Research Park Chronicles

Links Referenced:Spark Innovation Center: https://www.tnresearchpark.org/spark/ TranscriptRickey McCallum: Welcome back to The Research Park Chronicles podcast, where we're documenting the exciting innovations of the University of Tennessee Research Park. I'm your host, Rickey McCallum. For this episode, we're looking into the progressive and inspiring work being done at the Spark Innovation Center, which is currently housed inside the university's Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Facility at the Research Park. Spark Innovation Center focuses on entrepreneurship development and commercialization of regional technology-based startup companies. With a focus on clean technologies, a space in which Knoxville was rated as the 16th cleantech hub in the country, Spark has quickly become a significant contributor to the efforts here in the East Tennessee region.The Spark Innovation Center is designed to be a place where selected startups come to meet some of their fundamental needs, primarily those looking for wet lab space, or sophisticated prototyping shops, with capabilities for providing high-level mentorship in business model development, financial planning, and investor readiness at its core. As a result, these young startups have access to some of the best entrepreneurial leadership the university has to offer. One of the leaders in the center is Tom Rogers, CEO of the UT Research Park, who sat down with us to give an overview of the Spark Innovation Center, its mission, and its purpose.Tom Rogers: I became completely convinced that working with entrepreneurs, helping them find ways to take new ideas to the marketplace is a key to success in our local economy. We're blessed with a national laboratory, our Research 1 university, a culture of ideas being valued, and putting together a support structure around that has really great potential for the future of this region. So, I think a lot of the challenges that entrepreneurs face is interaction with potential customers, spending time doing customer discovery, understanding, will the dogs eat the dog food? We have a lot of great technology around here and I've seen hundreds of would-be entrepreneurs talk with great passion about what they do and their little gizmo, and ‘look, it works' without ever considering, does it solve a need in the marketplace? And that's really one of the primary things that we emphasize, not just here at Spark, but in the other business accelerators in the region as well. Try to get real. Try to understand that your idea may be the greatest thing in the world, but if customers aren't going to buy it, it's not going to be a successful company.Rickey McCallum: With a passion for getting early tech companies off the ground, the Spark Innovation Center and its programs are proving to be the perfect place for the region to manifest itself as a leader in tech. Another key figure in this regard is John Bruck, the director of the Spark Innovation Center. John's history of success in engineering and his commitment to the Knoxville area, as well as his role as mentor and investor puts him at the cutting edge of helping the startups that are associated with the center and his two primary programs to ensure its success.John Bruck: I am drawn to tech-based companies that are in their earliest stages. And there are really what has grown to be a hub of technological innovation and entrepreneurship here in Knoxville. I think one of the popular business journals has ranked Knoxville as the 16th largest innovation hub in the country, and that's because of programs that have grown out of the University of Tennessee, that have grown out of Oak Ridge National Lab.Rickey McCallum: An integral part of the local technology community, there are a handful of programs across the region in different organizations that have contributed assistance to help foster these young startups. One notable program is the Innovation Crossroads, housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and most recently Techstars, which is a co-sponsored program between ORNL, TVA, and the University of Tennessee, all of which are working in collaboration with the Spark Innovation Center to create the ideal environment for tech startups to grow and hopefully call East Tennessee home.John Bruck: Along with the Innovation Crossroads program, and particularly at UT and now the Research Park, we are positioned to really be a focus for early-stage tech-based companies and that's specifically what has drawn me here, this particular region—specifically Knoxville region—along with the many sources of high intellect and innovation. The challenge that it faces is one of being able to provide the space that's required by tech startups—and by that, I mean laboratory space—and tech-based mentorship and access to tech-oriented capital. But what we saw was the need for those things to match against companies that were growing out of the University of Tennessee and graduating from the University of Tennessee, companies that were graduating from the Innovation Crossroads program, and being able to place those companies into space that met their needs, was affordable, that was readily available, and could provide them with the other kinds of support that they needed to make the company successful. So, if they need programming, for example, a series of workshops on leadership or financial modeling or customer discovery, we're equipped to help those companies, along with providing them with physical space that matches their needs. So, what I think Spark did that is turning out to be quite successful is matching what we offer with what our customers really require, which truly is even less than that we teach to our startups themselves. So, the Spark Innovation Center is an early-stage organization, and it has begun to really meet those needs.Rickey McCallum: Within the Innovation Center, there are two major programs that help early startups get the assistance that they need to flourish in their respective areas of expertise. The first is the Spark Innovation Center, and the second is the Spark Cleantech Accelerator. Both programs bring specifically crafted support for cleantech startup companies in various stages of growth. Let's look at the Spark Innovation Center, Spark's flagship program.This incubator is meaningfully crafted for early tech startup companies who must identify a clear need in cleantech marketplace and are producing a product that demonstrates a solid product-market fit. Companies in the program often build a working prototype before engaging with initial customers, of which there are some pretty interesting ones, to say the least. The incubator is designed to allow these companies the room to scale, both in terms of product and in capital. While this program serves as a catalyst for helping these young companies, at the end of the day, it's the companies themselves who need to strive for excellence. For John, those companies need to demonstrate certain strengths and attributes.John Bruck: The programs need to be collaborative. In fact, I like the mantra, “Collaborate first.” And we do. So, the three technical hubs which are Innovation Crossroads is the oldest, Techstars, and the Spark Innovation Center. The directors of those organizations are actually very close, they know each other, and we collaborate on things like how to increase our number of applications and the quality of our applications.Rickey McCallum: With an emphasis on collaboration at the forefront, John fills us in on what companies can expect once they get accepted into the program.John Bruck: Typical laboratory requirements are made available that aren't really available in any other spaces. First and foremost, there is wet lab space, there is fume hood availability, there are higher than normal power resources that are available, there are gases that can be made available, benchtops, sinks, and DI water sources, all that stuff's available. We're sitting in one of the most sophisticated research labs, probably, in the world. So, that's tremendous to have. In addition, there is day-to-day mentoring and there is periodic programming that falls into the workshops that I mentioned before.Probably the most valuable resource that we provide are connections. And by connections I mean, we can strike up conversations, develop relationships with our strategic partners. So, we have tax experts, we have audit experts, we have energy experts. One of our primary supporters is TVA. We have experts that are in all sorts of supportive supply chain kinds of roles for our companies. We've got quantum computing simulation, and we have pharmaceutical molecular programming, and just, you name it and the connections are possible for us to make and to help the companies out. And then ultimately, we want to connect with customers and we want to connect with investors. So, those connections I think broadly are the biggest resource that we can offer.Rickey McCallum: With all of the support that the Spark Innovation Center provides, it is crucial to see that companies in this program scale, strive, and succeed. Of the current lineup of companies housed in Spark, there are two that are notable. The startups are exemplary cases for the reason, Spark exists to begin with: they identified an area in cleantech where progressive leaps and bounds needed to be made. The result is some of the most exciting work to come out of the Spark Innovation Center so far.I recently caught up with Dr. Anna Douglas, the CEO and co-founder of SkyNano, whose potential contributions to the future of cleantech are limitless in vision. SkyNano made headlines recently with some very exciting news. Anna and her team were named as a finalist in Elon Musk's 100-million dollar XPRIZE carbon removal. Naturally, the work that Dr. Anna Douglas is doing is certainly pushing the cleantech envelope.Dr. Anna Douglas: My name is Anna Douglas. I serve as the co-founder and CEO of SkyNano. SkyNano was really born out of my PhD research at Vanderbilt. So, I went to Vanderbilt to pursue a degree in material science. I primarily studied battery technology as an early graduate student, and I just kept coming across the challenge that the way we synthesize and mine battery materials today is not very sustainable. It puts a huge upfront carbon burden on a battery to last for a very long time in order to actually get the benefits of batteries being clean energy technologies.And so, we started to think about how can we better make materials that go into batteries? Carbon is used in every kind of battery and every kind of next-gen beyond lithium-ion batteries. And so, we started to look at how else can we make carbon structures that are important for these technologies? That's really kind of where the ethos