BOULDER — A study of Boulder County’s business family tree is starting to take root at the University of Colorado’s Center for Entrepreneurship.

Information from survey forms sent out to county manufacturers has been compiled by a student team in CU’s Center for Entrepreneurship and starting this month, follow-up interviews with key company contacts will begin.

“Our main concern now is we still need to fill in the gaps,” says Ph.D. candidate Heidi Neck.

She says the student team, guided by Dale Meyer, co-executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, will be visiting with local venture capitalists as well as area executives to begin to understand how some companies, more than others, create spinoffs.

Called the Boulder County Genealogy Study, Meyers hopes his students’ work eventually can be duplicated in other high-tech regions like Silicon Valley or North Carolina’s Research Triangle.

If your company was formed as a spinoff from another county firm or its founders came out of another local company, Neck would like to hear from you. She can be contacted at 492-4169 or by e-mail at Heidi.Neck@Colorado.edu.