Incubator CEO chock-full of plans

Duncan Stewart is a blur of ideas. He has dozens he wants to carry out.

One, for example, would be a boot camp for wounded veterans who want to start their own businesses. Another would be a second location for the incubator that would cater in part to local biotechnology startup companies.

Stewart, 36, serves as the volunteer chief executive of the Colorado Springs Technology Incubator and the paid executive director of the Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance, a 6-month-old affiliated group started to help companies commercialize technology used in the aerospace, defense and homeland-security industries.

He took both posts earlier this year after spending 14 years in the Air Force, including teaching innovation and entrepreneurship classes at his alma mater, the U.S. Air Force Academy. He continues to teach part time at the academy as a reservist.

While in the Air Force, Stewart earned master’s degrees in aerospace management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and business administration at Notre Dame University. He is working on a doctoral degree in public affairs at University of Colorado at Denver.

The 6½-year-old incubator used a federal grant earlier this year to buy and remodel a southeast Colorado Springs office building at 3595 E. Fountain Blvd. that gave it more than five times the space it had occupied near the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Question: How will the new building help the incubator?

Answer: Now as we fill up the building, we will be able to hire more staff. Eventually,

we will be able to hire a separate director, probably in less than a year and hopefully in less than six months. Gary (Markle) is still in charge as executive chairman, and I am handling the day-to-day needs of answering questions and giving the tenant companies advice. We have six tenant companies now, but there is room here for about 20 companies.

Q: How did you get involved with the incubator?

A: I had invited Gary to speak at my innovation and entrepreneurship class 2½ or three years ago and I was just starting my doctoral degree. Last summer, he gave me an office in the incubator and asked me to do some valuation consulting with the client companies. He offered me the chief executive job in December, and the board confirmed that appointment in March.

Q: Have you started any companies?

A: While I was working on my MBA at Notre Dame, I won a business plan competition for a company that monitored sensors on restaurant grease traps, using fish-finder technology. We had 20 restaurants in Indiana and Michigan as clients, but we were using someone else’s technology and could never get a good agreement with them. We are now trying to create a company in Colorado Springs called Fogflo Inc. (FOG is an acronym for fats, oils and grease) around that technology, but it would be with new investors and management.

Q: What is your next major project?

A: I am trying to create a seed-capital venture fund. We are the only city this size that doesn’t have one. I would like to help raise $5 million to $25 million for early-stage investments in entrepreneurial ventures. It would be run like a venture-capital fund in which limited partners would invest and a managing partner would make eight to 15 investments. We hope to do it next year.

Q: What are the long-term plans for the incubator?

A: We want to grow our presence in the Springs with another location in the (planned) UCCS research park. There is a need for expanded industrial and lab capacity so companies can prototype devices, share tools and other equipment. Colorado Springs also wants to grow its biotechnology industry, but the city isn’t large enough to support an incubator dedicated solely to biotechnology. Biotechnology could be added to our focus areas of software, telecommunications, e-commerce and homeland security.

Q: What type of work does the Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance do?

A: We work on technology transfer in the aerospace, defense and homeland-security industries through the Small Business Administration’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, particularly with federal, university and corporate labs. We have signed an agreement with the University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office to do patent studies on homeland security technologies that include the value of the technology, how unique it is, the potential market size and possible partners. We are trying to create a conduit for smaller companies to get help from consultants with experience in government contracting.

Q: What are some of the programs you are developing?

A: We are participating with Syracuse University to bring the Disabled Veterans Boot Camp to Colorado Springs that will help warwounded vets create their own companies. It is an all-expenses-paid, 10-day program the veteran leaves with a completed business plan ready to start their company. We have asked the Air Force Academy and UCCS to provide instructors and books. We also want to expand the National Security Innovation Competition, which was first held in April and won by the Air Force Academy. It is designed to push homeland-security technology closer to commercialization. We want to expand it to a regional competition next year and a national competition in 2009.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0234 or wayneh@gazette.com. Questions and answers are edited for space and clarity.

INCUBATOR CLIENTS

Companies that now occupy space at the Colorado Springs Technology Incubator:

- Black Lodge Studios LLC, formed Feb. 2 to develop educational, military and industrial games

- Combat Training Solutions Inc., formed April 7, 2005, to develop nonpyrotechnic bomb simulators

- ProAutus Corp., formed Aug. 19, 2004, as Web Galleries Inc. and changed name to ProAutus on July 30 to develop software for digital marketing campaigns

- SecureVision Networks Inc., started June 1 to develop digital-imaging software for large video-surveillance operations

- Ultrathera Technologies Inc., started June 14 to develop high-end therapeutic equipment for brain-injured patients

- ZeeWaves Systems Inc., started Feb. 15, 2002, to develop antennae for wireless networks

Not located in incubator, but still a client:

- Securics Inc., formed Jan. 7, 2005, to commercialize technology developed at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs that turns fingerprints and hand geometries into secure computer images