of SkyNano's core technology came from. Once we started to realize, hey, we could make a business case out of this, that's really where that project evolved from just a science project and part of my dissertation into a startup company.Rickey McCallum: When we asked Dr. Douglas about why she chose to apply to the incubator program, her response spoke volumes to the benefits of working at the exceptional facilities at the UT Research Park.Dr. Anna Douglas: So, I think one thing that's unique to hardware-based startups is the need for specialized space. When you're talking about a software startup or an app, you can do that from basically anywhere, you know, laptop, couch, in someone's basement, you got a company. That's not the same for hardware startups, we need very specialized space, we need lab equipment, we need very specialized utilities, waste disposal, things like this. And you can't find that everywhere.And so, for us, really space was the biggest thing we were looking for as we exited the Innovation Crossroads program, you know, looking for a residency program, essentially. And Spark is the only program around that offers that, and there's very few programs like Spark really across the country where space is a part of being a part of the program. The added benefit, of course, is the community and the mentorship that you get alongside of that, but I think the real asset that we were really looking for was space. And this is a pretty second-to-none space you could be in.Rickey McCallum: A second-to-none space. This is exactly the kind of support that Spark wishes to provide to its startups. We asked Dr. Douglas what exactly second-to-none encompassed and what attracted her to the facilities that Spark Innovation Center could provide.Dr. Anna Douglas: Yeah, so we currently rent, we share a lab with Eonix, which is another local Knoxville company. And so together, we lease about 600 square feet. So, SkyNano is 300, Eonix is 300. The really unique capacity of that space is—so SkyNano has a fume hood in that space, so we can do work with chemicals that require ventilation.We have great electrical power. SkyNano is now looking for more electrical power, but for now, this has been really amazing electric capacity. Waste handling and disposal—EHS—comes once a week to come pick up chemical waste, just general good lab ventilation. So, the lab air is replaced six times an hour with fresh air from the exterior. It's basically like working outside without any of the elements.And so, for us, those things are really important and you can't find them anywhere. So, that has been really where Spark has been amazing. Of course, then there's the added benefit of being right on the river, having access to all the walking trails, being close to downtown and all the amenities here. For us, it's been a great recruitment tool [laugh] as we show people where we're located. We've brought on more people since we moved to Spark, and I do think our location has been a factor in that.Rickey McCallum: SkyNano was the perfect fit for the Spark incubator, and with a focus on decarbonization, SkyNano is unprecedented in its timing and application. But it begs to question, what exactly is decarbonization? And how is SkyNano making that happen? Dr. Douglas explains.Dr. Anna Douglas: [electrification 00:15:22], decarbonization, making materials for batteries. I would say, you know, in terms of decarbonization, one thing that has been really tough in industry is finding solutions that can deal with a wide variety of CO2 sources, right? Anything from really high purity carbon dioxide to more industrial sources like what comes out of, you know, a natural gas power plant, which is only, like, four-and-a-half percent by volume CO2, all the way to direct air capture, which is 412 ppm or so.One of the really cool things that SkyNano is doing is we're actually able to address pretty much the whole spectrum of CO2 sources. And so, we can really work with essentially any kind of industrial client or customer who wants to decarbonize their operations, provide a solution for them to get to net-zero on their chemical emissions, but with that, actually make a valuable product. So, it's an overall profitable operation, it kind of helps everyone. And this is a way that a free market solution can win because there's such demand for the end products and there's demand for people who can offtake different types of CO2.Rickey McCallum: The complexity and technical detail of decarbonization are well beyond the reach of what we can offer here, but at the end of the day, it is a technology that can take significant measures to decrease carbon emissions across our society. With the climate crisis—an ever-looming threat and reality—it becomes more crucial with every passing day. But SkyNano is still a company and that company needs to sell a product. So, who exactly is their target customer, and what are they trying to sell?Dr. Anna Douglas: So, we have a solution that is really important to two different types of people. On the CO2 emitter side, right, a lot of, particularly, energy production is trying to move towards a decarbonized economy. So, onboarding things like renewables, nuclear, things like that, to replace our existing coal and natural gas infrastructure. One of the challenges with that, though, is the intermittency, right?And so, the sun's not always shining, the wind's not always blowing, and we don't have enough nuclear sites licensed to just move to nuclear. And so, if we were to onboard pretty much all renewables, that would make the everyday consumer's electric bill just skyrocket. So, when we think about the transition towards a cleaner energy economy, carbon capture and utilization is a very important piece of that because we're actually able to partner with a local utility and decarbonize their operations without the everyday consumer's energy bill going up. Energy pricing influences everything from heating and cooling your house to the cost of your food to the cost of goods, all of it. And so, that's a really important piece.The other way that we really can touch the everyday consumer is just through your materials and devices performing better. So, the materials that we're making, carbon nanotubes, they really should be used in all kinds of things, in your batteries and your tires, in your coatings. If anyone's ever sat on a tarmac waiting for their plane to be de-iced, it's a nightmare. Just a tiny coating of carbon nanotubes on the exterior of planes could de-ice planes in a matter of minutes. The reason that they're not is because of their price today; they're just way too expensive.So, SkyNano's solution really is a way to make these materials at a much lower cost in a way that decarbonizes heavy industry and provides just better technology solutions to everyday consumers.Rickey McCallum: Dr. Douglas and SkyNano's work is but one of many companies housed in the Innovation Center. Another rising success in the incubator program is Eonix. We were joined by its co-founder and CEO Don DeRosa, who spoke to us about how Eonix is changing the game when it comes to the future of battery technologies. Their focus is to make them safe, more stable, and usable across a wide spectrum of markets. Don fills us in on how, as a graduate student, he had a small side hustle that ended up serving as his ignition for his entrepreneurial spirit.Don DeRosa: When my adviser found out, he was actually shocked because he was very entrepreneurial himself as well. So, he thought I was, kind of, a pure-play scientist and when he discovered this, he was like, “You should start using these talents for something else.” So, he gave us an opportunity to commercialize some molecules out of the university that showed a lot of merit for energy storage at the time. He showed us the initial steps to building a hard tech company, and that was fantastic. I don't think we would have been able to do it without him.You don't go from repairing water-damaged iPhones in a one-bedroom graduate school apartment to an electrolyte company right out of the gate. But yeah. So, that was the initial inception. So, around 2013 to 2014, we founded the company.Rickey McCallum: Don has to keep the company secrets close to his chest, so he could not provide us with a technical deep-dive into what exactly he does. But ultimately, Eonix has one major objective.Don DeRosa: We look to commercialize two molecules. We received about a half-a-million dollars in grant funding right out of the gate. And although the two molecules showed a lot of merit in the lab, it took quite some time to figure out how they perform in commercial devices. And that's really the first pivot for our company where we decided that the real problem when it comes to developing materials for energy storage devices, such as lithium-ion batteries, it's not the material you don't have—it's not the absence of some novel, super-crazy compound—it's the fact that it takes years and typically millions of dollars to determine if it's even worthwhile. So, our goal at that time was to develop a technology that could reduce the time and cost it took to comprehensively evaluate a material for new batteries.We eventually were accepted into the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Lab, and we were able to build out this system. And then somebody at the lab was like, “You have this phenomenal system for evaluating materials. Why aren't you using them for lithium [laugh] ion batteries? That's a massive market.” And he was completely right. So, that was the second major pivot. First, it was determining that we really needed a quicker, cheaper way to look at materials, and then we should have focused on a much larger market.Rickey McCallum: With their initial project gaining momentum, Don and Eonix needed to tap into the next stage, they needed scale, and they found the right place to do so.Don DeRosa: That eventually brought us to the Spark Innovation Center at the conclusion of Innovation Crossroads program where we were able to take that system, scale it up, deploy it towards discovering materials for lithium-ion batteries. And honestly, once we came into Spark, we got funding from the US Army, we were able to develop a nonflammable lithium-ion battery electrolyte within four months. So, it's a very quick process. We're currently going through the commercialization and scale process with it. And yeah, that's where we're at today.Rickey McCallum: The business of Eonix aside, Don and his team also needed to find some more practical support that Spark provides.Don DeRosa: To fabricate a battery, you need a lot of materials that aren't necessarily very safe, independently of being packaged in a battery. And they present a lot of environmental health and safety complications. So, out of