MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Contacts: John G. Watson, JPL (818) 354-5011
Kirsten Williams, Dryden Flight Research Center (805) 258-2662

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJuly 10, 1998

NASA SELECTS CAL POLY POMONA AS BUSINESS INCUBATOR

       NASA has selected California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA to work with the agency in transferring technologies developed for the space program to private industry and the educational sector.

       The NASA Management Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, and the Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, have chosen the university for a cooperative agreement to serve as a high-technology business incubator.

       To be known as the NASA Commercialization Center, the incubator will provide U.S. start-up or existing high-technology firms and U.S. educational institutions with business development support services, including advice on such topics as marketing, sales, finance, accounting, and legal and manufacturing issues.

       As needed, these companies will be teamed with JPL and/or Dryden personnel to solve engineering challenges. In addition, the incubator will serve as a special resource for new companies whose key products or services are based on licenses of technologies developed at JPL or Dryden.

       Cal Poly Pomona will establish a dedicated 560-square-meter (6,000-square-foot) facility to be known as the NASA Commercialization Center, with ample room for expansion within a 26-hectare (65-acre) technology park developed on university land. This new center will augment the Pomona Technology Center, an independently developed incubator located in the technology park. The university's administration has pledged faculty and staff to provide substantial expertise in business and engineering disciplines as in-kind support.

       NASA simultaneously announced the awarding of cooperative agreements with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, and Langley Research Center, Langley, VA, for the establishment of two local business incubators in those areas.

       Each of these three awardees will receive funding from NASA in the amount of $400,000 per year for fiscal years 1998 and 1999, in turn matching or exceeding NASA's contribution through cash or in-kind funding from non-federal sources. At the conclusion of the agreement, the incubators will be expected to operate independently of federal financial assistance.

       With the addition of these new NASA business incubators to an already-existing network of six incubators, NASA now has a nationwide resource in place to meet the growing high-technology needs of small businesses and educational institutions.

       Further details about JPL's and Dryden's current technology transfer activities are available at their web sites at http://techtrans.jpl.nasa.gov/tu.html and http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/TechTransfer/TechTransfer.html.

       JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

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