Tom Brennan selected as first entrepreneur for program
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A new initiative at Sandia National Laboratories seeks to stimulate spin-off companies to be built around Sandia technologies that are important to the Lab’s national security mission.
The new initiative, titled Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR), will allow proven start-up entrepreneurs the opportunity to work directly with technical management and staff at Sandia to identify technologies that when commercialized in start-up companies will contribute to Sandia’s national security mission and support economic diversification in New Mexico, the Bay Area of California, and throughout the nation.
Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration lab.
The pilot program is intended to promote a culture of entrepreneurship within the Lab and assist Sandia in interfacing with the venture capital community. Entrepreneurs in Residence will conduct technology assessments, develop market opportunities, formulate preliminary business cases, and propose business structures for start-up enterprises.
The first Entrepreneur in Residence also will be responsible for recommending policy and business practice modifications for the EIR pilot program to further refine approaches to creating companies based on Sandia intellectual property.
Kevin McMahon, Sandia manager for licensing and intellectual property, recently named Tom Brennan as the first entrepreneur for the program. Brennan is chairman of Medical Lighting Solutions (MLS). MLS uses solid state lighting to treat disease.
“Tom is one of the most accomplished entrepreneurs in New Mexico,” McMahon says. “He is uniquely qualified to become Sandia’s first Entrepreneur in Residence due to his technical background, business acumen, knowledge and understanding of the Lab, and his extensive experience in high tech entrepreneurial endeavors associated with both Sandia and non-Sandia developed technologies.”
Prior to Brennan’s position at MLS, he was president and CEO of Zia Laser focused on development of quantum dot laser diodes; founder and managing partner of Zircle LLC; vice president of EMCORE Corporation focused on space based solar power; and cofounder and co-president of MicroOptical Devices (MODE) focused on vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers. MODE was a start-up company formed from technologies licensed from Sandia. In his capacity at MODE, he raised more than $6 million in two rounds of venture financing and was integral to MODE’s eventual sale to EMCORE Corporation, where he became vice president and general manager of EMCORE Photovoltaics.
“The new and innovative Entrepreneur in Residence pilot program is a great way to see technologies internal to the laboratories — technologies that otherwise might not see commercial application — identified and used in new applications to strengthen our national defense initiatives through commercial suppliers,” Brennan says.
“I hope that our New Mexico economy will be additionally strengthened through job creation and an increased tax base,” he says. “This program should provide visibility to local financial sources, large U.S. corporations, and military contractors to more clearly presented and articulated technologies internal to the labs.”