the gate, you need a facility that recognizes that level of safety is necessary and then has the infrastructure available to account for handling those materials, bringing them in safely. Safety is the most important part when it comes to handling these kinds of materials. And the Spark Innovation Center located at this facility has all of the infrastructure necessary so that we can safely experiment with new materials, we can build batteries here in an environment where we don't have to be concerned with faulty [laugh] infrastructure or endangering anybody.So, that's the first issue. So, Spark Innovation Center, we came in, we were up and running within a month. It was a very smooth process. Smoother than we've had in a traditional academic environment or in a government lab before. So, it was very startup-friendly.Rickey McCallum: With all those needs met, Eonix began to work on their primary focus, which was on making lithium-ion batteries more stable and safe.Don DeRosa: With our system, our screening system that we developed, we were able to in a phase one project, develop materials that were nonflammable substitutes in four months. So, it's like, essentially the Diet Coke of lithium-ion batteries. It's the nonflammable lithium-ion battery. Same exact device—looks the same, manufactured the same—but it just doesn't have any of the flammability in it. And that's a market-specific application. That's just for the defense industry.There are going to be different applications that we're going to target from a materials perspective. So, we're going to rapidly design materials for electric vehicles where you have different concerns than the battery in your cell phone or the battery that might be in your Apple Watch. They're all lithium-ion batteries, but they have different needs and as a result, different materials would perform better. Just takes a really long time to find them. And we're trying to shrink that process.Rickey McCallum: Another core objective for the Spark Innovation Center, especially when it comes to fostering these young entrepreneurs, is to create a gateway to collaboration. Ultimately, we want to extend this beyond the Research Park and university as well as the greater Knoxville area and across the state of Tennessee. Don offers up an excellent take on how this is happening.Don DeRosa: This is actually a great win-win opportunity for our company and the university. We're looking for talent all the time, and the university is looking for workforce training opportunities and giving their students the best possible education for them to either work at a company like ours or work in that field. Now, what's fantastic is we're in the lithium-ion battery space and this market is starving for people to jump into this career in terms of research, manufacturing, all this stuff. And we're looking to hire as well. So, we're able to offer UTK students internships where they can help learn about what's going on at our company, we can get a feel for the roles that we want to explore in the future as well because we're a growing company and we're trying to figure out what direction to grow in.And that's really a win-win opportunity. There's poised to be thousands of manufacturing lithium-ion battery jobs, so that gives them insight to how a battery is fabricated, what materials go in there, what are the safety precautions associated with fabrication, and just gives them a huge leg up in terms of going out and pursuing these careers and landing great jobs. So, in either outcome, we get a great individual to work with us, the university has a great employment track record and graduates a student that's very capable to go out in the job market. And then there's the whole R&D phase where evaluating new materials for lithium-ion batteries is a very big publication space right now. So, any university professor that has a new material, we're able to quickly evaluate it, so something that might take them a few months, maybe even a year, we're able to do in a few weeks.Rickey McCallum: The focus on collaboration is shared by Dr. Douglas as well. Much like Eonix, SkyNano is another excellent relationship to foster for both the Research Park and the local community. Dr. Douglas has already interacted with UT students and she shares her own hopes for the role that collaboration can play.Dr. Anna Douglas: Yeah, absolutely. And I think if I had been exposed to entrepreneurship as a potential career path earlier, perhaps it would have been a bit of an easier transition. And so, I think as a student, that would be a really cool opportunity.So, SkyNano has collaborated a little bit with the university. We've helped support proposals, we've been a subcontractor on some proposals with different faculty across campus, including some in [unintelligible 00:27:15], some outside of [unintelligible 00:27:16]. You know, for us, we can provide a solution in a variety of ways. We have electrochemistry experts on staff, just due to our technology, but certainly, we're also making materials, so we've actually provided carbon nanotube samples that we've made in the lab to a professor on campus to use in an application that we would never have thought of on our own. We've had students come by and look at the lab and help get inspired to think about entrepreneurship as a potential career path. And for us, that's just been a really exciting opportunity because it's not something you get in just a general commercial space.Rickey McCallum: The Research Park and Spark Innovation Center are postured to serve as pillars within the local community, to act as that gateway for collaboration. Following the example of SkyNano and Eonix, there are untold opportunities in the future of other companies to collaborate, contribute, and to become local figures. So, the question is, what's next for our innovators and entrepreneurs? Where do their hopes lie for the future of their companies?Dr. Anna Douglas: On the five-year horizon, we would be looking at actually installing SkyNano plants co-located with heavy-emitting industries—so whether that's energy industry, chemical production, et cetera—and actually serving a pretty significant market with the carbon materials that we're making. On the ten-year horizon, I would imagine every carbon additive material that goes into your tire, your battery, your paints, coatings, whatever is made from carbon dioxide.Don DeRosa: What we do from the materials perspective is we look at what a real pain point is for the application that we're targeting. In the instance of the defense industry, the most paramount thing that they're concerned with is mitigating risk and safety in their system. It's a huge liability to have a lithium-ion battery in a lot of the environments that they work in. I think that's a very compelling market. And it not only offers peace of mind for people installing large grid storage battery systems that would help manage, let's say, wind or solar, but there's definitely an element of cost reduction there as well.So, there's potentially a 20 to 25% CapEx savings out of the gate that you could get on the commercial side for grid storage. And if anybody thinks of anything else, they could feel free to email me. We are always looking places to sell stuff.Rickey McCallum: Let's turn back to John, the director of the Spark Innovation Center. With the great potential of companies like SkyNano and Eonix, John is enthusiastic about the cleantech initiatives that are coming out of the Spark and its incubator and accelerator programs.John Bruck: Those are two programs that work pretty well together and they're very different. One is a two-year program, one is a 12-week program. The longer-term vision I think is that we are able to support, contribute to the advanced energy and high tech business community in the region and in the state. If you look, for example, at the global advanced energy market of $1.4 trillion, the state of Tennessee contributes percentage-level component to that global market.So, we're in the 45 to $50 billion a year range. That's huge. The state of Tennessee has 400,000 employees in the advanced energy space, 20,000 companies. So, when you look at the big picture economy in this space, I think what the dream for the Spark Innovation Center is to work to help the earliest stage companies grow to eventually enter into that space, financially sustainable, and from a business standpoint, very competitive.Rickey McCallum: The stories of Eonix and SkyNano are only the beginning. The Spark Innovation Center is positioned to become a leader in cleantech and an integral part of the Research Park future. Here's the Research Park CEO Tom Rogers again with some thoughts about the role of the Innovation Center.Tom Rogers: The university is a Research 1 university and they've picked up on this momentum in the entrepreneurial world as well. So, the college of business has an Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The College of Engineering teaches entrepreneurial courses. The College of Law has a business clinic that teaches law students how to work with startup companies. The UT Research Foundation hires interns that help them look at intellectual property and decide what to pursue in terms of patenting.There's entrepreneurial activity all over this campus. And what we've done collectively—not the Spark Innovation Center so much as the entire region, whether they're part of the university or not—become part of the community and succeed here in Knoxville.Rickey McCallum: The possibilities for what is to come for the Spark Innovation Center and its programs and the future of cleantech are exciting to say the least. The Research Park in collaboration with its member organizations are working hard to stand above the crowd as examples of progressive entrepreneurial spirit. This is a story that is just in its beginnings and the best is still, without a doubt, yet to come. Thank you for joining our brief look into the exciting work being done within the UT Research Park and the Spark Innovation Center. The Research Park, with its history rooted in agriculture and the rise of the fundamental ideas of the Park to the advancements being made within its walls, the atmosphere around the Research Park is only becoming more electric.In our next episode, we'll turn our attention to the Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing, where some incredible work is being done in the world of material sciences. Check out the next episode for an extensive and exciting look at the mind-boggling science being done there.Rickey McCallum: Thank you for listening to The Research Park Chronicles with Rickey McCallum. Keep up with the latest episodes by subscribing on Apple or Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever fine podcasts are found.

