High-tech hopes

As new president of USF, Judy Genshaft faces challenges including attracting more money for high-tech research, involving the school in starting technology companies and giving it a national profile. But she has faced such challenges before.

By KYLE PARKS

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 9, 2000

TAMPA -- Judy Genshaft cruised the University of South Florida campus Friday in a 1911 electric car, a relic owned by USF's engineering school.

"Isn't this cool?" she said, admiring the bucket seats and funky roof with engineering professor Mike Kovac.

USF's new president is a fan of technology, both old and new. And as Genshaft, who started work Wednesday, gets settled, she's making it clear she is determined to put the school on the technology industry's radar.

Talk about the universities that are powering the technology revolution, and schools such as Stanford, MIT and Georgia Tech come to mind -- certainly not USF.

And Tampa Bay area business leaders say USF needs to be a more dynamic force in the region's economic growth, particularly in the area's quest to move from customer-service facilities to higher-paying technology industries.

Genshaft's challenge is to attract more money for high-tech research, get USF involved in starting technology companies and give the school the national profile it lacks.

It's a tall order. Genshaft, 52, is a rookie university president. And she has to start from scratch with the Florida business leaders and legislators so critical to the school's future.

But Genshaft has faced such challenges before. She dramatically improved high-tech research efforts as provost at the University of Albany, State University of New York. The fundraising ability required for that initiative helped the long-shot candidate land the USF job.

And she's walking into a school with signs of promise.

USF has brought in a research hotshot from Texas Instruments Inc. to develop a one-of-a-kind metrology lab that handles measurements as small as an atom. And professor Kovac is leading a drive to build a research park with an incubator for technology start-ups.

"USF is perfect for the configuration that this economy needs right now," Genshaft said. "Just perfect."

Getting started

When Genshaft started looking at places where she'd like to be a university president, her criteria quickly pared the list.

"I wanted to be at a state university specializing in research that was in a metropolitan area," she said.

Most such schools are in small college towns: Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.; Penn State University in State College, Pa.; and Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, for example.

So when Betty Castor announced she was leaving the USF president's job, Genshaft took notice.

She seems well-suited for the extraordinary demands of being a college president, a job that requires long days running the school and nighttime schmoozing with business and community leaders.

She sleeps just five hours a night, getting up at 5 a.m. each day to squeeze in some quiet time. And she makes liberal use of e-mail and her Palm organizer.

"I'd say I'm sufficiently wired," laughed Genshaft, whose academic background is in psychology. On her third day at USF -- "by the fourth day, I'll have it all down," she joked -- she met some of the high-tech types at the engineering school.

Genshaft doesn't intend to be a stranger at the school, a focal point in USF's efforts to crank up its technology reputation.

The key, she said, is forging a closer relationship with business. Such a statement would have been heresy for a university president 30 years ago, when researchers dreaded any intrusion or commercialization of the pure research process.

"The thinking on that has really changed," Genshaft said. "Now, companies are more involved, and you're seeing more federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, giving more grants for applied research."

Kovac and others say the school needs much more money than it attracts today to become more than a bit player in technology research.

The engineering school has about 100 professors, while major research institutions have as many as 150. That number is important because a small staff has a hard time juggling teaching and research.

Research space is so limited that some professors say they can't start new projects until the situation improves. And Kovac, who runs USF's high-technology engineering efforts, estimates that the engineering school's $12-million annual budget would have to increase by $1-million a year to put its professors in the top half of the country in pay.

As an example of what's needed, Kovac describes a program run by the Florida High-Tech Corridor group to encourage faculty to create new products with industry. In Florida, the program gets $1.5-million a year; a similar program in California gets $10-million.

"You have to make big investments in this, but it can pay off big," Kovac said.

Incubating ideas

Taking a shower at home four years ago, University of Central Florida president John Hitt was ruminating about technology.

What if two universities joined forces to beef up technology research across central Florida? he wondered. Hitt called USF president Castor, and soon the Florida High-Tech Corridor was born.

The group, run by volunteers, has attracted $44-million in federal, state and private funding. Almost all of it goes to research, though the group spends $100,000 a year on marketing and $100,000 on training programs.

The money has helped UCF and USF beef up their research efforts. USF attracted $161-million from all research grants last year. UCF, starting almost from scratch, now brings in about $60-million a year.

Still, there are signs that both schools could do much better.

Consider that the University of Albany, which is half the size of USF, brought in $119-million last year. And schools with national reputations bring in hundreds of millions a year. The University of Florida brought in $296-million last year, while Stanford raised $692-million.

But you can't just go out in the community and ask for money, said Ray Smilor of the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership in Kansas City, Mo., which funds grants and internships across the country.

"This isn't just about money; it's about people," Smilor said. "You need to get the right people involved in the school, whether it's putting them on boards or having them involved in the classroom. Then, after they have a stake and say, "What can we do to improve things?' you have them ready to support you financially."

As Castor puts it, "It's no secret how to get this done."

A tried-and-true way to get businesses involved is to start an incubator. Start-ups get inexpensive office space, shared secretarial help and donated services from accounting and law firms. And just as important, the university helps in research and in getting the company's name out.

When an incubator works, the companies cycle through, leaving the nest to grow, hire the university's graduates and take the school's name across the country.

Kovac and other USF leaders are working on starting such a facility. They envision a complex that could grow to as many as six buildings, costing as much as $50-million.

To succeed, they'll need the support of business leaders such as Michael Viren, who runs a Tampa venture capital firm called Intellysis Capital. The company is an example of what can happen in a vibrant technology community. Viren and other Intellysis leaders are former executives of Tampa's Intermedia Communications Inc. who launched a venture of their own.

"You have to take baby steps to develop a technology community and not just look at an incubator as being four walls," Viren said.

His idea: Start out with a Web site that could get venture capitalists, university officials, corporate leaders and others talking to each other. Then, develop a sophisticated office facility where new companies can get started.

One advantage in the Tampa Bay area: A technology company can get started here with $6-million to $8-million, Viren said, compared with costs of $12-million to $15-million in a high-profile tech center such as Boston.

But the challenges are steep, he said.

Florida is weak in infrastructure such as roads and public elementary and high schools. Unlike high-tech clusters in places such as northern Virginia and Raleigh, N.C., there are many places in Central Florida that aren't appealing for up-and-comers to live. And Florida has to overcome its reputation as a place for tourism, not technology.

"This area has to start producing middle-management and upper-management people who can get companies going," said Viren, a former economics professor who went on to management jobs at GTE Corp. and Intermedia. "That just isn't happening here."

Making its mark

Genshaft reminds critics of USF's efforts that the school didn't even exist until 1956. Now, with 36,000 students, its challenge is to add sophistication to its size.

She worked on that at the University of Albany, where IBM and other companies helped develop technology in such areas as semiconductors and the development of fuel cells as an alternative energy source.

USF shows signs of getting more corporate involvement, thanks in part to the High-Tech Corridor. Lucent Technologies is donating $4-million worth of equipment to help build a "clean room" where students will learn how to make computer chips.

That will give them the skills they need to work at chipmaking facilities such as Uniroyal Technology Corp. in Tampa and Cirent Semiconductor in Orlando.

"It's really important that USF become better known nationally," Genshaft said. "But you don't become well-known in everything."

At USF, the technology priorities already are fairly clear. The school is building a reputation in medicine that it can build on, and it sees opportunities in semiconductor research.

"Whatever you concentrate on, the key is graduate programs and graduate research," she said. "That's where we can make our mark."

-- Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report.

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