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NEWS | April 25, 2019

NSWC Crane recognized with three national FLC awards for Technology Transfer

By NSWC Crane Corporate Communications

ORLANDO, FL. – Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane) received three Technology Transfer (T2) awards at the 2019 Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) National Awards ceremony in Orlando, FL.

The NSWC Crane T2 Program received the Excellence in Technology Transfer Award, the Service Award for FLC Representative of the Year, and the Rookie of the Year Award from FLC. The FLC is the nationwide network of over 300 federal laboratories, agencies, and research centers that foster commercialization best practices and opportunities to accelerate federal technologies out of labs and into the marketplace. NSWC Crane is part of the nationwide FLC and is the only federal laboratory in the state of Indiana.

“These prestigious awards showcase the efforts of our T2 team and the state-of-the-art technology created at Crane,” says Brett Seidle, the Technical Director for NSWC Crane. “Over the past few years, this team has grown the T2 program tremendously. This growth has spurred collaboration with industry and academia that gets critical, innovative technology in the hands of the warfighter.”

The Excellence in Technology Transfer Award is presented annually by the FLC to recognize laboratory employees and industry partners who have accomplished outstanding work in the process of transferring federally developed technology. NSWC Crane received this award for the efforts made to incorporate Crane-developed technology into a commercial product by an industry partner. GoX Studio, a wearable robotics company, implemented Dr. Robert Templeman’s patented invention for measuring power generated during walking or running into its Ergo Wearable Sensor Kit. GoX Studio’s founders described Dr. Templeman’s invention as the “missing link” needed to develop its product.

Collaborative efforts between NSWC Crane and GoX Studio successfully leveraged a federal lab’s intellectual property through patent licensing and partnering opportunities through Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) to develop prototypes. These prototypes were used to optimize the manufactured product and are now being used to protect the warfighter and to meet the demand for wearable tracking devices in the commercial industry. GoX Studio now has launched its product commercially and is available for purchase at their website.

Brooke Pyne received the Service Award for FLC Representative of the Year, recognizing her significant contribution to the FLC over this past year. During this time, she served as Midwest Regional Coordinator for the FLC as well as the T2 Program Manager and FLC laboratory representative. As the regional coordinator, Pyne initiated, organized, and supported T2 efforts for all federal labs in the region. She also built and fostered a network of T2 professionals, connected labs and industry, and enabled T2 education within in and outside the labs.

Pyne also participated in two week-long Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Road Tours to promote FLC business and collaboration opportunities with federal labs. She served as a Tech Focus Areas (TFA) Industry-to-Lab Connector where she worked with the Midwest Energy Research Consortium, Ohio Aerospace Institute, and Battery Innovation Center (BIC). Pyne has held the Midwest Regional Coordinator for two terms. She has been a key contributor to NSWC Crane’s T2 Program, which has received four FLC awards in the past three years.

Jenna Dix received the FLC Rookie of the Year Award recognizing her outstanding work in the T2 field the previous three years in a manner significantly over and above the normal course of work. Dix enabled one of NSWC Crane’s significant successes in T2, by carefully planning and negotiating an important, multi-party Collaborative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) that will have a lasting benefit to the entire Southwest Central Indiana region for many decades and ensure the region is a preferred destination for the microelectronics industry and research and development (R&D).

The award recognizes Dix’s ability to break down legal concepts, translate highly technical projects into digestible information, and connect diverse entities to deliver demonstrable results such as organizing CRADA’s with multi-million-dollar research and development organizations. Since she started her position, newly executed CRADAs have increased by 1,360% and total active CRADAs have increased by 892%. Overall active T2 agreements have increased by 91%, meaning that Dix has nearly doubled all active T2 agreements in less than three years.

NSWC Crane's Technology Transfer (T2) Program helps link federal research and development to academic institutions and businesses in the private sector. Among other T2 partnership agreements, a CRADA provides the formal mechanism between the federal laboratory and partner collaborator. The NSWC Crane T2 program has partnerships with more than 100 businesses, individuals and universities. Currently, there are 75 active CRADAs and 207 active agreements.

NSWC Crane is a naval laboratory and a field activity of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) with mission areas in Expeditionary Warfare, Strategic Missions and Electronic Warfare. The warfare center is responsible for multi-domain, multi- spectral, full life cycle support of technologies and systems enhancing capability to today's Warfighter.