For this exciting episode of Research Park Chronicles, we're steering away from the park's older history, and into its more recent! Over the past few years the Research Park has been a pioneering center for a wide array of work, to include work with the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Now, with the innovations that are going on with orthopedic research and care, the park is at the forefront of another fascinating world of research. Rickey has a wide ranging conversation with members involved in the newly founded Advance Orthopedic Institute on the research that they are conducting at the park. Rickey guides us through the UT Medical Centers role in teaching new residents, their dedication to the local community. We also get insight into the incredible collaborations and partnership in orthopedics, and the leaps they're taking toward the future of orthopedic practices at the Institute as it nears its opening date! In this episode we cover: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:06:20 - Collaborations and Partnerships 00:09:45 - The Advance Orthopedic Institute 00:16:40 - Breakdown of the Institute 00:23:30 - Working with Multiple Parties 00:28:40 - A Natural Fit 00:31:00 - The Future/Outro

TranscriptRickey: Hello, and welcome back to The Research Park Chronicles. I'm your host, Rickey McCallum, and throughout this podcast, I'm going to lead you on a journey through the gateway to collaboration. We talked about what a research park does in the last episode, and today, we're going to dive into how one came to be here in Knoxville, Tennessee, and what it's already accomplished. This modern research park at the University of Tennessee would have never been possible without the vision of one influential scholar. But more on that in just a minute.To fully appreciate and understand UT's Research Park, it's important to start by looking back in time to understand the land's Native American roots. At one corner of the University of Tennessee Research Park lies a serene bank of the Tennessee River. As researchers, we're always focused on developing new and exciting projects, but every now and again, it's worth taking a moment to pause and reflect.As we look over the waterway, Sequoia Hill stands in the distance. And with the familiar sounds of running a creek and birds chirping, it's easy to forget that behind us is a collection of modern buildings that make up UT's Research Park. What was this campus like before these buildings were built, before it was a dairy farm, and before the city had ownership of the property, back hundreds and even thousands of years ago, at a time when the land was inhabited by Native Americans? For that answer, I asked Tom Rogers, the current President and CEO of the University of Tennessee Research Park, who knows quite a bit about the site's ancient history.Tom: The site itself is 200 acres, but as they did the environmental scans required to get the development underway, only 75 acres of that 200 acres is really developable. The rest of it is down near the river and has been preserved in perpetuity because of its archeological significance. As they did that original archeological investigation, they actually found artifacts that date back to 6000 BC.Rickey: The university works with Dr. Candace Hollenbeck, a professor of archeology at UT, to help preserve that history and culture, and so we decided to visit her in her element on site at the Research Park to learn a little bit more. And to help us put this area into its historical context, Dr. Hollenbeck starts at the beginning.Candace: Here in East Tennessee, pretty much anything flat next to a river is going to have several thousand years—five to ten thousand years—of occupation on it. That's the case here, too.Rickey: Dr. Hollenbeck says that this land has changed a lot over the past 10,000 years, with river movement and flooding, creating ‘build up' as she calls it.Candace: So, if we were to take a big backhoe and dig straight down right here, we could probably go down about four meters or so and maybe hit the bottom, maybe hit 10,000 years ago, or maybe not. Even going down four meters—12 feet or so—we may hit around 6000 years ago and could probably keep going. And then, river stabilized, probably around 5000 years ago or such, and that's when we start seeing people, even to 3000 years ago, and people could become more sedentary.Rickey: There have even been some interesting archeological finds from these digs, says Dr. Hollenbeck.Candace: There are these Mississippian time period villages down here houses, house structures, that are dotted along that area. And so those are really neat. They date to around 800 years ago or so. And so, those are probably some of the most exciting parts of it. You know, there's a little hamlet and then some individual farmsteads, homesteads in between. So, kind of imagining those communities I think is fun.Rickey: Once people started to settle at the site, we can see their history in the archeological record. Dr. Hollenbeck breaks that down for us as the riverbanks transition over into farmland over the years.Candace: Tennessee in the mid-south is one of eight to ten independent centers of domestication around the world. So, native peoples here, around 4000 years ago, domesticated a set of crops, including sunflower seeds, which we know today, squashes—a little bit earlier than 4000 years ago, even—another one called sumpweed, which is very similar to sunflower, and then [quinapod 00:04:23], which is similar to quinoa. Quinoa is the South American cousin, but people up here domesticated a similar relative of it, too. And so they settled down and became farmers around that time.Rickey: These early cultures were just one part of the history of the site. Later tribes would come to the region as well.Candace: We see some similarities and some continuities from those Mississippian cultures to the Cherokee, historical Cherokee cultures, and such, but they are also changes and things, too. It gets really complicated. But yes, a lot of shifting and a lot of movement of people, a lot of trade, even back 5000, 10,000 years ago. A lot of people moving. And we're so used to our cars and such, we forget how—we have no concept, we have no concept of how they could have relatively quickly gotten across the landscape. These rivers and creeks and such are a huge avenue as well.Rickey: Artifacts are still being discovered on site and Dr. Hollenback and her team are taking measures to help further protect them.Candace: Whether we entice students to become archeologists or not, I think just to give them that appreciation of the history and kind of have pride in it so that we can protect archeological sites like this one here. We're really lucky because we do have this overlay and UT Research Park that is committed to preserving that area.Rickey: The university is working on ways to formally recognize indigenous people and their native connection to the land upon which UT now stands, such as through a committee tasked with drafting a land acknowledgement statement. Though this is still being created, several members of the committee have begun to use this statement that, reads, “The land upon which the University of Tennessee-Knoxville is built is part of the traditional territory of the Tsalagi [Sal a ghee] peoples, now Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma. The Tsoyahá [Soy Ah Hey] peoples of Yuchi, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and Shawnee peoples (Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, and the Shawnee Tribe).”As Dr. Hollenback has illustrated, farming is nothing new to the landscape of the park. Farming came to dominate the site for thousands of years. So, here's Tom again to tell us a little bit more about that.Tom: Back in the 1890s, this property was actually sold by the city of Knoxville to a private developer who laid out a plan for a residential development that he called Cherokee. And we think that's where the name originally came from. He actually built a bridge from what is now Sequoia Hills over into the park, and had a layout that looked very much like Sequoia Hills. This city eventually took the property back for non-payment of taxes, but the bridge stayed for nearly 40 years until it became so dilapidated that it was torn down. You can still see the abutments of the bridge on both sides of the park. So, that was an interesting beginning. The city then sold the land to the university and it became a dairy farm. That's what I remember it as when I came to this town many years ago.Rickey: The 200 acre stretch of flatland remained a dairy farm for many years. Rogers says many of the University of Tennessee alumnus first and foremost remember the land as a dairy farm.Tom: They talked about having milk delivered to their dormitories every morning from the dairy farm.Rickey: Though this old dairy farm is currently home to a burgeoning Research Park, about 75 acres of the property is being preserved and recognized due to its Native American history. The Park may also soon serve the university's mission and the public's interest by utilizing the Cherokee Landing site for educational and recreational purposes.Tom: Over a several year period of time to develop the park-like portion of the Research Park into something we hope to call Cherokee Landing to have a synergy with Volunteer Landing, and Suttree Landing, and the other areas here and in town. That would be open for recreation, as there's a greenway now, and lots of people come here and walk and ride bikes and bring their dogs on the weekends. But we'd love to have access to the water so that people can use kayaks and canoes and paddle boards. And build some structures and some ways of celebrating the Native American heritage that's here. So, on the longer range horizon, that's definitely in our plans.Rickey: This project is a collaboration between the university's Research Park and the Legacy Parks Foundation, which is helping to coordinate the development of the concept and the plan of the design for the sprawling Cherokee Landing site. At this point in our story, it might seem as though the plan for the Research Park at the University of Tennessee sprang into life overnight, but that couldn't be further from the truth. It took a lot to bring this idea to where it is today, and none of it would have been possible without the efforts of one man: Dr. David Millhorn. So, who was Dr. Millhorn?Stacey: Dr. Millhorn was my mentor. He became my friend and even kind of a father figure for me in many ways.Rickey: That's Dr. Stacey Patterson, current president of the UT Research Foundation. Dr. Millhorn passed away in 2017 and had previously served as president of the UT Research Foundation.Stacey: Many people described him as stoic and to himself, but that was only if you didn't really get to know him. Dr. Millhorn had a small circle, but once you were in that circle, you her family to him. He was the type of person that took care of the people that he worked with. He really believed that this University had the potential of any place in the world. And he had been at many different places, but Tennessee was his home, and he really believed that this was his opportunity to realize a big vision. And that's what he spent his whole time, his whole 11 years here doing.Rickey: While Tennessee may have been home. Dr. Millhorn didn't start his career at the University of Tennessee.Stacey: Dr. Millhorn had spent a number of years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he had been a department head of physiology, and then he had moved to the University of Cincinnati, where he developed the inaugural Genome Research Center with a pharmaceutical company. So, he had a vision already coming in as to what it meant for a university to work with the private sector and what that could mean for the faculty, staff, and students of the university, but more importantly, even the region in which that opportunity was taking place.Rickey: Dr. Millhorn joined the University in 2005, where he oversaw the management of science and technology programs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and for much of his time, he served as Vice President of Research and Economic Development. Along the way, his responsibilities grew, becoming the Executive Vice President at the University in 2007, and later becoming the president of the UT Research Foundation