Oral History Interview with Carol Ann Dykes Logue, Director of Programs & Operations for the University of Central Florida’s Innovation Districts and Business Incubation Program

In all the time I’ve been here, just by the nature of the kinds of companies that have been part of the UCF Program, companies in Research Park, the work UCF does, I’ve always had the opportunity to be engaged with this extraordinary community of Department of Defense entities that reside in the Central Florida Research Park – that’s a whole another story we could talk about – but that’s a 60 year community in the making with about 18 different National Security entities that have people on the ground doing research and development, doing acquisitions, designing, purchasing products… Excerpt from an Oral History Interview with Carol Ann Dykes Logue, Director of Programs & Operations for the UCF Innovation Districts and Business Incubation Program.

Carol Ann Dykes Logue is the Director of Programs and Operations for the University of Central Florida’s Innovation Districts and Business Incubation Program. Currently, there are nine incubators located in five counties in east Central Florida. She is the cofounder of Central Florida Tech Grove and serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Central Florida STEM Education Council, represents UCF on the Orlando Tech Council, serves on the boards of the National Defense Industrial Alliance of Central Florida Chapter, VRAR – Virtual Reality Augmented Reality Association of Central Florida, Florida Photonics Cluster, Athena Orlando, Powerlink, and was selected as Orlando Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business in 2023 and 2010. She has also served as Associate Director of the Southern Technology Applications Center at the University of Florida’s College of Engineering supporting companies, federal laboratories and universities across nine southeastern states in their strategic business and technology commercialization activities in NASA’s tech transfer work. She has worked in the private sector as Vice President of Information Services at Technology and Strategic Planning in Stuart, Florida on Project Socrates. Carol Ann is an Arkansas farm girl by birth but calls Central Florida home now and has future plans for a garden in the sunshine state.

We invite you to listen and learn from Carol Ann Dykes Logue:

I’m Carol Ann Dykes Logue and I was born in Searcy, Arkansas. I was raised in Arkansas and then went on to college that my undergraduate degree is from in Fayetteville and then went to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge for my Master’s, back to Little Rock, Arkansas for my very first professional job. Was there for a little over four years before I ended moving to San Diego and from there to Florida. So I was definitely in Arkansas, you know, I was raised there, went to school there, my first professional job there. But I have lived in Florida now longer than I have lived anywhere else.

What did your parents do for a living?

Well, I‘m a farm girl from Arkansas so my grandparents were farmers, my dad was a farmer, my mother was an elementary school teacher. She actually followed me into the Library Science field though. She had taught school for many years, and then decided to became a Media Specialist. So she went back and got her Library Science and Media Specialist degree and was in that role for many years, too. So I grew up in a very small rural part of Arkansas farming communities. It grounds you a lot when you grow up in an environment like that. My granddad ran the General Store. My grandmother was a pillar of the community, started the historical society. My other grandfather was in education, superintendent of the schools and teachers. My other grandmother was a teacher. So I grew up in a world of education and teaching which makes you curious about a lot of things because you are always learning.

You have a phenomenal ability to share knowledge and instill confidence in others and you envision their potential and their goals for the future. Is this where it came from? Is that where that talent came from?

Thank you for saying that, Jane. I hadn’t ever quite thought of myself that way. But when you say that, I thought that is what I feel one of my gifts are. How God created me to serve in this world. Because I’ve just always been innately curious and loved to learn and love to understand how things work. And how people do what they do. What’s possible. So to end up in a role where I’m working with innovators and scientists and engineers, and helping throughout my career in many ways, helping them transition that incredible discovery and innovation they’ve made into something that can be used in the marketplace by others. So the majority of my career has focused on that in some way or other.

“The privilege of working with insanely brilliant, creative people…”

I feel like I’m one of the luckiest people in the world because I’ve had the privilege of working with all these insanely brilliant creative people whether they’re researchers in federal labs or universities or industry or entrepreneurs, and learn from them. Watch the creative process and help support their dream of doing something with that. So, as I’ve learned from them. I’ve been able to share that with others whether it’s on the business aspects of what might work and not work; or technology, strategy issues. Relationships, I’ve been gifted with such incredible opportunities to build relationships with all sorts of different organizations. So thank you for putting it that way and helping me see that. What I’ve done in that way.

You are welcome. There is the sense that you want someone to be successful and people can feel that. And that you want the best for them so that you’re going to give them all the information.

I’m going to do what I can to help. It’s a blessing and a curse sometimes I think that when somebody has a need or a problem, I so, I want to help and I want to fix it. And I want to help them accomplish what it is they want to accomplish. And a lot of times fortunately, I can help in some way. Sometimes I can’t and that’s disappointing to me. But I have to be realistic, too. And then sometimes I have to be careful and make sure that I’m not solving something that I actually need to teach somebody or encourage somebody to solve themselves. Don’t do it for them, with entrepreneurs especially. That’s a danger when your career is so much about coaching and nurturing entrepreneurs. Our job is not to tell them what to do, it’s really to teach them how to figure out what to do and to guide them to that. Which, going back to what you said earlier, it would be difficult for me to do that if I didn’t have this vast wealth of knowledge and insight and experience that God’s enable me to just gather.

