorette while also serving as one of the first two women in the marching band. She was the first woman to win a seat on the student council, the first woman invited to join the Reck Club, and she wrote for the student newspaper, The Technique, among other activities. Many alumni from the 1950s fondly remember her as “Pretty Paula.” She worked as a research assistant at Tech and later as a chemist and assistant chief of laboratory services with the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration in Atlanta. Stevenson moved to New York City in 1970, where she lived for the majority of her adult life. She worked as a research assistant at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, as a lab technician at the New York Institute of Technology and as a lab technician with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Northeast Forensics Lab. In 1988, she became an adjunct lecturer in chemistry at the City University of New York, a job she held until retiring in 2012.

1970s John Albert “Al” Bornmann Jr., MS EE 72, of Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 17. Army (2nd Lt.). Professional engineer. Instructor. Research and development coordinator. Operations officer. Executive officer. Bronze Star Medal. Purple Heart. Meritorious Service Medal. Air Medal. Army Commendation Medal. SRA International Inc. President, Fort Belvoir Chapter, Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. SRA Chairman Award. Silver Beaver award, Boy Scouts.

Joseph Edward Brown, IM 74, of Covington, Ga., on June 30.

Alfred Bowman “Al” Jennings III, Mgt 74, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., on Feb. 4. Director, Savannah Civic Center. Production manager, Sunbelt Coca-Cola. Engineer consultant, Food and Beverage Industry.

Paul William O’Neil Jr., CE 78, of Weaverville, N.C., on Feb. 20. Senior regulation advisor, Southwest Florida Water Management District.

Board member, American Water Resources Association.

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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in

memoriam

>> 1980s

Julius Clarence “Bud” Shaw INDUSTRY GIANT AND GEORGIA TECH CHAMPION

J

ulius Clarence "Bud" Shaw Jr., Text 50, of Atlanta, on Jan. 16. Shaw was a helluva engineer who went on to run one of the largest carpet manufacturing companies in the world. While still a student at Tech, Shaw got his first taste of manufacturing through a management training program with American Thread Company. In 1952, he served in the armed forces for a year before joining Crown Cotton Mills in Dalton, Ga., where he started the carpet yarn division. Next, Shaw became general manager of Rocky Creek Mills, the carpet yarn division of Marion Manufacturing Company. In 1959, Rocky Creek Mills and Star Dye Company, a family-owned business, formed Star Finishing Company, and Shaw served as a director. J. P. Stevens Company purchased Rocky Creek Mills in 1964, and Shaw became general manager of the automotive division. In 1965, he moved to Cartersville, Ga., with Dan River Carpets as general manager. Shaw founded Sabre Carpets in 1968 and merged the interests of Star Finishing and Sabre/Philadelphia into Shaw Industries Inc., where he served as chairman until his retirement in 1996. Shaw Industries Inc., has grown to be the world's largest carpet manufacturing company. Shaw was the recipient of Georgia Tech's Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award in 1994 and Georgia Tech Athletic Association's Total Person Award in 1995. He was also awarded membership in Tech's Engineering Hall of Fame in 1997. Shaw was involved in many organizations around the state of Georgia and beyond. He served as chairman and a past board member of the Carpet & Rug Institute, Georgia Tech Foundation, Georgia Tech National Advisory Board, Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Emory-Georgia Tech Biomedical Technology Research Center, Kennesaw State College, Rabun-Gap Nacoochee School, Bartow County Bank, First National Bank of Cobb County, Georgia State Chamber of Commerce, Post Properties, Georgia Heart Association, Columbia Theological Seminary Board of Trustees and Council of Fellows.

He also served as an elder of First Presbyterian Church of Cartersville for many years. Son: Julius Clarence Shaw III, Cls 76.

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Joseph R. “JR” Holton Jr., AE 86, of Keller, Texas, on March 3. Federal Aviation Administration. Private sector, aviation industry.

