Wright State Role Expands in Research and Job Growth in Dayton Region and Ohio

A 7-year Wright State University-led effort that has created hundreds of new high tech jobs and dramatically increased human-performance research funding in Ohio was built on a pioneering strategy that sought to align Ohio’s unique economic assets and create a new model for collaboration.

To date this new strategy has brought Ohio $167M in new contracts, $120M in private investment and 575 new jobs.

It is expected to create another 2,500 new jobs and $350M in new federal research contracts to Ohio based companies over the next five years through Wright State’s expanding role as lead university for the newly formed Ohio Federal Research Network. This new consortium grew out of Wright State’s success in human performance research and other successful models in the state designed to capture more jobs and increase research and tech commercialization.

The new consortium is set to meet with the Air Force Aug. 11 and 12 at the Wright State University Nutter Center and Wright-Patt to talk about further research collaboration opportunities across Air Force Research Lab and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center.

This two-day meeting focusing on Air Force Research priorities will precede another event Aug. 20 in Springfield where the Wright State Research Institute (WSRI) in collaboration with the Ohio State University, Cleveland State and Lorain County Community College will begin rolling out the funding award process for the first $25 million investment in the Federal Research Network to consortium partners.

The seeds for the effort were planted in 2005, when Dayton Development Coalition based community support in the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process resulted in the transfer of Air Force human-performance programs from San Antonio, Texas, and Mesa, Arizona, to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base along with associated Navy research from Pensacola, Florida.

The move resulted in the creation of the 711^th Human Performance Wing, which consolidated human-performance research, education and consultation under a single organization at the Air Force Research Laboratory. At the time, less than 15 percent of federal human performance research contracts were being awarded in Ohio.

Leaders at Wright State recognized that with the university’s medical school, human-factors Ph.D. program and neuroscience research strength, the university was in position to capture more of the research dollars from the lab and grow capabilities in Ohio to better support this new emerging mission. But the university realized it had to beef up its applied-research capabilities and create a mechanism to become more competitive.

At about the same time, the state of Ohio began encouraging public universities to get more directly involved in economic development and creating jobs. As a result, several universities created special units devoted to doing that, hiring vice presidents and administrative staff.

Wright State decided not to take on the added overhead and administrative expense to do that because of the slumping economy.

“But what we could afford to do was bring in an advisor and consulting company that could help us create and execute a strategy on how we could build something new and different that would really be a driver of the economy for our region,” said Wright State President David R. Hopkins. “We thought that instead of building this industry outreach capability internally, we would start slow and focus on external partnerships and collaborations between the federal sector, universities and the private sector.”

So in December 2009, Wright State retained the Ron Wine Consulting Group (RWCG) for their expertise and connections with the Air Force, industry, the state and local communities.

“President Hopkins hired my firm as a special advisor to help Wright State figure out how it can best make a positive impact on this region’s economy and community,” said Ron Wine, president and CEO of RWCG who has been working with Wright State now for over five years.

The firm suggested the creation of the Human Performance Consortium, a collaboration led by the fledging Wright State Research Institute that would include the Dayton Development Coalition and a number of area defense-related companies and other institutions with a variety of skills and resources. The consortium would later be renamed AHEAD—the Alliance for Human Effectiveness and Advancement—now with over 15 university collaborators and over 50 private sector partners.

AHEAD’s research capabilities included neuroscience/medical imaging; automated and semi-automated tools to measure human performance in the operation of remotely piloted unmanned platforms; intelligence analysis trust and visualization tools; and live learning, modeling, simulation and training environments.

“We started working with other universities and Wright-Patt with this new model for collaborating on research and tech commercialization that involved Wright State as the quarterback, the convener, reaching out with industry partners to invest and grow in the Dayton Region and elsewhere in Ohio,” said Wine. “Working with the people at Wright-Patt we wanted to figure out where we could best add value to their mission success, not just create more competition for scarce resources.”

As the consortium grew, it began to win financial support from the state to further expand its efforts. It captured $7 million in the 2011-12 budget, some of which was used to create a new Aerospace Professional Development Center to support training, internships and targeted job placement.

After later winning $11 million, the consortium was able to increase the amount of Air Force human-performance research staying in Ohio from 10 percent to 30 percent. And as of July, the consortium has boosted that to almost 80 percent.

“Ohio’s got a really unique asset base in higher education and the industrial base that has never really been organized before to support the $7 Billion annual research programs coming through Wright-Patt and NASA Glenn and their connections to the federal research and intelligence community. And Wright State is playing the role of knitting that together,’ said Wine.

Wright State has executed about $2 million since 2009 in contracts to the Ron Wine Consulting Group — which used multiple associates to support the work effort. The funding for this outreach effort came not from tuition, but primarily from state casino licensing funds earmarked for workforce and economic development.

“If we had created a unit staffed by a senior vice president and other administrative support, it likely would have cost us far more,” said Hopkins. “Using a skilled strategist and the targeted business plan we employed. The success has been pretty spectacular. New jobs in the region and state, more talent and capabilities to support the Air Force and now NASA’s mission priorities and true collaboration between universities and industry”

The Wright State-led consortium recently received $25 million from the state to expand its outreach efforts by creating the Federal Research Network that will compete for grants and contracts from NASA and other entities.

“It’s not about Wright State,” said Hopkins. “It’s about how we build this new federal research network with all of our partners to better support the ongoing and emerging research mission priorities at Wright-Patt and GRC and also help transition those capabilities to the private sector. It’s going to be a great boon for the state of Ohio for years to come.”