You mentioned your first professional job. Would you tell us about that? Was that as a Librarian?

It was, yes. That was a wonderful happy collision and marriage, if you will, of two passions of mine. When I went to undergraduate school at the University of Arkansas and for so many years when I was in school before that in high school, I was so passionate about being a doctor and being in health care in some way or other. My undergrad was premed. While I was at the university, I took a part time job working in the library on campus. I got fascinated by learning from the staff there, watching them as this whole world of organizing and capturing, retrieving information.

Information Science and Knowledge Management

The Reference Librarians were an inspiration to me. How they thought about where to go to get information. And this was before the advent obviously of a lot of online databases. That was just starting, really, really early. And I thought, oh, I love this. This is so amazing. I think part of it too is, unbeknownst to me, there’s an engineer in me, that I didn’t realize for a long time. The whole discipline and profession of Information Science and Knowledge Management, there’s a lot of engineering to that and how you think about things and how you organize and retrieve.

Master’s in Library and Information Science with a Healthcare Specialization

That led me to confront a dilemma. I love medicine, but I love this. So I started doing a little research and discovered that low and behold that I could get a Master’s in Library and Information Science with a specialization in healthcare. That’s what took me south to Louisiana State University because Arkansas didn’t and to this day does not have a Library Science Degree, I don’t think. If they do, it’s fairly new somewhere. So headed to LSU. I was there for my Master’s in Healthcare and that was where I got exposed to the emerging field of online databases. Because the National Library of Medicine had been such a leader in that along with a couple of other federal agencies.

University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Campus Reference Librarian

Then I’m about to graduate and I’m thinking, okay, well, I need to start looking for a position. I found one job. The first job I really looked at, I applied for, and it was back in my home state at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Campus for a Reference Librarian. So I applied and I went and interviewed and they hired me.

Emerging Technology

That was the only job I applied for and a big part of that was because I came fresh out of graduate school with this early experience in the emerging technology side of it. While I was there I certainly worked the Reference Desk, I taught classes for some of the medical students on Information Research. I was supporting the doctors and the staff. We always had one of the Reference Librarians on call at the library. If a physician was in surgery and they needed information, they needed to send somebody down to the library because they couldn’t log on and look it up, right. We were there to help if they were working on papers or research.

Great Mentors: Rose and Sally

I also was very fortunate after a year or two to be put in a position to support the hospitals around the state and the doctors. We had some area health education centers. We had resident students. So it as just a fabulous first opportunity and I learned so much. And to this day I am so thankful to Rose and Sally, who were my bosses while I was there. Great mentors.

And very meaningful work.

Yes, yes.

How did you happen to come to the Southern Technology Application Center at the University of Florida?

Yeah, you know how you go down your path in life and opportunities happen? I think that’s when I often have realized why God gave me certain experiences and opportunities. I had moved to San Diego at the time with my first husband we met in Little Rock and had gotten married. He was in the Marine Corps. So we moved out there. He had been home not too long. He was one of the embassy guards, that was a hostage in Iran, and so he came back to Little Rock. We had known each other, but weren’t married at the time he was deployed over there. So when he got back after about a year or so we got married and went to San Diego. After about two years there, he decided he wanted to finish his college degree and go through Officer School. So literally, Marine Corps gives us a list of universities that we could pick from and we look at it. Well, this one is pretty far north. University of Florida, same latitude as San Diego pretty much, you know we both grew up in Arkansas, we’re going to stay in the south. So we pack up and move across the country to Gainesville.

University of Florida Library Reference Librarian and Online Databases

I went in to the University of Florida Library a week or so after we got there and introduced myself. They said, “Well, we don’t have a position formally open right now, but you have some experience that we’re really interested in. So about a week later they called me and they said, “They just found out that one of their Reference Librarians was going to go out on maternity leave and could I come work for them?” And what really appealed to them was the database experience that I had; that online information experience. They didn’t have anybody else on staff at the time that really had that experience. So I had the opportunity to help train the other Reference Librarians to help bring that into the library. Of course, to work the desk, to teach some classes to some graduate students that were doing research and things like that.

Southern Technology Application Center and NASA

After about a year and a half I’d been there, this group called the Southern Technology Application Center over in the College of Engineering approached me and said, “Would you be interested in talking to us about a position?” I said, “Well, who are you and what do you do?” Because I was not familiar with them. They were a center that had been stood up by NASA to help support NASA’s mission of reaching out to industry, small businesses, companies, and making them aware of the fact that NASA had a lot of great technology available for licensing. Lots of opportunities for collaborative research.