in 2014. His work during this time was significant to the development of the university's research enterprise, which included, amongst other accomplishments, a contract with the US Department of Energy to manage Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a $65 million NSF grant, which is the largest of its kind during the time, to build the world's fastest supercomputer, and of course, the establishment of UT's Research Park. Throughout his career at the University, Dr. Millhorn had a vision in mind for what would ultimately become the Research Park as we know it today. Dr. Patterson describes his vision in this way.Stacey: He had a vision that we would bring in large companies that faculty could collaborate with, we could build big research programs, and we could provide opportunities for students. One of the challenges we have in this region is we educate some really top notch students, and in the graduate programs, oftentimes those students have to go to other parts of the country to get gainful employment. And so Dr. Millhorn's vision was, if we could bring those companies here, then we could offer high pay, high technology jobs right here and we could keep those best and brightest students in this region, and it would lift the whole community up.Rickey: As I'd mentioned in episode one of this podcast, university research parks are the physical locations developed and designed to foster an environment of collaboration between universities, the public and private sector, and federal research labs. In addition to the way research parks benefit local economies, research parks can also benefit their respective university systems. Let me explain.The University of Tennessee is a Tier One research university, which means it is a university that's known for world-class research, academic excellence, and exceptional student body—as Dr. Patterson noted—as well as high levels of innovation, creativity, and scholarship. Like all universities, UT looks for ways to draw in that top tier talent to the university, and in turn this benefits not only our students and faculty, but our current Park tenants, and the local community. Dr. Millhorn knew that we would need a dedicated research park with the likes of MIT, Cal Berkeley, and other universities in close proximity to major national labs to increase the recognition and prestige.But for many at the University of Tennessee, this combination of academic, community, and economic drivers was a challenge to understand at first. It took a lot of trust building to convince them that this effort was worth pursuing. Naturally, Dr. Millhorn got to work. He leveraged his many contacts and developed a very clear vision for what a collaborative space could look like.Over the early years of his time at UT, Dr. Millhorn developed a plan that would convey the case for a research park to the university and how having a dedicated research park would help the faculty at the University further develop the University, and also have a positive economic impact on the region as a result of this park. So, in addition to the development of the Research Park, a small business incubator was constructed on the Ag campus. Here, students and faculty could go to further develop their entrepreneurial endeavors, giving the university, and the public a glimpse into the future of what a collaboration could look like with a full-fledged research park. In 2009, when Dr. Patterson joined the UT system as a director of research partnerships, the case for the Research Park had already been submitted in the mind of the university and plans were already underway for the development of the Research Park property.Stacey: The concept of the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm was actually developed by Dr. Millhorn prior to me joining his office. But I joined in 2009 right when the infrastructure project was underway and we were finishing up the master plan and development guidelines so that we could move things forward.Rickey: Development quickly became the next challenge. With the university on board for this project, they had secured a grant for more than $30 million to purchase Cherokee Farm from the state for use as the University of Tennessee Research Park. Now, the main obstacle was to get the residents of Sequoia Hills on board with the concept of trading in a cow farm for a massive research complex.Stacey: The residents were really concerned about what the differences were going to be, going from a few cows on that property to what Dr. Millhorn was envisioning as an active, thriving public-private partnership type research park. So, there was a lot of outreach, a lot of community meetings, we went to neighborhood meetings, I even did a couple of Sunday school classes at the churches that were across the neighborhood and talked about the vision of the Research Park and what it would mean to the region. And one of the things if you knew Dr. Millhorn and what he was interested in doing, he always looked out for the institution first, so it was always clear to the constituents that that this wasn't about him; this was about making the university and Knoxville, the Knoxville region, a better place for its citizens.Rickey: Dr. Millhorn stressed the value of the Research Park and its intersection with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to the residents of Sequoia Hills. To Dr. Millhorn, those who called Sequoia Hills home needed to know that the park would bring skilled workers to the town and keep Tennessee's best and brightest in their home state.Stacey: When companies come in, they think about this region. They're impressed that we have the University of Tennessee, the state's flagship research public institution here in Knoxville; we have what I consider a national treasure, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And it's really the combination of those two institutions and the brain power that they represent that really make this region special. It makes it a special opportunity for companies to come and engage with those kinds of people and the technologies that are developed here, the opportunities.I think that Dr. Millhorn was—I'll say he was an early adopter. He saw that. He was able to see what that potential could be, and he was bought in completely and wholly. And I think the Research Park is part of that, of his vision of how those two institutions could work together to just make this region a really spectacular and special place.Rickey: Eventually the land was secured and approved by surrounding stakeholders. The university began constructing its first research park facility in 2014. Tom Rogers recalls his first time looking at the plot of land where they were planning to build.Tom: First time I drove over to see what Dr. Millhorn's vision really looked at, I was pretty much overwhelmed, wondering where people were going to park. There were beautifully laid out one-acre parcels, about 16 of them, but it wasn't logical to me where people were going to park. As we've discovered since then, the original master plan called for parking garages, about 4000 parking spaces in two parking garages.Rickey: Dr. Patterson says parking may not have been the top concern for Dr. Millhorn. For all he brought to the Research Park and the university, this was a guy that wanted to discuss big ideas rather than minutiae.Stacey: So, Dr. Millhorn is one of the biggest thinkers I've ever had the privilege of working with. He would often say, “Oh, I can't be bothered by these small things.” He wanted to be part of a big transformational things like the relationship with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, like the UT Research Park. He would thrive on it, and there aren't as many people in the world that can have that big vision like he does.Rickey: Oh, and the parking situation did get worked out, of course.Tom: For better or worse, we now have a PhD in parking lot and parking garage construction and finance, and they're just not feasible at this time. And so actually later on this afternoon, we're going to begin a process to update our master plan that focuses more on reality. I think there aren't 16 developable lots out here; there are probably eight or nine as you include the surface parking that goes around them. And as you also know, we're hopeful that we'll soon have three projects under construction at the same time. And so that the park is going to look a little bit different than I think it was originally envisioned.Rickey: Dr. Millhorn didn't shy away from taking a leap of faith. Dr. Patterson says that her mentor taught her the value of taking risks.Stacey: I was very privileged to be able to work side-by-side with him, hand-in-hand, really getting to understand that sometimes you have to lean forward, you have to take a little bit of risk for a big reward. And he would do that time and time again. And by taking a little risk, pushing the envelope, frankly, making people a little bit uncomfortable, doing things differently than what they've ever been done at the University before, he was able to transform this institution.Rickey: As far as risk goes, building the first building of the Research Park was one of the first challenges Dr. Millhorn and his team ran into.Between 2014 to 2015, the first building was developed at the UT Research Park. It was built as a collaboration between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the UT Research Park. It was very aptly named the Joint Institute for Advanced Materials, or JIAM for short. The first building on site was a direct result of the collaboration between the University and ORNL, an outside organization. As Dr. Patterson points out, it was a challenge to determine where to break ground on the new building at first.Stacey: That project actually has a very interesting history. There were a lot of different people that had a lot of different ideas of where that building should be located. Some people thought it should be located at Oak Ridge, some people thought it should be located on the Knoxville campus; there's not a whole lot of room for a building that size on the Knoxville campus. But Dr. Millhorn was a real advocate for putting that Joint Institute for Advanced Material Science at the UT Research Park, to act as a catalyst to get things going, get researchers and students out at the park, get some buzz going, make sure that it was in a space that made sense.So, it was in advanced materials, which is an area that is a special area for the University of Tennessee as well as at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We have lots of joint faculty who are world-renowned experts in this space. So, he really saw that as making sense as being a catalyst and hopefully launching the Research Park in a direction where we could potentially attract private sector partners. I think that's worked, right? So, JIAM opened several years ago, and since that time, many of the companies that we've been able to attract to the park and who are interested in being at the park have some affiliation with JIAM or want to do some collaboration with the researchers that are represented by the JIAM faculty. And so I think that's really exciting.Rickey: Clearly no challenge was too big back in 2014. Dr. Millhorn left his role with the university in 2016. After Dr. Millhorn's departure in 2016, Dr. Patterson was confirmed by the UT board of trustees to assume Dr. Millhorn's former roles as Vice President for Research, and Outreach, and Economic Development, as well as President and CEO of the UT Research Foundation. The university also looked to Tom Rogers, a veteran of ORNL, to become President and CEO of the Research Park. As a result of overcoming these challenges, Tom shares with us that—Tom: The University of Tennessee is one of a half-dozen universities in the country that manage national laboratories, along with the University of California, the University of Chicago, State University of New York, and a few others. And so it's a real feather in our cap. We've seen it as we visited with prospects interested in the park to explain to them that we're a gateway for collaboration with the University, but to also be able to say, “We're able to help you leverage the resources and talents of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well,” will really raise some eyebrows. So, I think the relationship that UT has with the laboratory is a real