Connecting business community with UCCS

Though Clark Maxam is leaving the Colorado Institute for Technology Transfer and Implementation, he still believes the organization can play an important role in the Colorado Springs economy.

Maxam recently resigned as the El Pomar chair of entrepreneurial finance at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs for personal reasons at the end of the 2007-08 school year.

As an El Pomar chairman, Maxam splits his time between teaching finance in the UCCS College of Business, working with the institute and heading the UCCS Center for Entrepreneurship. He was also active in the Peak Venture Group, a networking organization for local entrepreneurs.

CITTI was created at UCCS in 1990 with three endowed chairs funded by $3.1 million from

the El Pomar Foundation and $1.5 million from UCCS to help local entrepreneurs turn their technology ideas and research completed at UCCS into viable commercial products.

When Maxam and Michael Larson joined UCCS in August 2006, all three chairs were filled for the first time in the institute’s history. The organization has suffered from money woes, staff turnover, difficulty in recruiting faculty and other problems.

Maxam has more than 20 years of Wall Street experience, including five years as research director and portfolio manager for New York Life Investment Management, and nine years as arbitrage trader on both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade.

He previously was on the faculty of Colorado College and Montana State University after earning a doctoral degree in finance from Indiana University. Maxam also earned a master’s

degree in business administration and finance from University of Chicago.

Question: What is your vision for CITTI?

Answer: When the three chairs came to UCCS, we were told that the chairs set the agenda for CITTI. We found that CITTI has no name recognition or visibility, so we wanted to do a rebranding as part of a rebirth of the organization. The name should fit with what CITTI should be about and recognize the role El Pomar played in founding and funding it. We wanted to expand from technology to innovation but still have a technology orientation to commercialize university research. I can’t disclose the name because it hasn’t been approved.

Q: When is this expected to happen?

A: I can’t honestly say how long it will take to be approved; we are still waiting.

Q: What should CITTI’s mission be?

A: CITTI exists because El Pomar created it to bridge the relationship between the university and the business community for long-term economic growth. Doing that involves having CITTI operate like a corporation and getting people involved from the business community. They have to be convinced that will happen. We are looking at the chairs taking on an executive role with an inside executive board that includes representation from the college and an outside advisory board to connect with the business community.

Q: Why has CITTI struggled to execute its mission?

A: The three El Pomar chairs had never been in place until about a year ago. It is a very hard job to do. The academic community doesn’t think about connecting to the business world. Unless you have a strong driving force pushing that, it tends to fall by the wayside. The business community is hungry for the university to be part of the economic and business development of the area.

Q: Is there a sense of frustration about that?

A: There is a lot of disappointment that CITTI hasn’t really done anything. Relationship building needs to be done, and dynamic ideas need to be put into place. CITTI is well funded, so one of the ideas that we have looked at is creating an investment fund to create businesses and foster ideas to accomplish our goal. I have high hopes that CITTI will be fixed. The reorganization we proposed has the potential to fix the problems. I believe we can still do interesting and innovative things for the community by fulfilling the goal of bridging economic development between the university and the community.

Questions and answers are edited for space and clarity.