Law Required Transferring Commercialized Technology

Because NASA was the only federal agency that when it was created, by law, required it transferring commercialized technology. Now all the federal agencies do that today. But NASA was really one of the first because that was in the law that stood them up.

UF College of Engineering and NASA Center Work

So after talking to them a while and they wanted me to run an Information Center for them to support all the work that they were doing. I thought well this looks pretty interesting and it tapped right back into my love for science and technology. Now I moved down the street to the College of Engineering and was there for about, gosh… about eight years before I left to work with a startup company and then ended up coming back to the University of Florida with that same group for a little bit. But that’s how I ended up there. You know it’s just one thing leads to another and you don’t quite know what’s going to be around the corner. But it was really what has been the anchor for where my career and work path has gone from there. Because of that work and that NASA Center that I ended up being recruited to UCF.

When you were at the University of Florida, how did they hear about you? Did you have an interaction with someone from that department?

I think from some of the faculty and some of the students. And there was one gentleman that was working over there, I think we had been in some meetings together. I don’t even remember what it was, but he looked familiar, but I couldn’t have told you a thing about him before that.

When you came to the University of Florida did you feel pretty much at home? Did you like it?

Oh, Gainesville’s a wonderful place! It really was. When I was asked by UCF to consider coming here, my first reaction was, why would I want to leave Gainesville? And move to Orlando of all places. You know, it’s wonderful. I actually had, at the time that I was approached by UCF, I had just gotten another job offer inside UCF to actually run a fairly large program. But after about six months and multiple conversations and visits to Orlando, it just became clear to me that it was the right move to make. But still love Gainesville and get back up there pretty often.

What a great transition from the University of Florida to the University of Central Florida.

And that was about as seamless as it could have been. When the timing’s right that’s how it goes, right? I got here and just thought this was home. I was so welcomed by the community. UCF was at such an exciting young point with so much potential. One key thing that really persuaded me to take the offer from UCF was I had come down to several different events in the community, just to try to get a feel for what all was going on in Orlando. Because my only real knowledge of Orlando was from trips I would make to UCF every couple of months to visit our satellite office that was at UCF.

UCF one of 14 Subcontractors for NASA Work

So the center in Gainesville at the university, we had 14 subcontractors all over the southeast, nine states in the southeast that I managed and I was constantly visiting all of them. And UCF was one of our subcontractors. So we had a person down here that reported to me and I would come down to the university. That’s how I met quite a few folks at the university. Of course, that was all focused on the work we were doing supporting NASA and a couple of other federal agencies at the time. But I didn’t really know Orlando at all.

The Metropolitan Orlando Technology Strategy, MOTS

I came to a meeting, it was the predecessor of what is today the Orlando Economic Partnership. And they had a public meeting where they were giving a briefing about a brand new community strategy that had just been completed called the Metropolitan Orlando Technology Strategy, the MOTS. That really was spurred by the impact of 9/11 and the devastation on the local economy that quickly moved so many leaders across the community to come to gather and work with the firm to develop a strategy that would diversify the local economy toward a more technology based economy.

Letter of Support for Money to Create the UCF Incubator

When I heard that and as I thought about UCF and how it was positioned, and saw the potential for – the role that the Incubation Program could play. And by the way, I had helped write a letter of support for some of the money that was used to create the UCF Incubator. So I was already familiar with it and even knew some of the companies that were in there early on. But all that together, just God saying, okay, this is where I want you to be.

Short Term Projects in the NASA Tech Transfer Business

Plus the fact that our son was ten years old. I was traveling all the time. And it was just like, this is an opportunity to stay centered. And you know what, to see things through. There’s a big difference, and I realize there was for me, in working with companies on, wonderful companies and working short term projects in the NASA tech transfer business. As opposed to having a chance to help and nurture companies over a long period of time.

Wrote the Grant Proposal for EDA Funding for the Gainesville Technology Enterprise Center

Now the other thing that preceded all this, that also was preparation is, out of the blue, about two years before UCF approached me, I had been approached by the Economic Development Director for the City of Gainesville to help her write a grant to build an incubator in Gainesville. So Conchi and I literally did all the research, did a whole lot of due diligence, and wrote the grant, the proposal to get the EDA funding to build the Gainesville Technology Enterprise Center. So here I had had my first exposure to business incubation and then this happened. I know you look back and you see how one thing led to another in a way that you could never have imagined.

Now you also worked as Vice President of Information Services at Technology and Strategic Planning in Stuart, Florida. Would you tell us a little bit about what you accomplished when you were there?

Sure. So the story for this, my tenure at University of Florida with this NASA Tech Transfer Center was in two time periods. And in between that, there was about eights years on the front end and about six years on the back end, but in between that there was about a nearly three year period where I was Vice President with this company. And the way this came about is, the center that I was with at the University of Florida, for several reasons, a multitude of connections and reasons. We had secured a contract directly with the Defense Intelligence Agency for a program out there called Project Socrates.