William Culberson “Cully” Macon III, Mgt 88, of Fletcher, N.C., on Feb. 10.

Patrick David Miller, EE 89, of Austin, Texas, on Dec. 31. Production support specialist, Accenture.

2010s Brandi Renee Herringdine Lusk, Mgt 10, of Atlanta, on Feb. 28. Husband: Troy Lusk, Cls 09.

Friends Joy Weller Boeke, of Big Canoe, Ga., on Feb. 11.

Fred Stuart Gould III, of Atlanta, on Dec. 27. Chapter advisor, Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at Georgia Tech. Army. National sales manager, Continental Can Co. Merit Key Award. Render Braswell Service Award. Bob Cousins Zeal Award. Son: Stuart Ellis Gould, Mgt 91.

Edward J. McCarthy, of Atlanta, on Feb. 7.Technical trainer, Videojet Technologies.

Arlin Edward Parrott, of Mableton, Ga., on Dec. 13. Air Force. Policeman, Georgia Tech.

Pete Silas EXECUTIVE AND PHILANTHROPIST

C

.J. “Pete” Silas, ChE 53, of Washington, Okla. on Dec. 16. Silas had a lengthy and impressive career at Phillips, where he retired as chairman and CEO of the petroleum company. In high school, Silas was recruited for a full basketball scholarship to Georgia Tech. After graduating from Tech, Silas joined Phillips as a trainee petroleum engineer in 1953. During his first year at Phillips, Silas, who stood 6’6”, played briefly for the Phillips 66ers basketball team. He served two years as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Chemical Corps and played on the Army basketball team that won the Pan-American games in Mexico City in 1955. Over the years,

Silas’ career brought him to Paris, Zurich, Brussels, London and New York City, where he met his wife Theodosea Hejda. In London, Silas led Phillips' Europe-Africa division and directed much of the development of the Ekofisk operations in the Norwegian North Sea, one of the world's largest offshore oil and gas complexes.

He received the Norwegian government's royal Norwegian St. Olav's Order in the rank of commander, recognizing his contributions to Norway's energy industry. In 1976, Silas returned to corporate headquarters in Bartlesville, Okla. He rose quickly through the ranks, serving as vice president, gas and gas liquids; president and

COO; and finally as chairman and CEO. During this time, he successfully guided the company through two takeover attempts.

He retired in 1994 after a 41-year career at Phillips. Throughout his life, Silas participated in many organizations and philanthropies, including the American Petroleum Institute, the National Boys and Girls Clubs of America, National Junior Achievement, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Frank Phillips Foundation Inc., the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence and more. In 1988, Silas received Georgia Tech’s Former Scholar–Athlete Total Person Award.

Silas and his wife, Theo, helped establish the OK Mozart Festival and the Price Tower Arts Center — a museum, hotel and a source of cultural pride to the city of Bartlesville. In 2013, the Bartlesville Community Center honored the Silas family through its Legacy Hall of Fame.

Morris “David” Prince SCIENTIST, ENGINEER, INVENTOR AND TEACHER

M

orris “David” Prince, EE 46, MS ECE 49, of Atlanta, on Jan. 8. Prince had a successful career in science and engineering, rising to prominence through his contributions to display technology and electronics. At Georgia Tech, Prince was selected for the U.S. Navy V-12 Honors program. After graduation, he was commissioned into the Navy and served a year of active duty at Pearl Harbor. Upon returning to Atlanta, Prince married Fay Wright and the couple had four children. Prince returned to Tech as a graduate student, where he co-invented scan-velocity television, a technology for improving TV picture tube resolution. This concept was later adapted and cited as a research source by the Sony Corporation for the Sony Trinitron and eventually incorporated into more than 100 million TV sets.