asset. We're sitting today in the Joint Institute for Advanced Materials.The ‘Joint Institute' means Oak Ridge and UT. With your background at UT and mine at the laboratory, we know a lot of people and are able to help prospects that we have—companies, students, entrepreneurs—find the right people to work with at both institutions, and that's a great value proposition for this research park.Rickey: And even though Dr. Millhorn is no longer part of the institution, his legacy remains. Tom's vision for what the Research Park should be today and in the coming years is not wavering from the original vision.Tom: Another key tenet of successful university research parks around the country is embracing entrepreneurship and innovation. It's fine to work with professors and work with companies that want to collaborate with professors on research, to work with students, but it's really important to embrace young people and their ideas about the future. So, everywhere I've been, dating back to my early career days at TVA, I've been involved with small business startups, mostly on the technology side. I was involved with a great program at Oak Ridge called Innovation Crossroads.Rickey: As a result of his experience and the original vision for the Research Park, Tom has helped the Research Park launch the Spark Innovation Center, which assists early-stage tech companies with the right kind of support to become successful companies, right here in East Tennessee. Here's Tom with more about the Spark Innovation Center.Tom: We early on decided that entrepreneurship needed to be a focus out here. We've started something called the Spark Innovation Center and have six really talented young entrepreneurs growing companies here. The University is excited about that initiative. As we look to build our next building, they're going to incorporate more space for Spark in that building. I think you'll see that entrepreneurship really becomes an important part of the fabric that we're weaving here at the park.Rickey: As the park grows in size, and new buildings and partnerships get added to the park, there is a lot to be optimistic about. It's not just about the new buildings and businesses. The park is truly becoming a gateway to collaboration.Tom: My four decades plus of work has brought great relationships with the state and with TVA and others, and being involved with all of that gets the park in the middle, in the mix, for some really interesting prospects. We're in the homestretch of working with one now that would never have even thought about looking at the park, but on my first week of the job, got random call and said, “We hadn't thought about this, would you be interested in a prospect like this?” And they are a great fit for the Research Park.Rickey: Dr. Millhorn had a vision for what the park should become, but he also didn't stress too much about the details. Under Tom's leadership, the details are coming into focus and we're beginning to see where this path will take us in the next five to ten years. Tom and I reminisced about this during our conversation.Tom: Now, I think we're beginning to see some themes naturally emerge. One, of course, is advanced materials and manufacturing, with the work here at JIAM and the industry collaborations. Second is medical research because the University of Tennessee Medical Center and OrthoTennessee are building an ambulatory surgery center here and have committed to include research on the top floor of that facility. And there's a lot of interest at UT, both at UT Knoxville and at the UT Health Science Center in Memphis, about capitalizing on that opportunity.And the third, I probably can't coin as quickly as the other two. But it has to do with information technology, business analytics, supply chains, cybersecurity, that whole realm. There's just a lot of interest in the private sector, and it's some of the stronger programs at the university. So, we're seeing more and more companies saying that it really makes sense to be at the park, to be right across the river from the campus and those incredible students that they're producing. I'd say those three themes are going to emerge.There could be others as time goes on, but materials, medical research, and whatever we're going to call the analytics portion of it seemed to be the three themes that are most likely to lead us forward.[SPEAKER5: 00:28:06] I think the development of this new vision of being the gateway to collaboration with the University and ORNL has really driven the interest in what we're doing over here, far beyond what I remember it being when I was over on campus. So, I think the involvement, and the communication, and the buy-in from leadership on campus has really driven home that we have a unique opportunity to be able to develop something very special here that is going to help get our students get jobs, it's going to help build the economic development for the community of Knoxville and be able to help build this bigger ecosystem as we, kind of, move forward in the future development.Tom: I think the relationships that we are building on campus are really going to be mutually beneficial. It's pretty remarkable to see what we've been able to do in the last year with COVID. Originally, when we [headed for house 00:28:54], I was concerned that we might be dead in the water for a while. Now, I'm really looking forward to three to six months from now when we can start being face-to-face with people because we got an infrastructure built that can really, I think, accelerate the development of this park.Rickey: With Tom at the helm, the future of the UT Research Park is in good hands.When it comes to evaluating the Research Park's rich past, there is no doubt that Dr. Millhorn left a lasting impact. As Dr. Patterson puts it.Stacey: Dr. Millhorn's legacy is his vision. He was a big thinker. There was no project that was too big. There was no hurdle that you couldn't overcome.Rickey: Dr. Patterson says she knew he was the right person for the job since the beginning, as he strengthened UT's relationship with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Now, Dr. Patterson has taken over much of the role that Dr. Millhorn had, and she is carrying on his legacy, visions, and readiness to take risks with her.Stacey: Dr. Millhorn had made the decision with his family that it was time for him to take a little bit of a step back and to transition to more of an advisor role between the University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory as the National Laboratory advisor. He actually set up an office at Oak Ridge. He was having a lot of fun thinking about the [science 00:30:13] and having some time. He used to say a lot that, “I'm going to go home for the afternoon so I can think.”Because that was really a big deal for him, to be able to have some quiet time where he could just think and make sure that all those puzzle pieces were coming together. And I think this gave him an opportunity to do that and to think about how the relationship was working, and what wasn't working, and for him to really contribute further. I have truly appreciated the opportunity to serve as the Vice President for Research, Outreach, and Economic Development for the University of Tennessee, and I certainly could not have done it without the experience that I had with my mentor and friend, David Millhorn.Rickey: Dr. Patterson says she'll remember Dr. Millhorn as the caring man that he was: A father, an army veteran, an academic, an entrepreneur, and mentor.Stacey: He was a tough nut to crack. People didn't really know that. I can't tell you how many times in the last three years that I have asked myself, “I wonder what Dr. Millhorn would do in this situation?” It may sound weird, but I kind of feel like he gives me some guidance in those moments.Rickey: For me personally, while I did not have much time with him, I do recall the first time I ever met him. The reason I can remember this so vividly is that I can remember looking at him and thinking, “He is a spitting image of my grandfather,” a man that I hadn't seen since I was ten years old. And from that moment, he and I shared a very special connection, and one that I cherish today. In remembrance of Dr. Millhorn, Dr. Patterson's goal is to make him proud of the work that we're continuing to do.Stacey: One of the things that I want to make sure that we do is I want to make sure that we make him proud, that we do push on his vision, that we are always focused on what's in the best interest of the university, and what's in the best interest of this region, and the people of this region because that was really where his heart was, was around doing what's best for others. And I want to take just a little bit of that and make sure that we're following through with that, and in some way making him proud and making sure that his family is proud of the legacy that he's left here.Rickey: He would definitely be proud. Since breaking ground on the JIAM building, the Research Park has experienced several accomplishments over the past five years, like the development of our first public-private partnership, the announcement that Volkswagen is moving their North American Innovation Hub to the Research Park, the ribbon cutting ceremony of the Spark Innovation Center, and most notably, the collaborative partnership between UT Medical Center and OrthoTennessee to develop their 93,000 square-foot ambulatory surgical center that's scheduled to open in the spring of 2022. And we're well on our way to a bright future as a research park, an economic driver, and a park for the community.On the next episode of The Research Park Chronicles we're going to be speaking with the University of Tennessee Medical Center and OrthoTennessee about the orthopedic surgical center that's coming to the Research Park, and the medical research that will be happening in this facility.Rickey: Thank you for listening to The Research Park Chronicles with Rickey McCallum. Keep up with the latest episodes by subscribing on Apple or Google podcasts, Spotify, or wherever find podcasts are found.

Links in Transcript UT Research Park: https://www.tnresearchpark.org/ Volkswagen: https://www.vw.com/ University of Tennessee, Knoxville: https://www.utk.edu/  Oak Ridge National Laboratory: https://www.ornl.gov/  TranscriptRickey McCallum: So, what are research parks? Why do we need them? What makes collaboration between educational institutions, public entities, and private companies so powerful and finding innovative, adaptive, and real-world solutions? This is the story of the University of Tennessee Research Park, and it's going to talk about that exact thing. So, welcome to the Research Park Chronicles with Rickey McCallum.Rickey McCallum: Hello and welcome to the very first episode of Research Park Chronicles. I'm your host Rickey McCallum and throughout this podcast, I'm going to take you on a journey through the gateway to collaboration. We're going to talk about why university research parks are so integral to innovation, how the UT Research Park came about here in Knoxville, Tennessee, and what it's already accomplished. And in future episodes, we'll dive in even more to future projects within the park, developments between Volkswagen, which is the power behind the research park in UT, and what research parks mean in the future of scientific discovery, technologies, economies, and consumers.But I'm getting ahead of myself here, so let's start from the beginning. I know you're all dying to know, “Rickey, what exactly is a research park, anyway?” Well, I'm glad you asked. University research parks are the physical locations developed and designed to foster an environment of collaboration between universities, the public and private sectors, and the federal research laboratories. In the case of the UT Research Park, the goal is simple: to become a bridge between science and technology companies and the best up-and-coming scientific minds at the University of Tennessee.These are places established to enable a free flow of ideas between R&D institutes, universities, and research labs in order to solve real-world problems with innovation and cutting-edge solutions. And Volkswagen, the powerhouse German car manufacturer known for leading the industry in innovative developments, wanted to create one right here in little old Knoxville, Tennessee. But why? The answer to that question lies 112 