Project Socrates

Project Socrates was envisioned and created by one of their key leaders there in NDIA to address what was beginning to be a bit of a problem at the time. This will start deja vu when I tell you about it. There’s a whole classification of technologies and capabilities called the Militarily Critical Technologies List. And when a foreign entity, acquires a company, buys part of a company, invests in a company that is part of that industrial base, we need to pay attention.

Due Diligence on Foreign Entity Interactions

So the defense intelligence agency, Project Socrates was created to do the whole due diligence on when one of those foreign entity interactions happens, what are our options? What’s the potential impact on our national security supply chain, our resources, ability to produce. All the sources that this program used were classified sources except for us. We were the one source of unclassified information. And part of that was because Lynn and I who worked in that information center, in this NASA Center had all this expertise in online database research. And we were pretty good at it. Because we did a ton of market studies, and commercialization plans, and technology scans and all this. So we were looking for information that would address key areas of technology that this program brought to us. And sometimes some other really weird projects.

Private Company

But, what happened was after, I guess, it was when the administration changed, that program was shut down and the founder within DIA decided to take it private; to start a company to provide some of these same services to major corporations that were in the national security space. So I went from doing that at the University of Florida for the Federal Government, to leading the same kind of research and analysis effort for this private company.

Global Research

We were working with Pratt. We were working with IBM, a lot of companies where we would do global research to help them inform their strategy as they were developing key areas of technology. Who they should partner with. What companies they might want to buy. All this kind of thing. So it was a pretty deep dive into some really interesting areas. I was there for only about two and a half years because, let’s just say that I had some differences in values with the investor that came into the company. And just could not concur with where they wanted to take the company and how they were running it.

Call from University of Florida

And so, I chose to start looking for another position and about that time, same group at the University of Florida called me up and said, “We just got this major new contract and we’d really like it if you would consider coming back to manage it.” So I went back. We went back to Gainesville. And I was there until UCF called.

It seems like the experience would be very beneficial to be able to work with the corporations, to see both sides.

Yes, when you’re working with companies and you’re working with government researches, you’re working with university researchers, it’s really a three legged stool that supports all of our innovation and economy.

You came to the UCF Incubator and did you start working with companies the first week?

Oh, yeah. When I got here the Incubation Program had been open for a little over two and a half years. So there were companies already there. It was the one Incubator in Research Park. That’s where Dr. O’Neal, he and the administration at UCF started the Incubator. That’s where it started this one ten thousand square feet of space in Research Park with quite a few companies too that had spun out of UCF. There were several U.S. subsidiaries of Scottish headquartered companies. And then just other entrepreneurial companies from the community. So, yes, I went straight from doing all the work with industry and companies up at UF to the next week doing it down here.

Orange County was the First Funding Partner for Building the UCF Incubator

And then, one of the first tasks I was given, because this was in 2002, this Metropolitan Orlando Technology Strategy I mentioned had been released as I mentioned and part of that strategy resulted in the county and the city looking east to the Research Park and saying, well, UCF’s got that Incubator out there. And they’ve got some really interesting companies in there. The strategy suggests that we support more entrepreneurial startups and tech based startups. So let’s partner with UCF to help fund the Incubator. Orange County was our first local government to come in as a funding partner and the City right after that. Therefore, one of my first assignments was to find a home for an Incubator with the City of Orlando in downtown. I was from the get go working with companies and already starting to help build the Incubator program.

And now you have the Incubator Program and you have the Innovation Districts.

Yes, so the Innovation Districts, what those are and that’s an Incubation Program designation. Initially it was going to be a university strategy and it sort of still is. But we use that designation within the Incubation program to differentiate four of our nine Incubators. And when I say that, we have these nine incubators located in five counties across east central Florida. About six, seven years ago though when we really took a look at them we realized there’s two distinct groups of Incubators that we have. There are these that are in locations like Kissimmee, and Volusia, and Winter Springs that are full of a wonderful diversity of high growth potential companies, but there are not in those locations really clear, rapidly growing clusters of technology innovation and industry and all those things that make for a technology ecosystem.

Four Incubators Near Three Main UCF Campuses

However, it just organically happens that around university campuses that happens. Companies want to locate next to a university because of the faculty expertise, the talent pipeline. They want to do research. That means customers come, government entities come, non-profit organizations come. Investors start looking at those areas so it just starts to build. And four of our Incubators were already either on or next to one of our three main UCF campuses. The Main Campus out in East Orange County, Downtown Orlando, and Lake Nona which is our Health Science Campus.

Innovation District Incubators

Therefore, we took those four and we put them in what we call our Innovation District Incubators. So we have Regional Business Growth Centers, like Volusia and Winter Springs, now Lake County, Osceola, and then our Innovation Districts. And for those Incubators we focus a lot on, and do a number of different things to help build that multi-faceted community if you will. It’s not only our clients in those Incubators that are in certain industry and technology verticals, but helping attract larger companies to be there. Helping make sure our faculty and students at the university get connected in to all that’s going on in those various clusters there. So that’s how we’re using and helping drive what we call Innovation Districts within the Incubation Program.