Prince worked as an instructor at Tech before joining Lockheed Aerospace. In 1971, he wrote a book called “Interactive Graphics for Computer-Aided Design,” later translated into Chinese, Japanese and Russian and utilized worldwide for university

instruction. He spoke frequently at technical conferences in the U.S. and abroad and had a successful 40-year career in electronics, display technology, computer applications and research management. In 1981, he was named the Lockheed-Georgia Engineer-Scientist of the Year. In recognition of his distinguished career, he was inducted into the Georgia Tech Engineering Hall of Fame in 2004. Throughout his life, Prince looked for ways to teach others. He created a cardboard device he called the “binary wheel” to help school children understand binary mathematics. He produced a cassette-tape series called Science Spectrum for exposing students to different fields of science.

After retiring, Prince mentored minority students in Georgia Tech’s virtual reality lab. He was admired and respected by many for his integrity, character, compassion and good humor.

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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Ride Safely with youR dog(S)!

KORE is the world’s leading provider of

Thanks to GA Tech physics, you can bike safely with your dog(s)! The Bike Tow Leash prevents tipping and tangling, making rides enjoyably stress free. No matter your abilities, the dog needs a walk. APA approved safe for bikes, trikes, wheel chairs and mobility scooters.

Helping leaders build effective organizations since 1986

machine-to-machine (M2M) network services, offering truly global connectivity over GSM, CDMA & Satellite technologies. Our network services are managed through a highly scalable unified interface platform.

678-389-3146 | koretelematics.com sales@koretelematics.com

BikeTowLeash.com 857-245-3364

Pre-employment assessment; surveys; coaching; team development.

Hodges L. Golson, Ph.D. (BSIM) William J. Flanagan, Ph.D. (Psy) Michele I. Mobley, Ph.D. (Psy) 404-237-6808 | managementpsychology.com

Your allY in driving smart business online

PROVIDING ANTENNA MEASUREMENT SOLUTIONS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

Ally Commerce provides a turnkey eCommerce

MI Technologies introduced the world to microwave

of a flexible, enterprise, cloud-based technology

years of Atlanta Real Estate Experience,

antenna measurement systems and continues to build

platform and best-in-class services including

working by referral with fellow Ga Tech

on that legacy. Today we lead the industry in setting new

fulfillment/warehousing, customer service,

Graduates, Faculty and Friends.

standards for tomorrow’s performance requirements.

inventory/order management, and store creation.

404-394-4519 | marybethlake.com marybeth.lake@harrynorman.com

+1-678-475-8300 (Press 3 for Sales) mitechnologies.com sales@mitechnologies.com

866-994-1354 | allycommerce.com info@allycommerce.com

MARY BETH LAKE, REALTOR®

outsourcing solution through the combination

Award winning Residential REALTOR® specializing in Cobb & Fulton Counties. Ten

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Tech

marketplace

>>

Want to join the Tech Marketplace?

Contact Betsy Rogers at (404) 894-0751 or betsy.rogers@alumni.gatech.edu.

TRANSFORM ENGINEERS & PROFESSIONALS INTO BUSINESS LEADERS Performex® is a full service provider of talent management and talent development services.

For 35+ years, we’ve provided immediate, tangible results to address the professional development needs of industries and companies, ensuring technical specialists and professionals successfully make the leap to accomplished leaders.

404-444-2981 | performex.com jbruce@performex.com

INTRODUCING RECALL PORTAL Recall Portal is a web-based tool that provides a single view and access to all physical and digital holdings providing unprecedented visibility, accessibility and control.

770-776-1239 | Recall.com Joe.Gross@recall.com

PHUNWARE Phunware is the pioneer of Multiscreen as a Service™ (MaaS) – the only fully integrated services platform that enables brands to engage, manage and monetize their anytime anywhere users.

Major Converters of flexible & speCialty rigid paCkaging Printpack is a global leader in flexible and specialty rigid packaging. They create the most innovative packages on the market today. The most trusted brands trust Printpack for all of their packaging needs.

512-693-4199 | phunware.com sales@phunware.com

800-451-9985 | printpack.com

REAL ESTATE

AtlAntA’s trusted Intown BuIlder Round Here Renovations, LLC is a licensed and insured

The Sign You Want.