miles south of Knoxville. In 2008, Chattanooga, Tennessee, came into focus when VW chose that scenic southern city as the location of its first U.S. auto plant since the closure of the Westmoreland Assembly Plant in Pennsylvania back in 1988. Now, the Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly plant builds the US-specific VW Passat and the VW Atlas.With their own assembly plant located just over a hundred miles away, the well-established research-centric UT Knoxville at hand, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory just down the road, how could Knoxville not be the perfect location for researching composite materials?Of course, I say that as if it makes complete sense, but when I first began researching this podcast and reading about the UT Research Park, all I could think of is, why Knoxville and how did we get so lucky?But I had a conversation with my good friend of mine, Dr. Leon Tolbert, who works in the electrical engineering and computer science department at the University of Tennessee, and he gave me a little backstory that will put it all of this into perspective.Dr. Leon Tolbert: So, when Volkswagen first built their plant in Chattanooga, they came to the University of Tennessee—and that was probably more than 10 years ago—and wanted to engage the university because they were looking at hiring graduates of our university, they were looking at working with faculty, and they donated, I think, a pretty substantial sum of money at that time to fund research in engineering. And so, the College of Engineering then gave out grants to faculty who were doing work related to electric vehicles and, I believe, got a couple of those grants, and worked with students on things related to power electronics for electric vehicles. But then, I guess things just kind of coasted along there for a few years, and then, more recently, a couple of years ago, they approached again wanting deeper involvement, and came and looked at the work we were doing already related to electric vehicles, visited our department several times, and then approached us about establishing a Volkswagen fellowship for graduate students, and in that fellowship, they would hire the students to work full-time at Volkswagen while they were pursuing their PhD. And this kind of follows the model in Europe where a lot of the PhD students basically are full-time employees of companies, but they're pursuing a PhD, and they wanted to do something similar here at UT.Rickey McCallum: And they did just that. VW approached UT and created an incredible program for PhD students to work full time on research projects that directly impact real-world struggles. Now, when these students complete this program, they're going to be ready and have applicable real-world experience to show for all their hard work, and have a foundation of research already in place. So, Dr. Hendrik Mainka, project manager and team lead of UT's Innovation Hub, told us a little bit more about the PhD program.Dr. Hendrik Mainka: Yeah, I think that the PhD program probably is pretty unique for the US. I mean, we have a PhD program in Germany at our headquarters where, always, the PhD students are Volkswagen employees. I think that's a huge one, too, a lot of the PhD fellows here and in the US, so PhD fellows you will talk to later, they are all Volkswagen employees, and we're really working with them as our people to make sure we having this close connection, not only to the university, also for our students to really real-life problems, you know? You're working on a wireless power transfer, for example, that's something we want to see the next years being implemented in our cars. And so your PhD research really has a high impact. Same with the research on sizing to optimize our composite parts. That's really applied research on a PhD level, which really helps the company moving forward with the innovations, and also having the students working on real-life problems. I think that's really unique and hopefully, it's beneficial for both sides.Rickey McCallum: It all already sounds pretty great right? A world-renowned, industry-leading auto manufacturer choosing our Knoxville, Tennessee university to start exploring composite materials for more affordable, energy-efficient vehicles we can make right here in the same state.Yeah, it's really awesome, and it gets better. VW didn't just stop at the UT Research Park. In 2019 they announced that they wanted to use Knoxville as the site of their very first North American Innovation Hub. Now, in a partnership between Volkswagen, UT, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Innovation Hub will be an extension, or rather an expansion of the Research Park, and it will further develop research opportunities for UT doctoral students with a focus on electrical engineering and developing lighter components for composite materials.And those opportunities have already begun with the very first wave of doctoral fellows. William Henkin, a VW research fellow at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, gave us a little more insight on just how incredible this PhD program has already been.William Hankin: It's an incredible experience and the fact that I'm the first one kind of paving the way, trailblazing it makes me kind of smile to myself and, like I said, it's validation on everything I've done to this point. As a grad student, you don't necessarily get those feelings all the time, so you got to take advantage of it when you do. [laugh].Rickey McCallum: trailblazing. [laugh]. I like that. That's the perfect way to describe both the program in general and your research projects and goals. What is it specifically that you're focusing on in the Innovation Hub, William?William Hankin: Volkswagen is very interested in next-generation vehicles. And an extension of that is electrification and lightweighting. And so a lot of the work I'm doing is in the lightweighting aspect. And so I'm looking really at composite materials: how to make them stronger, more efficient, and how to implement them in automotive application. So, Department of Energy here in the East Tennessee area is huge. They have the National Transportation Research Center, and they work closely with University of Tennessee, Knoxville, so we have great supporting casts, academic, adjunct faculty, collaboration is prolific and Volkswagen really saw that as an opportunity to put down some roots in this area. And we're really the first generation of fellows here, but I expect this to grow, a lot.Rickey McCallum: and grow it most certainly will. So, this is VW is the very first North American Innovation Hub. And as I said, it means that Knoxville is going to be joining the ranks of Berlin, Tel Aviv, and Tokyo, renowned sites for establishing VW Innovation Hubs.It still sounds just a little too good to be true, or at least it did to me. So, I asked Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Tennessee rather bluntly, “What's up with that?”If you look at Volkswagen's global footprint, where the Innovation Hubs and their centers and stuff are located, Knoxville's not considered a Tel Aviv or a Tokyo type of location. And so I'm curious if you have any insight of what may have been their thought process, and why Knoxville? I mean, why move here to establish this Innovation Hub?Marc Gibson: Yeah, so that's a good question. I had the opportunity, actually, to visit their Tel Aviv hub last November and I was kind of wondering the same thing, to be honest. I was like, “That puts us in pretty, pretty prestigious company,” I was really excited about that. I had an opportunity to sit down with the folks in Tel Aviv and they outlined why they're there and what the motive was for Volkswagen to locate a hub in Tel Aviv. And certainly, it was around their innovation, their startup culture that they have there, so I knew right away, it was a little bit different why they were looking into Knoxville. I think they look at Knoxville as the future hub for materials and manufacturing. And I think there's a lot to be said, obviously, for the strengths that we have here. But I think they also looked at the vision that the University of Tennessee had and the relationship that we have with ORNL, and I think they really felt like we could move together. Together we can move a mountain and really create something special here.Rickey McCallum: Dr. Uday Vaidya, a Governor's Chair for Advanced Composites Manufacturing at UT followed that up.Dr. Uday Vaidya: as you know, the ecosystem here in Tennessee is very unique. We have a very large, signature flagship university, University of Tennessee, the world's largest DOE lab in terms of materials research, Oakridge Lab, just 20 miles away, the manufacturing demonstration facility at Oak Ridge, and the industry network, which combines along with IACMI which is, again, a very unique piece in this whole equation. So, the entrepreneurial aspect of it is almost natural in that because there are so many technologies that are at play, and a lot of the students and personnel work throughout, you know, in terms of progressing to a certain endpoint as part of their academic career, many of these students are extremely entrepreneurial already. But now that gives them a purpose and a real vision of where their business and entrepreneurial skills could get to. So, we have a number of such examples of students starting companies as part of their PhD or masters training, like the Innovation Crossroads program between Oak Ridge and UT makes a very good case for these students to get seed funding and going. So, the hub that you have here, or the Innovation Hub is a key part of the entire process because now that gives a real home to these kind of ideas to set up, whether it's a space, or an asset, or a process, or the infrastructure required for such a daunting step that they would take. So, such a thing is extremely easy because of operation like the Innovation Hub.So, I believe it should become a very natural relationship on multiple fronts. The technology is just one piece of it. I mean, you have the manufacturing side, you have the materials side, the electrification, battery, so many aspects of Volkswagen's interests which fall within that. But alongside, there's a huge need for the workforce development and then the training, not only at the PhD level but also all the way from the technician people on the shop floor. So, you need multiple points of engagement with the company. So, I think the vast range of programs that UT could offer, along with Oak Ridge and the ecosystem, will continue to engage VW in a continuous way. So, that will also then excite their supply chain, the tier suppliers, tier one, two, three. So, they will want to set up operations in the proximity. So, it has a cascading effect of benefit for sure.Rickey McCallum: A cascading effect. That's the perfect way to describe the blossoming partnership that just keeps going between UT and Volkswagen. And it's certainly cascaded into some wonderful research opportunities and projects. And since Dr. Hendrik Mainka has been there from just about the beginning of the cascade, we turned to him for a little more information on that partnership.Dr. Hendrik Mainka: The conversations, at least, I have been empowered, have started around about in 2015. I think everybody remembers when IACMI, the Composite Institute, was founded in Knoxville. Awesome event with President Obama on-site announcing the DOE-sponsored institute and, yeah, Volkswagen is proud to be a founding member of this Institute, which is basically led by University of Tennessee in Knoxville. And I think that's basically how everything started. And in the following years, we had several IACMI projects together with UT to develop lower-cost, high-speed manufacturing, really efficient method for automotive lightweight composites. Also looked at recycling processes with UT together and the last years. And I think, really, the highlight of this project is a Volkswagen Atlas liftgate. And I think that's pretty much how it began, and how we started our cooperation with UT. And finally, in 2015, we opened the Innovation Hub in Knoxville, which is another major milestone in this development. A big part of innovation is basically co-creation. So, if you're working with companies or experts from different fields, that basically creates a lot of innovation in the way that new ideas are trickling