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Pinball league beckons women of the East Valley
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PAGE 3 West Mesa Edition
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Leibowitz: How to handle President Trump PAGE 21 Sunday, January 22, 2017
East Valley hatches geniuses
Incubators nurture wide array of visionary businesses COVER STORY BY GARY NELSON Tribune Contributing Writer
COMMUNITY ......... 12 Would-be brides plan their weddings with help from Chandler businesses
BUSINESS ..................19 Workshops encourage crafty creators to make wooden signs
SPORTS...................... 23 Corona wrestlers thriving thanks to two training rooms
O
ne company uses amniotic material to help animals recover from injury faster than other treatment methods. Another makes super-thin gold film that can be used to treat brain and spinal-cord trauma in humans. Still another uses genetic testing to finetune medical prescriptions. Not many years ago, these things would have been undreamed of—perhaps dismissed as impossible. But along with dozens of other new technologies, they are being brought to reality by new companies in the East Valley. Like any newborn, these fledglings need careful nourishment and guidance. Taking an idea—no matter how revolutionary, no (Larry Mangino/Tribune Staff Photographer) matter how beneficial—from concept to MAC6's co-founder Kyle McIntosh embraces "Conscious Capitalism,” the incubator's motto. marketplace is so difficult in so many ways that all the above-mentioned companies are working with more mature firms. Some from conception to growth, maturity and eschew both titles while still offering many of profitability. still, quite literally, in an incubator. On the private side, one case study is the No one label fits all the incubator- the same kinds of services. Some are publicly run, some private. MAC6 Leadership Academy for Highlike, business-nurturing All have the same Performing Teams in Tempe. It was launched organizations in the East MORE INSIDE: Valley. Some do call Where to find incubators ....... Page 4 goal: Helping serious- in 2011 by retired mining engineer Scott themselves incubators. ASU drives innovation ................Page 5 minded entrepreneurs take their businesses See INNOVATION on page 4 Others are accelerators,
Waymo ride-along a gloriously uneventful trip full of promise DINING .......................27
The Crepe Bar transformed from truck to brick-andmortar location BUSINESS ........................19 OPINION.........................21 SPORTS........................... 23 FAITH .............................. 25 CLASSIFIED .................... 32
BY MIKE BUTLER Tribune Staff Writer
W
hen I got out of Waymo’s selfdriving Lexus SUV after my very first 15-minute drive in the back seat, Lauren Barriere was there to greet me in the parking lot of Arrowhead Meadows Park in Chandler. We laughed. On the communications team of the Google Self-Driving Car Project, Lauren came to our office in the summer of 2016, soon after it
was announced that the technology giant was expanding testing in Chandler, in addition to California, Washington and Texas. I bugged her about a “ride along” throughout that meeting and in many subsequent meetings and emails. Someday, she said. Someday happened Jan. 12. It was gloriously boring. I mean that in the best possible way. Sometime this May, Waymo’s nearly 60 self-driving cars will log their 3 millionth mile since 2009, which is equivalent to
more than several hundred years of everyday driving experience. I knew Waymo wasn’t going to let Gov. Doug Ducey and members of the media in a self-driving car that was anything less than ready for prime time. I figured the training wheels had come off a long, long time ago. Still, I was stunned by how silky smooth and utterly normal the experience was. That was what made it extraordinary to me. Amanda was my “driver” and Rob was the See
RIDE-ALONG on page 8