The Agent You Need.

Find your local RE/MAX Expert today!

residential construction and renovation business servicing the vibrant and historic neighborhoods of Atlanta, Georgia. From custom kitchens & baths to entire homes, RHR would love to partner with you for your next major home improvement project.

remax-georgia.com

404-500-9102 | roundhererenovations.com info@roundhererenovations.com

Intellectual Property Law Georgia Tech Class of 1994

SEAN P. O’HANLON, ESQ., PLLC Sean P. O’Hanlon, Esq., PLLC specializes in the practice of intellectual property law.

Located in Alexandria, Virginia minutes from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

703-829-7099 | seanpohanlon.com info@seanpohanlon.com

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GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

FEDEX & UPS IN ONE SYSTEM

shoe trees for men & women

ShipTropolis is a business productivity tool that helps companies save time and reduce shipping cost, utilizing existing FedEx and UPS accounts and discounts.

Shoe Tree Marketplace carries the largest selection of Shoe Trees, Boot Trees, Boot Shapers and Shoe & Boot Stretchers. With 30 years+ of experience, trust us with all your shoe care needs!

714-907-1762 | ShipTropolis.com bob.herman@tropolisgroup.com

ShoeTreeMarketplace.com Tech@ShoeTreeMarketplace.com

MORE THAN JUST A CAMERA STORE Serving Atlanta for nearly 40 years, Showcase is the go-to source for your photography and

50 YEARS OF CONTRACT ELECTRONIC ASSEMBLY

I&C ENGINEERING EXPERTS Helping clients achieve technical excellence with their instrumentation and control projects.

Georgia Tech Alumni.

Our focus on your individual needs and our unique approach support your products from Design for Manufacturing to Custom Inventory Management.

404-325-7676 | showcaseinc.com sales@showcaseinc.com

618-539-3000 | siemensmfg.com sales@siemensmfg.com

southern-engineering.net bgeddes@southern-engineering.net

videography needs. Come in and experience new product demonstrations, professional services and educational opportunities. Founded by

now building in forsyth, fulton, dekalb, gwinnett, e. cobb and oconee “At SR Homes, our goal is to focus on building you a home that meets your needs both today and tomorrow. We’ll think through the details so you don’t have to.”

ReseaRch InnovatIon centeR ThyssenKrupp Elevator Americas has partnered with Georgia Tech to leverage the talents of our organizations, capture ideas, and put our shared knowledge to work for future success.

--Alex Tetterton, President of SR Homes

678-252-2525 | SRHomes.com info@srhomes.com

OFFERING MORE TO GEORGIA TECH & THE ATLANTA COMMUNITY Windham Brannon is proud to have provided tax, audit and advisory services to businesses and executives in Atlanta and the southeast since 1957. WB and Ga Tech grads are redefining the CPA industry.

404-885-5260 | ThyssenKruppElevator.com RICAtlanta@thyssenkrupp.com

404-898-2011 | windhambrannon.com info@windhambrannon.com

process optimization

LET ZPAPER OUTFIT YOU FOR THE ROAD AHEAD

Proudly celebrating 25 years!

Wolverton & Associates, Inc. is a full-service engineering firm offering Land Development, Transportation Engineering, Traffic Engineering, Land Surveying, Subsurface Utility Engineering and Landscape Architecture for public and private clients throughout the United States. We are headquartered in Duluth, GA, with a branch office in Savannah, GA. 770-447-8999 | wolverton-assoc.com info@wolverton-assoc.com

The ZDM Group and Northwest Center for Performance

true process excellence via Lean and Six Sigma.

zPaper is the technological standard for fax and form solutions for businesses of all sizes. Whether you are at your desk or on the go, we deliver the perfect solution for your workflow processes!

