Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Not only high-rise here but high-tech

By PAUL SWIDER
Published June 28, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - While rising condo towers are attracting international attention, smaller scale business activities are bringing the kind of high-tech economy not always apparent in a tourist-oriented city.

"We are just one of the elements that makes St. Pete about more than just sunshine," said David Fries, the chief technology officer for Intelligent Micro Patterning, a University of South Florida spinoff whose international sales are proving that the city can be a leader in the next economy. "That's one aspect we're particularly proud of."

IMP grew five years ago from a Fries invention within the university's marine science department facilities in St. Petersburg.Needing a device to examine water quality, Fries created a system to imprint microscopic patterns and easily generate the kind of microelectronic devices he wanted. The device filled an international niche, but the process of creating the business is filling a local one.

IMP, which is funded by its founders, is operating at a profit and making multiple six-figure sales from India to Switzerland and across the United States.

Fries' creation has allowed those developing microelectronics to quickly adapt to a changing marketplace, but he and his partners are also helping pioneer spinoff businesses from the school.

"After you come up with a better mousetrap, that's probably 20 percent of the process," said Fries, who is still on research faculty with the ecosystems technology group within the university's Center for Ocean Technology. "I have a lot more respect now for the process."

Fries said he recognized early he would need business savvy and found Jay Sasserath, former vice president of business development at Plasma-Therm, which is now Unaxis. Fries' wife, Carolyn, uses her engineering background to deal with manufacturing issues, and Sasserath's wife, Addys, handles marketing. The partners funded the business themselves because they couldn't find others to finance them, Fries said.

"Florida is not like out in the Silicon Valley," Fries said. "People are a little more risk averse here. That's why I try to impress upon people to lead by example and take the technology out by themselves."

That courage paid off as IMP has more than $1-million in annual revenues that grow year after year. Fries said the company is fulfilling the university's goal of creating economic development.

"We're bringing export income back to this country," he said.

Others are getting ready to follow Fries. He said another spinoff, Bioplex, is about to start work marketing a handheld device for genetic testing. With many potential uses, Fries said the device could be used by roving doctors, but might find an early application in testing water quality at beaches, a process that usually takes one or two days but which Bioplex might accomplish in less than an hour.

Another possible company would create wireless environmental sensors for remote monitoring, Fries said. "We're getting taxpayer dollars to do research," Fries said, "but our role is also to prove that and get it to the marketplace."

IMP is an example of the kind of economic development academia can bring, Fries said. He credits Pete Betzer, the marine science dean, who has championed such applications. Fries also welcomes the potential input of SRI International, the research company eyeing St. Petersburg for a marine branch. But he says the community has the intellectual assets it needs on its own.

"The university is graduating to another level, and that helps," he said of the St. Petersburg campus' recent independent accreditation. "Most successful areas have learned to grow their own."

Fries said there is huge potential for further business development from the seemingly unlikely source of marine science. With the planet mostly water and more people moving to coastlines and stressing the environment, the need to understand changes in the oceans is all the more pressing.

"Those changes are all opportunities for market solutions," he said.

Paul Swider can be reached at 892-2271 or pswider@sptimes.com or by participating in itsyourtimes.com .

[Last modified June 28, 2006, 08:22:05]