My Fellow Colleagues:

It’s been an exciting end to FY05. I hope you enjoyed our meeting in Chicago as much as I did. I’d like to extend special thanks to Larry Dickens, Gib Marguth, Jesse Erlich, Courtney Price, and Gus Vu for their time and efforts that made the meeting a success. The videos of the training sessions conducted at the meeting should be available on DVD and from our website shortly.

As we plan for FY 06, I’d like to solicit input from each of you regarding what the Midwest Region should do. The FLC is the only nationwide organization of and for government T² professionals. As such, we can make it whatever we want it to be.

Here are some ideas that we’re considering for the type of meeting we should hold next year:

• A single regional meeting, either in Chicago again or elsewhere within the Midwest.
• A joint meeting with another region. Mark Reeves of the Southeast Region suggested that it might be beneficial for the two smallest regions of the FLC to come together for a meeting. The meeting could be somewhere along the dividing line between the regions; Cincinnati and Louisville have been mentioned as possibilities.
• A series of smaller meetings at multiple locations throughout the region. The locations selected could be based on where a group of labs are concentrated (e.g., Cincinnati and Wright-Patterson) or where research of particular interest is being conducted (e.g., FPL’s and USDA’s work with biofuels).

In addition to the type of meeting we want to hold, we’ll also need to choose topics and activities for the meetings. Some possibilities include:

• Laboratory Tours—Are there particular facilities or research work that you’d be interested in visiting?
• Training—Are there particular topics (e.g., how to deal with management, negotiation tips and tricks, how to manage an SBIR program) that would be of particular interest to you?
• Technology Showcase—This event is envisioned as an opportunity for Primary Investigators and ORTA Representatives to speak for 20 minutes on technologies available for licensing to an audience composed of representatives from business, industry, and economic development organizations. Individual meetings between the parties would follow the presentations.
• Laboratory Expo—This event would be similar to the one at our regional meeting, where representatives of the labs are on hand to meet and do business with representatives from business and industry.
• A symposium on a particular research topic, such as biofuels or explosives detection.
• A local business meeting in conjunction with a trade show or other event. For example, if one or more labs have technologies appropriate fot the automotive industry, the region could attempt to arrange meetings between the laboratories and potential licensees at SAE.

Obviously, we can’t accomplish all of this during a single year; however, we can do some. The advantage of holding multiple smaller meetings is that we can cover more topics and hold a wider variety of events. However, it is more work (which is what we have Ken for), and some types of events (the technology showcase in particular) will require a commitment from the labs involved.

If you have a preference for a specific idea or have other ideas that you think we should implement, please let me or Ken know as soon as possible. I look forward to seeing you all no later than the national meeting, which will be held in Minneapolis the first week of May.

Sincerely,

Cindy Wesolowski
Regional Coordinator