Tallman takes lead at tech transfer office

BOULDER – Kate Tallman has been promoted to interim leader of the University of Colorado’s Technology Transfer Office.

Tallman succeeds Tom Smerdon, who had served in the same role since August replacing David Allen, associate vice president for technology transfer, who left the university in August to take a similar job at the University of Arizona. Smerdon left CU July 1 to pursue opportunities in Texas.

Tallman was promoted to associate vice president from her previous job as senior director for CU’s tech transfer offices in Boulder and Colorado Springs. She has been with CU’s tech transfer office since 2002. The office oversees university research at all four CU campuses – CU-Boulder, CU-Colorado Springs, CU-Denver and the CU-Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.

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Before coming to the tech transfer office, Tallman was director of marketing and co-founder of Roving Planet Inc., a venture-backed software company in Colorado that was bought by 3Com Corp in 2006. 3Com Corp. was bought by Hewlett Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) in Palo Alto, California, in 2010.

Tallman received a master’s of business administration degree from CU-Boulder’s Leeds School of Business.

Invention, patent and licensing activity has more than doubled on the Boulder campus since Tallman started in 2002, said Patrick O’Rourke, vice president, university counsel and secretary to the CU Board of Regents.

Companies created based on CU technology have attracted more than $6.1 billion in financing, according to CU statistics. Research inventions at CU’s four campuses have led to 124 new companies being formed in the last 20 years. Of those, 88 have operations in Colorado, seven have become publicly traded companies (either through an initial public offering or via a reverse merger), and 18 have been acquired by public companies.