Featured Speaker:
Ray Friesenhahn
SBIR & Technology Transition Manager
and Advanced Technology Scout for Technlink
A National Tibbetts Award-Winner for his
"Outstanding Contributions to the SBIR Program."
rayf@montana.edu
406-994-7726
Ray Friesenhahn’s three-decade career spans a broad range of technology development and small business support. Since joining TechLink in 1997, he has developed and led outreach programs that have directly assisted small companies:
Win more than $130 million in SBIR/STTR funding
Raise award rates to more than double the national averages.
This success was forged by focusing on key strategic partnering, and planning for viable technology commercialization and transition.
He developed DoD SBIR assistance programs covering more than a dozen states, and Montana programs covering all federal agencies, leading to his work being recognized in 2007 with a prestigious National Tibbetts Award for Outstanding Individual Achievements.
His work at TechLink, a Defense-wide Partnership Intermediary at Montana State University, has entailed transfer of new technologies from DoD and NASA labs to small businesses, and building industry capabilities through collaborative R&D partnerships with federal labs. He also conducts technology scouting projects to find and evaluate urgently-needed new technologies for specialized DoD expeditionary organizations.
Prior to TechLink, Ray conducted technology transfer for NASA at the Mid-Continent Technology Transfer Center (MCTTC) at TAMU/TEEX, and directed an Industrial Associates Program at UT Austin. He spent 10 years conducting R&D in the defense industry, developing high power TWT radar amplifiers still in use for the Patriot Missile Air Defense System, and in development of high power microwave (HPM) weapon systems. He has been involved with several private sector start-ups.
Ray has a BS degree in physics (UT Austin), taught physics at Penn State, and has an MBA (entrepreneurship focus) from UT Austin. He is a Certified Licensing Professional.