Posts Tagged: "lisa kuuttila"

Tech Transfer: University of New Mexico Honors Innovators

I was extremely impressed by what I saw at the University of New Mexico. There are two federal laboratories in New Mexico – Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories – so I knew there was a lot of cutting edge research in the State. I also knew that the University of New Mexico had a strong technology transfer program headed up by Kuuttila, who has spent 30 years in the industry and has an outstanding reputation in the field. That being said, I still didn’t quite anticipate seeing building after building dedicated to research and development. In fact, the University of New Mexico spends over $200 million in annual research funding, and has a wealth of laboratory facilities, high performance computing and information systems capabilities. Researchers also have close, collaborative ties to researchers at the nearby federal laboratories.

How Patented Innovation Creates Jobs and Economic Growth

While New Mexico is not the only institution fostering growth, they do on average participate in the start up of 5 to 8 new companies a year. Kuutilla said that STC.UNM has participated in licensing technology to start-up companies that have created multiple hundreds of jobs at an average annual salary of $80,000 per job, which is $30,000 higher than the average private sector salary in the United States. There is no doubt that jobs in the innovation economy are high paying and exactly the type of jobs we need to be fostering.