770-365-3427 thezdmgroup.com | nwcpe.com szagarola@nwcpe.com

770-643-9297 | zpaper.com Sales@zpaper.com

Excellence enable your business to set world class benchmarks for customer loyalty, productivity of assets and ROI. For 25+ years, we’ve provided Workshops, Certification, Consulting and Coaching in how to achieve

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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Hiring

marketplace

Build Your Future with Gtri The Georgia Tech Research Institute is the applied research and development arm of Georgia Tech.

GTRI’s 1,600+ scientists, engineers and other professionals solve the most difficult problems

>>

Looking for a new job or a career change? Take a look at our Hiring Marketplace partners!

Putting technology talent to work!

Atlanta’s Premier Technology Recruiting Firm. Founded by Georgia Tech Alumni Supporting the Georgia Tech Community.

As Always, Go Jackets!

facing government and industry around the world.

employment@gtri.gatech.edu gtri.gatech.edu/careers/opportunities

Twitter: @htrjobs | htrjobs.com clint@htrjobs.com

Your Want ny Compa red Featu ?

HERE?

buzz does!

Reach out to Betsy Rogers and sign up today!

404-894-0751

404-894-0751 betsy.rogers@alumni.gatech.edu betsy.rogers@alumni.gatech.edu

DENOTES

everyday made easier We run the everyday transactions that make your life easier.

A GTAA CAREER SERVICES PREMIER PARTNER. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT GTALUMNI.ORG/EMPLOYERS.

GREAT CAREERS IN TECHNOLOGY! Looking for a great career in technology? UPS leverages technology to empower customers with personalized solutions that simplify global trade and optimize supply chains.

Come be a part of it!

Copyright © 2014, United Parcel Service of America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

ncr.com | ncr.com/about-ncr/careers

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GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

678-746-4085 | UPS.com palomapena@ups.com

Special Offer for Georgia Tech Alumni in Texas!

Tara Energy, a leading electricity provider serving Texas has an exceptional offer for GA Tech Alumni!

Tara Energy not only serves many businesses and homes with electricity; they are also a valued partner of the GA Tech Alumni Association. This partnership supports our many programs and activities that benefit the alumni across the country.

Why Tara Energy?

Exclusive electricity supply rates

Mobile app to easily track your usage

Customized products for your home or business

Serving Texas customers since 2002

Green energy options

Seamless switching

Latest innovation in online account management

Weekly usage emails

For Commercial Quotes: Email commercialsales@taraenergy.com or call 1-855-855-TARA to speak directly to an account manager; reference promo code: GT.

Visit www.TaraEnergy.com/GT or call 1.866.GET.TARA * For TX residents only. Certain Terms and Conditions apply. This offer is valid for new service for electricity provided by Tara Energy. This offer cannot be combined with any other offer or promotion code. PUCT# 10051.

TRYING TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS WITHOUT “WRECKING” YOUR BALANCE SHEET?

NOW YOU CAN! Get Paid NOW®, while your customers continue to enjoy the free and flexible payment terms that they are used to. NOWaccount® feels like accepting a credit card for payment, except you choose when to use it and it’s invisible to your customers.

Designed by GT engineers, this new revenue accelerator program allows you to leverage your cash flow from operations, rather than debt or equity, to fund new and larger sales.

NOWaccount is waiving the enrollment fee and monthly service fees for all GT Alumni.

See what all the BUZZ is about: gtalumni.nowaccount.com

Tech

history

>>

50-Year Anniversary of a Historic Graduation Roger Slavens After five full decades, Ronald Yancey, EE 65, still main-

tains strong connections to Georgia Tech. This golden anniversary of graduation marks not only a personal milestone, but a landmark occasion in the history of Georgia Tech. In 1965, Yancey became the first African-American student to graduate from the Institute.

