JVIC evolves in research marketplace

The Roy Blunt Jordan Valley Innovation Center is entering a new era.

Now more than 7-years-old, administrators of the technology accelerator are looking to fill its lone vacant floor space and focusing on more direct work with local companies that need assistance as they develop their capabilities.

The new era is marked by an expansion announced with fanfare July 3 when Rolla-based JVIC tenant Brewer Science held a news conference flush with local and regional politicians, including the Missouri senator whose name adorns the building. Brewer Science earlier this year seized an opportunity to take over 4,600 square feet vacated by Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. Defense contractor Lockheed Martin announced in December it was cutting 4,000 jobs and shutting down operations in several states to reduce costs as U.S. Defense spending slides.

But Lockheed’s loss was Brewer Science’s gain. Founder and President Terry Brewer said the expansion enables the company to grow its carbon-based materials and device production, which includes manufacturing new carbon-based electronics and sensor systems.

“Some space opened up and it was coincidental with our need to expand our existing facilities for carbon electronics. Both our material products and our device product projected demands are going up, so it was fortunate for us,” Brewer said.  

Allen Kunkel, MSU associate vice president for economic development and JVIC director, said now only 4,600 square feet of the 75,000-square-foot building remains available. The third-floor space was vacated in October by Crosslink amid a depressed research-funding climate.

Kunkel said the university is being selective with the goal of finding a local company that is focused on creating jobs. He said there are a handful of interested parties.

“We are trying to figure out how we can have a bigger impact locally by having more Missouri ties,” Kunkel said. “I think we’ve had to refocus a little with the way federal research dollars have played out over the last few years.”

Even so, Kunkel said JVIC is fulfilling its mission to spur manufacturing in the area. According to the most recent data available, JVIC helped create 114 jobs through the end of 2013 and spurred capital and equity investments of $7.1 million. The jobs goal through 2013 was 100 new positions created, Kunkel said.

The center garnered nearly $3.5 million in research and grant support and assisted 73 clients since opening in May 2007.

“Our mission is to help any company – whether that’s an affiliate or if someone wants to engage with us on a contract basis – look at what technologies they want to create or advance and see how we can accelerate those to market,” Kunkel said. “Once we do our part, which is typically R&D, prototype or small-scale development, then it’s up to the companies to figure out how they would manufacture. What we do hopefully moves into manufacturing, but we don’t have too much control over that.”

JVIC is a specialized research and development facility created by MSU to bring together the Center for Biomedical and Life Sciences, the Center for Applied Science and Engineering, and various industry partners in a collaborative environment.

Kunkel said Brewer Science, Mercy Research & Development and ESM Technologies have developed products for market. Through Mercy R&D, for example, researchers have spun out health care products including a corneal wound repair drug-delivery system, an adjustable tongue blade for surgeries and a graft-on skin applicator for burn and wound victims.  

At any given time, Kunkel said MSU researchers could be assisting 20 contract clients – companies such as American Dehydrated Foods Inc., International Dehydrated Foods Inc. and Crosstech Construction Products – to enhance their products or systems.

Currently, Kunkel said MSU researchers are working with Crosstech to develop and advance existing custom equipment used for producing their concrete log siding products.

MSU researchers at JVIC also are planning to handle contract work for a new SRC Holdings Corp. venture named Ceramex North America LLC. The research would explore ways to reduce oil-based deposits that build up on diesel emissions filters.

Exploring new capabilities is what the Brewer Science expansion is all about, according to Brewer.

On the fifth floor at JVIC, Brewer already has produced small volumes of materials – generally inks – printable on electronic circuits.

“With the second floor, we are able to add not only printable inks, but [also] we are able to actually make carbon-electronic devices. That capability really wasn’t available to us to any real extent on the fifth floor,” Brewer said. “Now, we can make prototypes and run pilot quantities of devices with the extra space.”

The devices could eventually be used in wearable electronics or electronics printed on plastic, as well as other markets, and the printable inks also could be used in the semiconductor industry, Brewer said. He said the potential uses for products developed at JVIC now are fairly broad and could include heat sensors for everything from automobiles to air conditioning to medical devices.

Though Brewer declined to disclose revenues, he said the research and development capabilities JVIC offers has helped improve top-line sales in recent years. He said revenue is up more than 10 percent each year since 2009.

“We would not be in carbon electronics at all if it wasn’t for that facility. So, how do you measure that impact? We are one of the leaders now in carbon electronics, which would be significantly smaller and would receive less attention industrywide if it wasn’t for our role in it,” Brewer said, adding sales associated with carbon electronics represent less than 10 percent of company revenue.

Though still young, Brewer said JVIC already has produced an area dedicated to generating new ideas that can bear the fruit of jobs.

“It’s having a compounding effect – not just the space, but the idea of JVIC,” Brewer said. “First it was a mill. Then, it was JVIC. JVIC spawned the idea for IDEA Commons. IDEA Commons spawned the idea for eFactory. That’s what a success story should be. It’s not, ‘I do one thing to create one thing.’ But it’s, ‘I do one thing to create an ever-expanding range of possibilities.’”

Now, with The eFactory in place, Kunkel said MSU has a goal to create at least 500 jobs between the two facilities during the next five years.