Incubator’s Roos-Gabridge no stranger to raising money

BOULDER — Lenie Roos-Gabridge, the new vice president and director of the Boulder Technology Institute (BTI), said she never expected to be engaged in such an interesting career.

Her education, a master’s degree in political science and bachelor’s degree in science, was no indicator years ago that she would be looking back at having assisted countless new technologies into the marketplace, she said.

“I thought I would be teaching,” Roos-Gabridge said. “In my wildest dreams, I didn’t think I would be doing this.” “This” includes bringing entrepreneurs together and helping to establish start-up companies based on new technology.

At BTI, Roos-Gabridge looks forward to more of the same. She was hired in July after serving as the executive director of the now-defunct Colorado Advanced Technology Institute, CATI. It was replaced by Gov. Bill Owens with The Office of Innovation and Technology.

One of the challenges she faces at BTI will be finding new funding.

“The incubator is 10 years old. It has managed to stay afloat through corporations, community support, local government offices and individuals,” Roos-Gabridge said. “Because we rely on the generosity of the community, we don’t have a solid base of financial support. Our future goal has got to be looking at more secure footing in terms of funding. We spend an inordinate amount of time looking for funding. Other

incubators are supported significantly by the state. We don’t have that here. It would be wonderful to have the state more fully engaged.”

The BTI is a non-profit corporation funded by Colorado businesses, public sources and entrepreneurs to help technology-based start-up companies succeed. The Incubator has a budget of about $500,000 a year.

About $30,000 of which comes from the Colorado state government. It would seem that Roos-Gabridge is particularly well selected to help increase the cash flow for the BTI.

Budgets were flush within the non-profits and corporations of Roos-Gabridge’s past compared to BTI. In some cases, Roos-Gabridge helped to make them that way. In the early ’90s at the University of Florida Biotechnology Institute for Technology Transfer she was instrumental in securing $12 million in state and federal funding for two specialized biotechnology development facilities.

Roos-Gabridge has channeled higher annual budgets than BTI’s in a variety of leadership positions. As executive director for CATI, Roos-Gabridge was responsible for directing $3.6 million in state-funded technology development and commercialization programs. As director for Rose Biomedical Development Corp. in Denver, she helped the company to obtain $3 million worth of Small Business Innovative Research grants. When she was the vice president for operations for Enterprise Florida Innovation Partnership Inc. in Orlando, Fla., she was responsible for the overall operation of a state-mandated non-profit corporation with a budget of $4 million.

Jerry Donahue, president of BTI, is counting on Roos-Gabridge’s expertise in business development to assist the in the development of BTI.

“Lenie’s extensive experience in technology innovation and related business development in both the public and private sectors is ideally suited for this vital leadership position,” Donahue said in a BTI newsletter.

Roos-Gabridge said formal plans that push for increased dollars have not yet been laid. But the BTI has been moving in the direction of finding new funding sources since last year. In December 1998, the BTI created the Education Foundation, a non-profit organization established to develop and conduct educational programs and research supportive of entrepreneurial development. The Foundation accepts and solicits donations from friends of entrepreneurism. Roos-Gabridge is the contact person for the foundation.

Another challenge, for which a solution still is being developed, is to refine the process on how clients are selected by BTI, Roos-Gabridge said.

“If you look in terms of what a venture capitalist looks at -­ management of the company is one of the first things. A good idea is just a good idea. They (clients) have to demonstrate a certain level of understanding of what it takes.”

Roos-Gabridge said that funding matters and refining the client selection process will be discussed in upcoming BTI staff meetings in January.

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