Do you see that those Districts have brought more knowledge-sharing for research and development for Space Florida?

For Space Florida in particular? Definitely as well and certainly in the Research Park because that’s where so much of the University’s space related work is based. And almost every, I think it’s save to say, every company that’s been in our Incubator Program that’s in aerospace or space is in that facility out there. And we’ve had a long history at the Incubation Program and UCF with Space Florida and their entrepreneurial support efforts or business support efforts. So definitely, it’s really helped support a lot of the organizations doing some really, really interesting things in that particular industry.

NASA and Space Florida

I think we’re just still in the early days of the space industry as you look at what NASA and Space Florida and commercial space and so many others are really doing and beginning to discover about what we can do and the benefits of that microgravity environment. And as we all know, the long term potential for life on another planet that will take decades to really explore and enable.

I have to ask what a workday is like for you because it seems like your typical workday would be so incredibly exciting.

Yeah, as I think all of us say, there is no such thing as typical, right. Other than, I would say, my days are full of lots of meetings like everyone now, about half of them in person, about half of them virtual. I think we’ve all kind of gotten a better balance of that. I do have a lot of meetings in person which are much more productive I think for the most part. But it’s meeting sometimes with Incubator clients.

Florida High Tech Corridor

So let’s take this morning for example. I started out my day on a call with about 30 other people that were all representing different organizations that fall in the footprint of the Florida High Tech Corridor. Every three weeks we’re all on a conference call just sharing information, upcoming events, asking for help with anything we need.

UCF Facilities and UCF Environmental Health and Safety

Then I spent about an hour with a representative of UCF Facilities and UCF Environmental Health and Safety. Spending some time in our, some of our chemical wet labs that our clients occupy in the Research Park Incubator trying to figure out how we can put some extra exhaust pipes in there and electricity so they can bring in more equipment. Then I’m on the phone dealing with a couple of vendors because down in our Life Sciences Incubator we have minus 80 degree freezers that are not working properly. There’s a lot of that kind of stuff that goes on, too.

Meetings with UCF Incubator Clients

But then I had two back to back meetings with clients to just get an update on what’s going on with them and make sure that we’re providing all the support and resources that we can for them. Because they don’t always think to remember to ask us for help. So we spend a lot of time just meeting with our clients on a regular basis. One, we want to make sure we know what’s going on with them to infuse some suggestions or ideas about how we could help them with strategic or tactical business goals that they have. Then I also sent out some welcoming emails to a brand new company that made their presentation yesterday that we’re onboarding into the Incubator.

Central Florida Tech Grove

Then the last thing I did right before I came here is, there is another program at UCF I run called the Central Florida Tech Grove, so I spent about an hour with the staff over there to catch up on some things that are coming up over there. So, that was today.

Well, it’s incredible and you seem like the perfect person to be doing all of these things especially when you look at your experience. I understand that when you retire they’re going to hire two people to replace you which makes perfect sense.

Well, it is a little much to have two fulltime jobs at the same time. We’ve already tapped one of my Incubator team members is going to step in as interim director when I step down at the end of April. I am very excited to see where the program goes under his leadership. Then the Central Florida Tech Grove, the fulltime manager that I’d hired over there a couple of years ago, I was specifically looking for the right profile not only for that position at the time, but someone who looked like they had the potential to be my successor. Because I knew I wasn’t going to be around for ten more years. I didn’t know when, but, so Chris is already taking on more and more all the time and that will be great. [Dr. Chris Libutti, Tech Grove Manager]. That will be good for both programs to have full time attention like that.

So let’s talk a little bit about the Tech Grove because I understand that you’re the cofounder. It’s a collaboration between UCF Research Foundation and the U.S. Military. So tell us about the organization, how it got started and how you engage the community to solve problems because that’s what you do, right?

That’s the number one mission, sure. In all the time I’ve been here, just by the nature of the kinds of companies that have been part of the UCF Incubator Program, companies in Research Park, the work UCF does, I’ve always had the opportunity to be engaged with this extraordinary community of Department of Defense entities that reside in the Central Florida Research Park that’s a whole another story we could talk about, but that’s a 60 year community in the making with about 18 different National Security entities that have people on the ground doing research and development, doing acquisitions, designing purchasing products from men and women in the military and other National Security entities.

Innovation Center

But one of the things that had long been a vision if you will of that community was to have an entity of some sort, an Innovation Center that could be a front door and could be that place that those who aren’t in the defense industry, and who find it extremely intimidating to get into, because it is, where they could go and where they could engage. And where they could learn about opportunities and meet other folks to collaborate with. The other key driver was the fact that the Federal Government in general and DOD in particular for how many years always talks about being able to do innovation more rapidly. Now there’s a lot of things that get in the way of that, but there are some things that can be done to accelerate, finding really cutting edge innovative solutions that they would not know about otherwise.

