Texas State's Activate program aims to create women CEOs in tech fields

By Barry Harrell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, April 24, 2010

For Marian Justiss, arriving every day for her high-tech job at Xtreme Power has always meant one thing: being surrounded by men.

"At work, I'm the manager, but all the people who work for me are men," said Justiss, who is director of engineering for the Kyle-based company, which makes energy storage systems. "I'm never around women."

Justiss' situation isn't uncommon for women who work in science and technology fields. A 2009 report by the National Center for Women and Information Technology found that in Fortune 500 technology companies, women hold just 10 percent of corporate officer positions and 11 percent of board of directors positions.

Those are the kinds of numbers that led to the creation of Texas State University's Activate program.

The university launched the technology entrepreneurship program aimed at women in October, with an inaugural class of 26. By the time the first-year program ends in November, organizers estimate that participants will have started eight to 12 new companies.

Activate's mission, university officials say, is to provide training, mentoring and networking services that encourage participants to start their own businesses — and more specifically, to encourage them to start companies using technologies developed in Texas universities.

The Activate concept was born at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County in 2005. The program has helped create more than two dozen technology companies there, according to the university's website.

"A lot of women say that Activate changed their life. It opens up what they thought about they could do," said Terry Hazell, the program's director at Texas State. "For the first time, they see themselves raising money and running a multimillion-dollar company, becoming millionaires themselves."

Hazell was an instructor in the Maryland Activate program, and when she moved to Georgetown last year, "I didn't want to leave Activate behind," she said.

With some help from the University of Maryland, Hazell began looking for a Texas partner.

She found it in Texas State.

Terry Golding, director of Texas State's Center for Research Commercialization, which has oversight of Activate, said the San Marcos school jumped at the chance to be the home of the program.

"We knew (this program) was a winner, so we acted rapidly to capture Activate at Texas State rather than it going somewhere else within the state," Golding said. "I think it does everything that we as an institution are positioning ourselves to do to make a major impact. "

Texas State founded its branch of the program in October, in part using money from a $4 million grant from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. The program meets once a week at Texas State's Round Rock campus.

The school accepted 26 candidates from about 100 applicants for a yearlong curriculum on starting a new technology business, as well as on skills development and networking. Topics include technical issues such as patents and technology licensing, as well as market research, raising money and business plans.

Instructors include Jamie Rhodes, an entrepreneur and founder of the Central Texas Angel Network of startup investors, and Robin Curle, a longtime tech entrepreneur who now is in real estate sales and investing.

Representatives from universities from around the state bring in new technologies that are ready for commercialization, and meet with Activate program members.

If the Activate program members find a technology they'd like to market, they partner with the university to create companies to sell the products. The universities will get royalties from the sale of those products.

Texas State's first Activate class has had technologies pitched from Texas State, the University of Texas, the Texas A&M System and the Texas Tech System, Hazell said.

Activate has already spun off six new companies and is working with three program participants to use technologies to expand their existing companies, Hazell said.

Sharon Vosmek, CEO of Astia, a nonprofit organization aimed at increasing the number of women-led technology startups, said programs like Activate "really do an outstanding job of pulling back the curtain, demystifying the process and shortening the pathway to success."

"They actually foster entrepreneurs. They give an excellent road map to the opportunity, and they raise awareness of opportunity," Vosmek said.

Examples of Activate success stories abound, and among them is Kris Appel, a 2006 graduate of the Maryland program.

Appel, who has degrees in linguistics, said she had a 17-year career with the National Security Administration before deciding she wanted to start her own company. The problem, she said, was that she had no idea how to make that happen — until she saw a flier for the University of Maryland's Activate program.

Once in the program, Appel became intrigued by technology created by the University of Maryland Medical School to aid stroke victims.

Appel licensed the product, landed some investors — most of whom she met through the Activate networking process — and founded Encore Path Inc. in Baltimore in 2006.

The company markets Tailwind, a rehabilitation device aimed at improving range of motion for stroke victims. The company has grown to 18 employees and is selling its product around the world, Appel said.

"It sounds corny, but it's not overstating when I say Activate changed my life," she said.

There is also benefit for Activate participants who decide not to start their own companies.

For instance, Justiss of Xtreme Power said her experience with Activate has made her realize she is fulfilled in her current career path.

"I thought that I might want to start my own company, but as I evaluated things, I saw that CEOs, they raise money and talk to customers," Justiss said. "That's not really what I want to do. And it was good that I learned that about myself."

Gayle Reaume was already operating a business — in 2004 she founded the Money Academy, an Austin-based program that teaches children the basics of money management — and she said her Activate experience is helping her answer the question of how to grow a company.

"It's really about how do you take a company, no matter what it's involved in, and how do you grow it? How do you create the structure around a company that will allow for it to expand to its fullest potential?" said Reaume, whose company has six employees. "So that's what Activate had done for me. It's really helped me figure out how to expand."

Central Texas soon might not be the only area of the state to have an Activate program, said Hazell and Golding, who are working to expand to four additional sites in Texas.

"If we expand to four cities, and then to seven cities, and then to 20 — in just a couple of years Texas might be producing more women-led technology companies than any other state," Hazell said. "Wouldn't that be a surprise?"

bharrell@statesman.com; 912-2960