NASA Roadshow Brings Experts to Aid Local Companies
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Bill Whittenberger, president and founder of Catacel Corp., is looking forward to further discussions with experts from the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
Catacel was among four companies whose executives met with NASA Glenn subject-matter experts Thursday at Youngstown State University as part of the first NASA Roadshow to take place here.
Whittenberger, whose company recently relocated from Garrettsville to Ravenna, conferred with the NASA Glenn experts. Catacel, makes catalytic materials used in fuel cells, hydrogen plants and other applications. It is working on computational fluid dynamics models with YSU.
“It’s been less than successful but we know that NASA guys do that kind of stuff all the time. So we just played 40 questions with them,” Whittenberger said. “They actually helped a lot in a couple of hours.”
The NASA Glenn roadshow “builds upon our agency’s mandate, as all federal agencies, have for technology transfer,” said Joe Shaw, deputy director of the office of technology partnerships and planning at NASA Glenn. The event was arranged through the Strong Cities, Strong Communities Initiative, a White House program to assist communities by coordinating federal programs and agencies.
“There’s a lot of technologies we have on the shelf, so to speak, at NASA that we are able to bring forward to those companies that they didn’t know existed,” added Paul Bartolotta, an aerospace engineer at NASA.
“We’ve had an outstanding day,” remarked Michael Hripko, director of research and economic development at YSU’s College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. “There’s been meaningful engagement between the NASA subject-matter experts and the small businesses. That’s going to result in problem solving that could then result in more business, better productivity, and that means more jobs and more revenue for our small businesses.”
NASA’s Bartolotta said follow-up work is being envisioned with a couple of the companies, offered either pro bono by NASA “or we will ask for some kind of compensation” for the subject matter experts’ time and effort.
Another company that participated in the event, Visualized Energy of Youngstown, was invited to come to NASA Glenn “to explore how we might be a demonstration center for one of the technologies they have developed,” Shaw reported. “Each partnership will take the path that it needs to take for success.”
Speakers at the luncheon described Thursday’s program as the “initial event,” YSU’s Hripko noted. “In fact, someone came up to me today and said, ‘Should we schedule next year’s event?’ There’s interest and enthusiasm for expanding this, and perhaps a deeper role for students and faculty going forward as well.”
“This is a journey, it’s not a sprint,” NASA’s Shaw affirmed. “We have just gotten started.”
The program was presented by YSU; NASA; Strong Cities, Strong Communities, or SC2; Magnet, a nonprofit organization that promotes manufacturing in the 18-county northeastern Ohio region; and Magnet’s Partnership for Regional Innovation Services to Manufacturers, or Prism, program.
SC2 was designed to help communities to create jobs and a more competitive business climate, and to implement locally driven planning approaches to sustained economic growth and ensure that federal assistance is more efficient, coordinated and deployed, said Antonio Riley, regional administrator for HUD’s Region 5. Riley was the featured speaker at the luncheon.
NASA Glenn is trying to go beyond its federal mandate and "more closely partner with organizations and infuse not just technologies but also make available NASA subject matter experts -- people who are experts in their field who may not have rubbed elbows with the people here -- [to help them find] where those synergies are,” Shaw said.
Scott Smith, Youngstown’s Strong Cities, Strong Communities liaison and a Mahoning Valley native, heard about the NASA program in Cleveland and wondered why it couldn’t work in Youngstown. “They made it work. I didn’t do anything but bring people together,” he said.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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