Yancey’s path through Tech was not an easy one—like any student at the Institute, his electrical engineering coursework was rigorous. But Yancey faced additional challenges and pressures in being a trailblazer as he overcame racial barriers at Georgia Tech and persevered to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Though he had a uniquely challenging college experience, Yancey is proud he “got out” of Tech, finishing in the upper third of his class. His demanding education set him up for a long and successful career with the U.S. government as an engineer. "I learned early on that my work demanded the tenacity and ingenuity strongly exemplified at Tech," Yancey says.

He had many job prospects, but he chose to take a job with the Department of Defense in Fort Meade, Md., and he worked in this role for 16 years. During this time, he married his wife, Sheila, and together they raised four children in Columbia, Md. Yancey left the Department ∏ Ron Yancey, 50 years later of Defense in 1981 and began a career in the private sector as a defense contractor in telecommunications research and development. He worked for Magnavox, BDM and GTE. He also worked as an engineering manager in management and data systems for Lockheed Martin. He says he was better prepared for all of these opportunities

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GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

because of his time at Georgia Tech. "I returned to Tech as a recruiter with a different perspective," Yancey says. "I found that Tech was recognized as a rich source of personnel with the engineering talent, skills and confidence to solve complex challenges with national security implications."

Despite time and distance, Yancey has returned to Georgia Tech many times over the years. He is proud of his alma mater and served a term on the Alumni Association’s Board of Trustees. He’s also remained a big fan of Yellow Jacket football. As a member of the Class of 1965 Reunion Committee, Yancey plans to return to Tech once again this fall to mark the 50-year anniversary of his landmark graduation.

Time Machine 5 years ago, in 2010, Waffle House opens a restaurant on Fifth Street, the company’s first location on Tech campus.

• 10 years ago, in 2005, Astronaut William S. McArthur Jr., MS AE 83, is selected to serve on the International Space Station.

• 25 years ago, in 1990, Atlanta is announced as the site of the 1996 Olympic Games, thanks to a successful bid presentation created with much Georgia Tech assistance.

• 50 years ago, in 1965, The Alumni Association newspaper, Tech Topics, begins publication.

• 100 years ago, in 1915, Tech’s first two literary societies are created: the Henry W. Grady and the Delphian.

•

Have a Tech memory to share? Send mail to Editor, Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313, or contact us by email at

125 years ago, in 1890, H.L. Smith and G.C. Crawford become the first two students to graduate from Tech. Smith wins a coin toss for the honor of receiving the first degree.

publications@gtalumni.org.

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

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Back

page

>>

He was a singular man, whose generosity and spirit touched many.

John Imlay: Mentor and Friend

Sig Mosley

My friend and mentor, John P. Imlay Jr.,

IM 59, often said great entrepreneurs and great leaders, in the words of Bobby Jones, “play the ball as it lies.” That’s exactly how he led his life: No matter what faced him, he dealt with it head on.

John was a true entrepreneur at an early age. While at Georgia Tech in the 1950s, he had the unique ability to see the potential of computers and programming long before not only his student peers, but also those already working in the industry. He played an invaluable role in building a technology industry in Atlanta and keeping it here.

He was one of the best sales and marketing executives I knew. John had an uncanny ability to create and execute marketing campaigns that took the market by storm. He also knew how to recruit, manage, motivate and reward employees for their hard work. Management Science 1 0 6

GTALUMNIMAG.COM VOLUME 91 NO.2 2015

America employees wore an MSA keyshaped lapel pin because John felt “People are the Key,” and he made it truly symbolic of his belief of the worth of good employees. He helped develop more than 100 top executives who went on to lead significant companies around the globe, including me.

Even though John had many strengths, he knew how to find the right people to complement his weaknesses. John was a great listener and was always open to receive advice from his colleagues. And he also knew he was not infallible. Early on in MSA’s public life, John declared that the

mini-computer was dead and even had a funeral burying it. When the mini-computer made a comeback, John admitted his prediction was wrong and fully embraced its return—making hay with it, of course.

When John eventually retired from business, he still missed the competitiveness of it all. As a result of his passion, John made an investment in the Atlanta Falcons in 1991 and he found it to be invigorating.

