Inventors and Investors: Technology Transfer by Personal Chemistry

This section of the Proceedings is devoted to the problem of technology transfer and each of the other papers describes what I would call a formal approach to the problem. That is, they describe organizations with specific charters to perform technology transfer (such as the EPRI NDE Center) or specific contracts to bridge the gap between the laboratory and the production floor (such as the RFC program). My purpose is to explain how it REALLY happens in the majority of cases. Specifically, I will describe the key role played by individual entrepreneurs and the personal chemistry that is needed to spark the separate steps along the treacherous trail of technology transfer.