Fink Named techcenter@UMBC’s Director of Entrepreneurial Services

CONTACT:
Tammi L. Thomas
tammi@umbc.edu
410-455-6784

Jan. 18, 2007

Baltimore, Md. – David J. Fink, Ph.D., has been named the director of entrepreneurial services at UMBC’s techcenter@UMBC. With more than two decades of experience as an entrepreneur and officer in biotechnology start-ups, Fink will provide techcenter@UMBC companies with invaluable expertise and mentoring.

Fink is the first director of entrepreneurial services for techcenter@UMBC, UMBC’s on-campus tech incubator and accelerator, home to 16 start-up and 10 emerging high-tech and biomedical companies. Fink will coordinate business services, including identifying funding sources for companies and connecting them to UMBC’s academic resources.

“I enjoy working with dynamic entrepreneurs who are committed to their companies. In these technology-based businesses, situations can change rapidly,” said Fink. “It is exciting to think the resources provided by techcenter@UMBC, along with the support I can offer to these professionals, will make a difference in their success.”

Prior to accepting the new position, Fink was UMBC’s biotech entrepreneur-in-residence, vice president of business development for Osiris Therapeutics, a researcher and research manager at Battelle in Columbus, Ohio and an executive officer in six start-up biotech companies. Fink was trained in chemical engineering at the Universities of Cincinnati and Michigan and was a postdoctoral fellow in biochemistry at Purdue University.

In addition to Fink’s role as director of entrepreneurial services, he is an instructor for the ACTiVATE program and has been an active member of the techcenter@UMBC Business Advisory Board and the Baltimore Bioscience Consortium. He also serves as an adjunct professor in UMBC’s Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering.

“David is an exceptional asset to our strong management team,” said Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of UMBC Research Park Corporation. “Expanding UMBC research opportunities, facilitating technology transfer between the University and the private sector and creating jobs are important elements of the techcenter@UMBC and our research park, bwtech@UMBC.”

About techcenter@UMBC: UMBC's technology incubator, founded in 1989, was expanded in 1996 when UMBC purchased the 30-acre five-building Lockheed Martin Research Lab facility site and renamed it techcenter@UMBC. techcenter@UMBC is home to approximately 30 early stage and mature companies. For more information about the techcenter@UMBC visit the website at www.umbc.edu/techcenter.

Phase II is bwtech@UMBC, a 41-acre research and technology community. bwtech@UMBC has a total development capacity of up to 350,000 square feet of office and laboratory space. The park will ultimately comprise five new state-of-the-art buildings occupied by research and technology firms. Both projects combined have over 40 tenants representing diverse technologies ranging from mechanical engineering to pharmaceutical research, from environmental sampling to biotechnology. For more information about the bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park visit the website at www.bwtechumbc.com.

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