Captain Tim Hill, Commanding Officer of the Naval Air Warfare Training Systems Division

So those two reasons and a couple of other things that were happening at the time led to Captain Tim Hill, who was then Commanding Officer of the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division and who I’d known and engaged with on various occasions, approaching me and saying, “I’ve realized that as Commanding Officer of this Navy entity I have the authority to be able to execute the kind of agreement that we can use to stand up an innovation center.” It’s called a Partnership Intermediary Agreement. He said, “And I need you to help me because you know how to talk to entrepreneurs. You know how they think. You know the world that we want to get to plus you’re pretty well connected in the community.”

Collaborating with the Department of Defense Community

And they wanted to do this partnership with UCF. They had to be with a research foundation that’s a nonprofit entity that supports the university. So we go about trying to envision what this might look like and by nature of how the DOD community here works, it’s very collaborative. So the Navy executed the agreement, but from day one, the funding for Tech Grove has come from the Navy, from the Army’s Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Research Instrumentation – PEO STRI, the Army’s Simulation and Training Technology Center – STTC, AFAMS – The Air Force Agency for Modeling and Simulation, and the Marine Corps PM TRAYSYS Program Management Training Systems Office – PM TRASYS. We had these four services funding us from day one. The goal of Tech Grove is really threefold. It is to grow the defense industry base. We desperately need all these innovative young companies, all these bigger companies out there that aren’t doing business with DOD but have incredible technology and solutions to explore bringing their solutions to meet our national security needs.

Tech Grove Innovation Initiatives: Prize Challenges, Tabletop Exchanges, Tech Scans

On the other side, our customers, the DOD entities funding us, need, they have problems they need to solve and they don’t know where to go beyond what they already know or their traditional long acquisition process. So what Tech Grove does is we execute very quick turnaround innovation initiatives such as Prize Challenges, or Tabletop Exchanges or Tech Scans. There’s opportunities where we give small businesses, academia, large companies, anybody that wants to participate the opportunity to tells us how they would solve a problem, submit maybe a minimal working prototype to some degree, and in the case of a prize challenge, we go through the vetting and demonstration process and they can actually win money. And then the government has full fledged authority to move those forward into more traditional acquisition instruments.

Tech Grove Funding

We’ve done five prize challenges now at Tech Grove. This is our fifth year. So we’re not that old either. The first three, the government customer has already taken the winners of those prize challenges and begun to put them under follow on contracts to continue to develop those solutions. And just a whole lot of other different things that we do to bring industry and academia and government to gather and share information and learn from each other. Learn about each other’s problems and capabilities. Tech Grove is unique in this world of dozens and dozens of DOD Innovation Centers because we are actually, today we are funded by all five services. Space Force is a funder. We have eleven DOD customers that fund us, multiple parts of the Army, multiple parts of the Navy, a couple of programs out of the Pentagon that are very unusual, so it works. And a lot of potential for growth there. We’re solving real problems for our men and women that are defending the freedom, the somewhat fragile freedom of our country, actually, every day. And many of those companies are companies in the Incubation Program.

Tech Grove and UCF Incubator Companies

The benefit of Tech Grove to companies in the Incubation Program, has been really very impactful. I was just in the hallway Friday afternoon talking to the founders of one of the Incubator client companies. They actually got their start and got the idea for their company through participation in the Armed Forces Jam we have at Tech Grove. Because they got exposed to a problem that Space Force has. And they came up with a way to solve it, a gamification solution and decided to start a company around it. So here they are, they just got their first contract. And they were telling me how that contract actually came about because of an event they came to at Tech Grove last fall and somebody they met that led to an introduction to somebody at this company that just gave them their first subcontract. So, you just never know. It’s all about showing up! In life, it’s about showing up.

And it’s also the infrastructure that you’ve created to bring something like that together even geographically. To be in the same room and the energy.

Yeah. People love to come to Tech Grove. We hear that a lot. Anybody can walk in the door. It’s unclassified. There will be all sorts of people in uniform. There will be folks in jeans and t-shirts and business suits. It doesn’t matter. But we repeatedly hear from folks how unintimidated they feel when they come in and how welcome and at ease and comfortable they feel. It is a lot how they feel when they come to the Incubator, too. It’s just real world. It’s amazing people doing amazing things and wanting to find other people to do amazing things with.

That’s very articulate. And there is a real sense that you want people to succeed.

It’s critical that they succeed. That’s what’s important. Why do all this if you don’t? What’s the point if it’s not about helping other human beings achieve their potential to make this world a better place.

Right. And I’m sure that you’ve seen that in so many ways in all the UCF Incubators. But also, in particular at Lake Nona.

That Incubator we opened in 2018. That is very much a Healthcare Life Sciences Incubator. We do have companies that have been doing genetic, DNA work, oncology, therapeutics. We have companies that have developed really groundbreaking nanotechnology disinfectant products. We have a number of digital healthcare companies, too, that are associated with that Incubator. They’re not working in the labs obviously. But they have some really life impacting products.