into your field of expertise, and we see that, for example, with some of the UT faculties where we combining fields like AI with material research, which is really kind of a new way to create innovations. Or when we're working with experts of your Carbon Renewable Center to create really innovative materials for automotive applications. We're working with producers of paper and plastics on the other side, and then combining that to awesome new products. I think that's really where you see innovation taking place. So, it's really the capability of having all these different people available for Volkswagen to work with and have this cooperation with UT. I think that's how you might want to describe innovation.Rickey McCallum: Throughout this whole discussion, we've heard from several different perspectives of the evolution of where the partnership came from, and most importantly, where it evolved into. But which really came first? Was it the Innovation Hub that started the conversation? Was it the liftgate project, or specific research that defined really what the Innovation Hub was going to be? Or was it neither? Don't worry, listeners, this isn't the chicken or egg scenario. We do have an answer. A good one, from Marc Gibson.Marc Gibson: Yeah, that's a good question. So, the liftgate project was really kind of our launchpad. That's an IACMI project, led by several of our faculty members here that I think you're probably also going to talk with Dr. Uday Vaidya, and then Dr. Dayakar Penumadu. That project got off the ground and really, I think, excelled their thought process on the confidence that they would have and what we are capable of doing. And so I think once we established that we could do the work and that we had the expertise—and that we had the equipment here. I mean, if you look at the resources that we have here, it's pretty phenomenal. On a global scale, I'm not sure that anyone in the world has the type of capabilities that we have here between UT and ORNL. The cool nuance there is essentially what they do is they identify a project, okay. And they come to us and they say, “Can you solve this project?” And we connect them with a faculty member that we think can solve the problem. And then they create a statement of work, the faculty member goes and identifies a PhD student, and then Volkswagen pays the PhD student to go to school at UT. We're talking about the liftgate on the back of one of these vehicles. To do something like that—you know, I think Volkswagen told me at one time—and you have to ask them, but I think they told me at one time to get something like that changed and on the assembly line on one of their vehicles, it typically takes, like, five years. And, you know… we [laugh] we fast-tracked that. I mean, you look at what we were able to do. I mean, we were able to do that really in like two to three years, and it's now going to be manufactured, going on the assembly line, and consumers are going to be able to buy vehicles that are going to be manufactured in Chattanooga, that had University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory technology in it. I mean, how cool is that? But you can kind of look at some of the other projects that are taking place now, too. I mean, it's not just around lightweighting and composites. Now they're moving into batteries. One of the big things—and you'll have to ask Volkswagen a little bit more about this, but one of the big things about that plant is they've also started almost a billion-dollar infrastructure improvement slash addition, in Chattanooga—and you got to think, that plant's less than 10 years old—to do all battery work and battery research. And so they're really going to be looking at faculty members here. In fact, two of the projects that they've kicked off already are going to be housed in our Department of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and doing battery work. And I think that speaks volumes; they're not just here to do composites and manufacturing, but they're here to access other areas of expertise, too, which I think is pretty cool.Rickey McCallum: So, Marc mentioned the liftgate project. Let's talk about that. It's the project that is really the main focus right now here at the UT Research Park. So, we're going to get into a little bit more details and specifics about that in one of our next episodes, but it's the first project in which the Research Park is actively working to find an innovative solution to a real-world problem. And it is very important to Tennessee specifically because while research parks do work hard here in Knoxville to create the solution, the VW plant in Chattanooga is working hard to implement that said solution. So, the entire project from start to finish is being handled right here in East Tennessee. So, of course, when it comes to a project like that, we have to think ahead to the impact the project will have on the future. So, what does this project mean for the future of the Innovation Hub in 5, 10, 15 years?Dr. Uday Vaidya: Sure, so in the liftgate project one type of intermediate materials have been used, but composites offer such a broad design space. It's like a painter's palette, really, you can choose a range of different things and come up with unique innovations every single time. So, it just offers innumerable possibilities for futuristic designs. So, the Volkswagen liftgate project, as you know, was one of the first signature projects for IACMI under the Composites Institute. Volkswagen is a key company in the Tennessee area. In Chattanooga, they're producing vehicles. Most of the current vehicles require lightweighting because of possibilities for energy savings, energy efficiency, less fuel consumption, and so on, so every ounce that you save from the vehicle's weight impacts the economy in terms of its cost savings down the road. So, the whole idea from Volkswagen, currently their liftgates are made out of stamped steel, sheet metal, which is good. Excellent material, but there's a lot of potential that composites offer, such as high-impact resistance, ability to tailor, create deep draws, complex shape parts, and near net shape parts. So, we had a good potential there to use all the attributes of composites towards this application, and that's where the unique combination of IACMI, Oak Ridge, University of Tennessee, this ecosystem came into play, of course with other partners as part of this project.So, really, all our industry-related projects are highly valuable because it provides the students and the staff working on it a real-world opportunity. So, everything they're doing has a purpose, meaning, and an actual tangible product, process, et cetera, down the road, that they can see what their research is actually leading into. The Volkswagen project, like any other project, obviously engaged a number of students—both undergrad and grad students—towards problem solving all the way from design process, process modeling, testing, characterization, you know, the whole process of designing a part all the way to the end product, so they could actually see the fruits of the labor at different stages as it was going on. So, that led to a lot of fundamental research along the way for PhD and masters students, as well as a lot of experiential learning for undergraduate students, who had never even seen or known what composites was about, that gave them the opportunity. So, when they now put their CV together—or resume—they would have a huge impact. When they go to their interview, they can actually speak in terms of real-world opportunities they have been faced. So, it's a very valuable relation and experience.Rickey McCallum: And of course, the liftgate project is only the beginning, only one of many projects and research studies being done in the Innovation Hub. So, Dr. Tolbert, some of the topics of discussion that we've had around Volkswagen's partnership is around technologies for future electric vehicles, including power electronics and wireless charging, what's the future of EV, in your mind, with this partnership, and how the University of Tennessee can help advance the technology and innovation that Volkswagen is looking for?Dr. Leon Tolbert: So, I was really excited when Volkswagen approached us to talk about electric vehicles and their plans that they're doing in Chattanooga to build new vehicles, mostly because I've worked on electric vehicles since the 1990s. A lot of that was through Oak Ridge National Lab and the research that they're doing at National Transportation Research Center; they've been working on electric vehicles since the early '90s. And I really see electric vehicles, and just electrification of transportation in general, as a bright future and a trend that's global. We've done quite a bit of work on looking at traction drives using silicon carbide wide bandgap materials to electrify vehicles. And I think, as we've seen, a lot of companies are pursuing autonomous vehicles and that's also going to require electrification of vehicles in order to be able to charge a while they park and things like that. So, we really see a bright future, and we're very excited when Volkswagen came and wanted to work with us on this.So, at the University of Tennessee in our department, we have a wide bandgap traineeship for graduate students, and that was funded by the US Department of Energy specifically to attract US citizens to work on wide bandgap power electronics. And we've had probably more than two dozen students in that program since it's initiated, and most of them are MS students. And I think Volkswagen saw that program, saw our general strengths in power electronics, saw the tremendous amount of work being done at Oak Ridge National Lab, and came and wanting to partner with us in that area. And so they were interested in a couple of students coming out of this traineeship, transitioning to become VW Fellows and pursue PhD, and I think what we like as faculty in working with industry is we want our research to eventually end up being used somewhere. And so it really helps inform our research to make it real-world applicable. And I think students, too, really gain a lot in working with industry because what they're working on, they hope one day will show up in a vehicle. So, I think obviously, there's lots of technologies that go into cars, and we've talked about the electrification of transportation, and so I do think there is quite a bit of room to grow in just drive train technology, there's a lot of room to grow in autonomous vehicles, a lot of room to grow in energy storage and battery technology. And I think this is a unique place, having Oak Ridge National Lab, TVA, University of Tennessee, and all of the research that goes on here. I would be remiss if I don't also mention CURENT. It's an NSF DOE engineering research center dedicated to looking at the future electric grid. And so we have one of the top programs in the country in power systems and power electronics, and more than 100 graduate students in that area. And so this is just really a great place for things like that.Rickey McCallum: So, there you have it. Now you know exactly what a research park is and how Knoxville ended up not only with one but also as the home of a VW Innovation Hub. So, next time we're going to dive in a little deeper. That's right, we're going to get into the projects, specifically the liftgate project, which is the UT Research Park's first project to solve a real-world problem in the VW Atlas. And it just may have been the siren's call that drew attention back to Knoxville and convinced VW to bring their North American Innovation Hub to us. So, find out more next time in the Research Park Chronicles.And thank you for listening to the Research Park Chronicles with Rickey McCallum. We'll pick up here next time with the rest of this story. Keep up with the latest episode by subscribing on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever fine podcasts are found.

Research Park Chronicles with Rickey McCallum explores the incredible innovation that’s taking place at the University of Tennessee Research Park. Find out why the research institute has become the gateway to collaboration between the University of Tennessee, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the private sector—helping unleash Knoxville’s entrepreneurial spirit while opening up amazing opportunities to organizations around the world.