PRESS RELEASE 93-32

Immediate 
Linda S. Ellis
(Bus: 216/433-2900)
<h3>Students Enlisted to Help turn NASA Inventions into New 
Productions</h3> Cleveland, OH -- NASA Lewis Research Center, Case 
Western Reserve University (CWRU) and the Battelle Memorial Institute 
announced today the kick-off of a new initiative to commercialize 
NASA inventions by using top graduate students at CWRU to come up 
with new product ideas and strategies.

"Ensuring that the NASA innovation can be applied in the marketplace 
is a high priority at Lewis," said Larry Ross, Director of Lewis. "We 
believe this important new program will put some of the best young 
minds in the area to work on finding new product ideas for the 
innovations of some of our top scientists and engineers."

The program is known as the Strategic Technology Evaluation Program 
(STEP). Participants include Lewis, Battelle Memorial Institute's 
Great Lakes Industrial Technology Center, the Weatherhead School of 
Management, CWRU's Center for the Management of Science and 
Technology and Enterprise Development Inc.

"We are excited about this program," said Scott Cowen, Dean of the 
Weatherhead School of Management. "We believe the CWRU graduate 
students will be able to bring a new perspective to commercializing 
these promising federal government innovations."

STEP is a path-breaking program in which a dozen top graduate students 
at CWRU, chosen from diverse fields including engineering, business, 
law and architecture, work as a team to develop commercialization 
strategies for selected inventions made at Lewis over the last 
several years. During the highly intensive eight-week process, the 
students will examine more than 90 NASA patents and invention 
disclosures. The inventions the students will be working with are 
primarily materials, electrical/electronic and mechanical device 
fields. 

"This kind of government-university-industry cooperation has been 
critical to U.S. economic competitiveness in the recent past," said 
Douglas E. Olesen, President and CEO of the Battelle Memorial 
Institute. "STEP is a clear example of the great potential of such 
cooperative activity. I am particularly pleased by the high level of 
hands-on industrial involvement in the program."

The students will be guided by an Industrial Advisory Group, which is 
comprised of leading industrialists, venture capitalists, patent 
counsels and commercialization experts from throughout Ohio.

The students, who were chosen on the basis of both their academic and 
work-related experience, will be guided in their research by 
Weatherhead School of Management faculty members. Students will be 
paid for their work and given the option of receiving academic 
credit.

A "kick-off" panel discussion and dinner for this new program is 
scheduled to be held Monday, May 24, at the Ohio Aerospace Institute 
in Brook Park. Participants will include Larry Ross, Scott Cowen, 
Cleveland corporate leaders, including Frank Mosier, Chairman of the 
Ohio Science and Technology Council, STEP students, faculty advisors 
and the members of the Industrial Advisory Group. 

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