Artificial Intelligence Enabled Stethoscope Attachment

One of our companies there, Orlando Health is just starting a pilot with their artificial intelligence enabled stethoscope attachment that in the world of pediatrics it’s very difficult to detect heart murmurs really early. This device they’ve developed can detect heart murmurs really, really early long before they could be detected by traditional means. So Orlando Health is getting ready to test that with some of their pediatric physicians.

Kidney Donor Online Platform

We have others that are doing artificial data analytic tools for the healthcare insurance industry. Another that has developed an online platform, again a lot of AI applications. These are some of the things that I think the general public doesn’t have a chance to hear about, artificial intelligence and how it’s being used for really life changing, life saving applications. This particular company, because of the founder’s personal experience from being a kidney donor, the process of donor matching is pretty laborious and often fraught with a lot of gaps in the data. So he has developed an online platform that can help automate that and the accuracy level, the accuracy of the matches and the ability to make those matches much faster. He already has five healthcare organ transplant programs that have adopted this. And he’s in conversations with our local healthcare organizations now about it. So yeah, lot’s of good things.

So what you just described, would that be an example of a peak moment? Do you get follow up phone calls from a company that you directly worked with that they say, we just got this patent or we just achieved this.

Yeah, the companies are great about, we have very personal interactions, relations with our companies. I’ve always said when you’re in the business of supporting entrepreneurs, and particularly in a real traditional full service incubator like ours, it’s a body contact sport. Most of our clients, their corporate offices are in our incubator facilities. They’re starting out with one little office and they’re growing as they need it. They literally live in our house. And that’s very intentional because we want to be able to engage with them. We want them to engage with each other.

Introductions to Key Visitors

When we have key visitors come to the Incubator whether it’s someone from a major company or a potential mentor or advisor or capital source or whatever, we want to take them down the hall and introduce them to some of the other companies. But because of that, they share their news with us. We try to really create a family environment there. My staff in particular because they’re there all the time, they can tell you the name of everybody’s spouse. What kind of a car they drive. How many pets they have. When a new baby’s born. Yeah, we’re very much part of their team and part of their lives and vice versa.

That’s ideal.

Yes, it’s incredibly, to your point, satisfying and fulfilling.

I wanted to ask you and there’s a whole list, and there’s more than this, but I am going to name some of them for the record. You currently serve as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Central Florida STEM Education Council. You represent UCF on the Orlando Tech Council, you serve on the boards of the National Defense Industrial Alliance of Central Florida Chapter, Virtual Reality Augmented Reality Association of Central Florida, Florida Photonics Cluster, Athena Orlando, Powerlink, and you were recognized by the Orlando Business Journal as a 2023 Women Who Mean Business and 2010. This is a lot and I would love to talk to you, separate hours on each one of these.

You would find each of them fascinating. And they are very different organizations but all in some way are supporting the innovation economy here. Supporting industry. Supporting entrepreneurs. Supporting the pipeline of our next generation of workforce when you talk about STEM education. And some of those organizations like NDIA, we give STEM scholarships as well as bringing together the local defense industry. It all does kind of work together even though on the surface it may not look like it.

Oh, it looks like it to me.

I particularly wanted to know though about the Photonics because you’re associated with the Florida Photonics Cluster and what’s happening in terms of development for this landmark Florida Industry? Because the laser industry really is a landmark Florida industry. So could you tell us a little bit when you first got connected with them?

Yeah, how that happened, sure. Actually when I leave here my next meeting is with our newly named Executive Director for the Photonics Clusters down the street here.

Glenn L. Martin Company and the Early Days of Optics and Photonics

To your point, the laser photonics optics industry is kind of an anchor here and that all happened back during the Cold War. The Glenn L. Martin Corporation over on the west side of town developing missiles and guidance systems in the early days of optics and photonics.

Bill Schwartz and Schwartz Electro-Optics

A number of folks, but probably most notably, a gentleman by the name of Bill Schwartz who left there started a company, Schwartz Electro-Optics. His company and others really were the incubator, if you will, for the Photonics Cluster because it began to spawn a lot of other companies.

NASA’s need for Scientists and Engineers

Simultaneous with UCF being created because, some know this, others don’t, that there were two key drivers for the Florida Legislature writing the legislation in 1963 to create then Florida Technological University, it became University of Central Florida. And that was the fact that, one, we were in the middle of the Cold War, Glenn L. Martin Corporation and others were desperate for scientists and engineers and a lot of that work was going on here in this part of the state. There was no university here. But the other even bigger driver was the fact that President Kennedy had just said to NASA, “We’re going to send men to the moon and bring them back.” And they were desperate for scientists and engineers so those two key technology economic drivers drove the creation of UCF. And therefore, from the day one UCF was founded around the areas of research and innovation those two industries needed.