Regardless of where the Falcons played, he always showed his support. For many of us who knew John as a great social host, we knew that when it was “game time,” it was all about his director’s chair and binoculars as he kept his eyes on the field.

John was a generous philanthropist. He created the Imlay Foundation in 1989 to give back to the Greater Atlanta community. He was a tremendous supporter of the Atlanta History Center, Georgia Tech, Emory University, the Woodruff Arts Center, the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and many others. He also guided the foundation to give 10 percent of its donations to charities in Scotland, from where his family hailed.

John enjoyed being an angel investor because it was a great way for him to help launch entrepreneurs. While he did not take an active role in many private investments, when he did get involved, he jumped in with both feet. EzGov was an excellent example of this, and he served as an active board member and adviser to the CEO. When the CEO suddenly passed away, he helped the COO rally the troops to keep the company moving forward.

John had an extreme love of golf and was a purist when it came to playing the game.

When we started doing angel investing, he gave me only one area that I could definitely not invest in—and that was golf. John did not mind talking about business while playing golf, but he did not want to talk about golf as a business.

John was a consummate leader and his actions speak for themselves. He was a singular man, whose generosity and spirit touched many. He will truly be missed.

John Imlay, IM 59, is considered the godfather of Atlanta’s startup community. He passed away on March 25th. You can read his formal obituary on page 89. Sig Mosley is the managing partner of Mosley Ventures and a good friend of Georgia Tech. He owes a lot of his success to Imlay. Since 1990, Mosley has been one of the most prolific investors in the Southeast, involved in more than 120 startups and 82 liquidity events, including the $5.7 billion acquisition of Tradex by Ariba.

Joe Ciardiello

BE AN ACTIVE ALUM With over 145,000 alumni, you are part of a powerful network that spans the country and the world.

Stay connected to Georgia Tech and involved with your Yellow Jacket family.

HERE ARE 10 WAYS YOU CAN.

1

6

REGISTER ON GTALUMNI.ORG

Our re-engineered website GTALUMNI.ORG is a place where you can reconnect with fellow Yellow Jackets on social, professional, and intellectual levels like never before. It allows you to search old friends, manage your own information, and join groups of alumni who share your interests.

2

Be part of the 68-year tradition by contributing to help ensure the present and future greatness of Georgia Tech. gtalumni.org/rollcall

7

GET INVOLVED WITH ALUMS IN YOUR REGION With over 100 Alumni Network and Affinity Groups, you can easily connect with alumni in your local area.

3

PAY IT FORWARD

STAY CONNECTED ON SOCIAL MEDIA

RECRUIT FROM OUR NETWORK

Post job openings to the alumni job board or participate in our annual Career Fair where we connect 100 Georgia Tech employers with 1,000 Tech graduates.



8



MENTOR

You understand what it is like to be a Tech Student. Help them maneuver life at Tech and the transition to a career by mentoring a current student.

4

gtmentorjackets.com

SHARE YOUR GOOD NEWS

Did you get married or recently have a baby?

Land a new job? Update us on all of the exciting happenings in your life by submitting a note to our Ramblin Roll section of the Alumni magazine.

5



Thousands of Georgia Tech events are happening all over the globe. From accepted student socials and game watching parties, to the President’s Tour and local network-sponsored events, we have a lot going on for you to stay connected!



Email details to: ramblinroll@gtalumni.org

TELL US YOUR STORY

9

ATTEND A GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI EVENT

w g 10 

We love hearing how our Alumni are using their Tech degrees to improve the world! Be featured on our home page Alumni story section or even profiled in the Alumni Magazine. Send stories to stories@gtalumni.org.

  

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL OF YOUR ALUMNI BENEFITS & SERVICES

As a member of our network you have access to career services, unique travel opportunities, discounts on everything from gifts to hotel stays to moving services and much more.

Leverage your Tech Connection at gtalumni.org

 