Ken Porter and Stan Smith have joined UMCP’s office of technology ommercialisation as director and venture investment manager respectively.
University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) has hired Ken Porter (pictured) and Stan Smith to become, respectively, director and venture investment manager of its office of technology commercialisation (OTC).
The appointments are part of a recruitment drive which has also resulted in Caroline Chen, a trained patent attorney, joining OTC as intellectual property manager. Licensing analyst Alla McCoy has been promoted to director of faculty startup support.
As director of OTC, Ken Porter will be responsible for securing and commercialising UMCP’s intellectual property, which had secured $545m in external research funding by the end of the 2018 fiscal year.
Porter has two decades of tech transfer experience, in addition to a PhD in chemistry and MBA from Duke University. He was previously with University of Calgary’s tech transfer and incubation hub, Innovation Calgary, as vice-president of IP management.
Porter founded knowledge transfer association Western Canadian Innovation Offices, which brings together a group of 46 universities, college and polytechnics to foster relationships with industry.
He was the founding director of South Texas Technology Management, a tech transfer organisation serving four University of Texas institutions, and has also worked for University of Colorado, Boulder as director of licensing.
Meanwhile, Stan Smith will help identify seed-stage opportunities for UMCP-affiliated investors such as syndicate Dingman Center Angels and VC fund Maryland Momentum Fund.
He will also seek to strengthen the university’s ties with investors and other strategic partners to expand the funding pool available for UMCP’s entrepreneurial endeavours.
Smith was previously a venture investor for Syncom Venture Partners, a $275m stage-agnostic venturing fund focused on the media and communications segments.
His resume also includes more than 15 years of expertise in business development, mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning and investment banking, with companies including theme park operator Universal Studios and web services provider Yahoo.