World Class in Optics and Photonics

So there’s a reason we are world class in optics and photonics. There’s a reason we are world class in computer science and materials and so many other things that were fundamental to the work that those and related organizations were doing.

CREOL, Center of Research in Electro-Optics and Lasers

Bill Schwartz, who I mentioned, he worked closely with UCF not surprisingly and helped drive the creation of CREOL, our Center for Research in Electro-Optics and Lasers that became our College of Optics and Lasers. He had the idea as he saw companies being created to start an industry association. It was the Florida Electro-Optics Industry Association at the time.

Speaker at the Florida Electro-Optics Industry Association

I was at the University of Florida when a lot of this was starting to happen and actually engaged with Bill Schwartz and the Association. I remember coming to speak. And because of the NASA Tech Transfer work and all these things, it all kind of comes back around, right. That entity was anchored within UCF in our optics and lasers department initially. Eventually, everybody realized it made sense to spend it out of the university on its own 501(c)3 organization and it became the Florida Photonics Cluster.

Critical Industry with a Majority of Organizations in Florida

So to this day it is one of really a handful of photonics industry associations around the country. And a little over, I think about 350 members maybe today. Many of them, I’d say the majority of them, in Florida or organizations that have a presence in Florida through a satellite office or facility or something. But also members from all over the country and even internationally. It’s a very, you know, it just represents a critical industry that many people, people don’t go around thinking about optics and photonics. Because it’s one of those enabling areas of technology and innovation.

Nanotechnology

It’s a lot like nanotechnology and others that you don’t realize, most people don’t, the things that are around you and that you use every day that are possible because of the incredible innovations and discoveries that have been made in optics and photonics and lasers and advanced materials and electronics and semi-conductors. And all these things that are pretty much invisible unless you really intentionally go to do some work to understand why something works. And, what it’s made of. But, groundbreaking technologies all the time.

Work at UCF in Optics and Photonics Spans Every Industry

And our work at UCF in Optics and Photonics and certainly companies in the cluster, spans absolutely every industry. A lot of work in space, everything from free space optics communications to biophotonics which is all about noninvasive physiological measurement and diagnostics tools, to incredible defense systems. You name it, optics and photonics are a part of it.

Thank you for that thorough answer. It’s perfect.

You are welcome. It’s a result of being around a long time and you just kind of gather all this stuff up.

I know you mentioned you have another meeting, so we probably should wrap up…

This has been so fun, Jane.

Thank you so much.

I know you are going to retire, that’s what I’ve read.

May I tell you my philosophy?

Yes.

“I’m stepping down from my roles at UCF to reallocate my time and energy…”

The University uses the word retirement. I refuse to use that word. Because I think some people work to retire and then go do something. That’s not how I’m wired. I’m stepping down from my roles at UCF to reallocate my time and energy and work in a different way. I don’t know exactly what that will look like. I will still be around, still be involved in the community. I am not going to be jettisoned to another galaxy or suddenly forget everything I know. It is the most interesting phenomena, I will say, being on this side of this change in life, how people do react to that though. It’s literally like they think they’re not going to be able to see me after April 30. We’ve got to have lunch or coffee or happy hour before you retire. Or, can you do this for me before you retire? I say, “Well, you know, I could still do it in May or June.” It’s really, really interesting.

“What does work mean for me?”

But it has caused me to think about what does work mean for me? And, why do I work? Why have I poured so much time and energy into what I do? And certainly if I was driven by money, I could have made a whole lot more money than I have working for state funded universities my whole career. But it’s because that’s what I was made to do. I’ve been blessed to find my place and find where I could really use the gifts and skills that God gave me and use those experiences and learn so much. And I will still be putting that to work somehow or another. I’ll have a little more choice about what and when, right. So that’s a little bit about my treatise on retirement.

And thank you so much for the ways you have used your gifts, particularly your brain, but also your belief in other people, that’s a huge part of it. You know there’s a legacy. There’s the legacy of the businesses of the UCF Incubator and you know I was going to include a whole bunch of stats and it just got to be too long. There’s that legacy, but there’s much more to it. And I think, you as a person, years from now you will remember, oh, yes, I remember when I met with them whether it was an organization, a person, or a company, or particular new technology. And you could see the application. You could see where they were going with it and encourage and make those connections. And some of that, yes, we can see on the UCF Incubator website, but some of it we are not going to see all of it.

I think most of it, the impact that most of us make, you don’t see. Because it’s that, it may be that one conversation you had with somebody. It may be that one phone call you made. It may be that one card you wrote. It may be that one question you answered and how you answered it. The empathy that you gave somebody. That’s what really matters in the long run. The rest comes.

Well, thank you so very much. We appreciate your brilliant legacy that you have given to our region and our nation. We wish you the very best and we will be on the look out for what’s next.

Thank you! I’ll look forward to spending more time in the library, too.

Interview: Carol Ann Dykes Logue

Interviewer: Jane Tracy

Date: February 18, 2025

Place: Orlando Public Library

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