Ned Tillman
President and Co-Founder of Columbia Technologies

Mr. Tillman has 20 years of experience as principal in environmental service businesses responsible for corporate management, business development and new technology development. He possesses 10 years experience as a project manager with Dames & Moore (now URS Corporation) and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. Mr. Tillman has a Bachelors degree in Geology from Franklin & Marshall and a M.S. in Geochemistry from Syracuse University.

Ellen Hemmerly
Executive Director, UMBC Research Park Corporation

Ms. Hemmerly is responsible for managing the development of the 350,000-square-foot bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park located on the main campus at UMBC. Ms. Hemmerly also oversees the techcenter@UMBC which houses 28 companies including incubator companies and emerging technology companies, most of which are actively collaborating with faculty and students at UMBC. In addition, Ms. Hemmerly oversees the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship. Ms. Hemmerly is a member of the Association for University Research Parks (AURP) Executive Committee and serves as Immediate Past President. She also sits on the board of the Greater Baltimore Tech Council and the advisory committees of the Baltimore County Loan Fund, the New Markets Growth Fund and the Greater Baltimore Committee's Bioscience Steering Committee.

Prior to joining UMBC, Ms. Hemmerly was vice president of the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC), serving as the senior lender and director of the Enterprise Development Fund. While at BDC, she successfully started a business incubator, and marketed the city of Baltimore to high technology businesses. Before joining BDC, Ms. Hemmerly was an associate with K.S. Sweet Associates, a real estate advisory and development firm, and TDH, a venture capital firm. After graduating from Cornell University's Johnson School of Management with a Master of Business Administration, Ms. Hemmerly spent six years as a banker with Mellon Bank (formerly Girard Bank). Ms. Hemmerly earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Moravian College.

Stephen Auvil

Mr. Auvil has been the director of UMBC's Office of Technology Development since October 2000. Prior to his arrival at UMBC, he worked as an assistant director in the Office of Technology Licensing at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where he evaluated inventions and negotiated license agreements for a variety of technologies. He has successfully negotiated dozens of license agreements including several agreements involving equity and a number of agreements with faculty initiated start-up companies.

Prior to working at Johns Hopkins, Auvil worked for two small medical device companies where he had a variety of responsibilities ranging from rebuilding medical devices under GMP to setting-up and networking computerized accounting systems. Auvil began his career as a laboratory technician studying ion channels in membranes. Auvil graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Engineering Science from Loyola College in Maryland, and went on to earn a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Baltimore and a Masters of Science in Biotechnology from the Johns Hopkins University.

Click here to view information about UMBC’s technology development activities.

Wendy Martin

Wendy Martin has been with UMBC's Office of Technology Development since 1995. As the Manager of Technology Development, she is responsible for evaluating invention disclosures, securing intellectual property protection for selected disclosures, marketing intellectual property, negotiating license agreements, advising faculty on intellectual property matters, and working with university start-up companies to develop business plans.

Prior to coming to UMBC, Wendy worked for the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology and Oncology and for the Center for Vaccine Development, Molecular Diagnostic and Applied Microbiology Section, both at University of Maryland, Baltimore. She has a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry from University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a Masters degree in Business Administration from Loyola College in Maryland. Wendy has been involved with a small family business for over 15 years and is a Registered Patent Agent.

Aristotle G. Kalivretenos

William R. LaCourse