OM-

The complex financial wheelings and dealings that have obviously gone on in the last four years are beyond the expertise of the average faculty member (or at least this faculty member). Many of us have wondered about the murky relationships among these entities, and most of us have little confidence that good oversight and due diligence takes place in these behind the scene operations. My overall impression (and this is just an impression and not based on any hard evidence) is that a small number of folks will get very rich off these arrangements, and the benefits will be very limited for our students and most faculty and staff. If this was something worth braggin' on for the university in general, our PR folks would be making the case (more than just a paragraph on the website) loud and clear. If we get a President worth his or her salt come April, that person would be well served to set an independent team of forensic accountants loose on the books. It all may be perfectly legal and all good, but without a bit more public sunshine on these arrangements most of us will never know for sure. More scandal is something this university can ill afford. 

GL

HA, 5/24/04

New company to find buyers for technology

A donation of about $1 million as well as patented molecules and chemical processes from an undisclosed Fortune 500 company has resulted in a privately-owned company to help sell intellectual property and research created at the University of Southern Mississippi.

University and company officials on Thursday unveiled Noetic Technologies Inc., which will be a standalone company.

"What we do is go out and target companies that would use this technology that would need this technology and again we could either license it or license them the ability to make these molecules and sell them," said Les Goff, chief executive officer and president of Noetic.

Noetic, he said, is Greek for "of the intellect" and will be the only company of its kind at work with a university in the state....

...Part of the company is owned by the university's research foundation while Goff along with the two other employees - Kelli Booth and Vance Flosenzier - are owners who will earn a percentage of what they sell.

USM receives money on licensing through the research foundation....

...He said it typically takes a year to a year and a half to see results from marketing work....

--------------
HA, 6/28/04

Third parties assess value of research group

The $39 million value of the net assets held by the Research Foundation at the University of Southern Mississippi was calculated by third parties under strict guidelines, said Angie Dvorak, who will become foundation president Thursday.

Most of the foundation's assets are donated intellectual property packages, which one day may make the university money, but earn nothing now, she said.

"Intellectual property is worthless unless you do something with it," Dvorak said.

The foundation has about $1.2 million in cash, she said....

... "Then Angie came on board," Burge said. "The very first night she was here, a Fortune 500 company came to town. What impressed me is they donated three technology packages but she was able to talk them into a substantial cash donation."

Unlike a donation of intellectual property, a cash donation is spendable and some has been used to set up Noetics Technologies Inc. to turn the assets into profit for the university....

... Any money made by Noetics will go into the foundation but only after taxes are paid, she said....

... To date, all of the intellectual property donations have dealt with the polymer industry.

"We anticipate that could change very rapidly," Dvorak said, "now that we have a full time focus on it."...

-------------------

MS Business Journal, 12/13/04

Noetic Technologies moves research to
commercialization

...Goff, whose wife is a polymer science professor at Southern
Miss, said "there are many clever professors and scientists
at Southern Miss who don't really have a good
understanding of how to turn technology into commercial
projects. They understand working with companies, but they
don't understand those process steps. Shelby Thames is an
entrepreneur and understands that process. We're a piece of
his mission of taking technology and driving it to the
marketplace."...

...Noetic Technologies
already has several high-
profile projects in its
portfolio. Shell Chemical
Company of Houston,
Texas, donated intellectual
property to the
university's research
foundation, which turned it
over to the firm for
commercialization....

....Even though other universities have licensing groups to
handle intellectual property and file patents, Noetic
Technologies also assists with business development,
marketing, joint venture opportunities and "a whole myriad
of opportunities that normally a licensing group in a
university doesn't touch," said Goff, who pointed to
economic development projects. "We're on the periphery of
talking to companies about relocating"...

------------------------

A Work in Progress, 4/05

...A new company, Noetic Technologies Inc., was formed in 2004 to create
opportunities for entrepreneurs at Southern Miss, becoming the commercialization
and marketing arm of the university’s research foundation....

...Noetic Technologies Inc., a company created for entrepreneurs at Southern Miss, announced in
2004 its first business partnership with Biocare Medical of Walnut Creek, Calif....

...The University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and Noetic Technologies
Inc. are collaborating to commercialize scientific advances in shrimp farming that have resulted
from GCRL research and development. ...

----------------------

HA, 2/22/06

Work may begin at USM park within year

...The [Lake Sehoy] center will allow those entrepreneurs to take an experimental product they have worked up in a laboratory and determine the best way to mass produce it, Thames said.

Then groups like Noetic Technologies, an arm of Southern Miss' research foundation, can help a new business locate its clientele and market its product.

"We want it to be open to all researchers who want to take their ideas and dreams and see them in the market instead of sitting on a shelf somewhere," Noetic President Les Goff said.

"We'll even go with them to the bank and say this is what their chance of success is," Thames added.

The university could earn profits from the center by collecting a percentage of royalties of companies that use the research tools in developing their product for market, Thames said.

But the long-term goal is to attract major industries that will locate their own research division at the technology park and create jobs for the area....

------------------
HA, 9/12/06

Godwin appointed to SSTI board
[USM PR in HA]

...She [Godwin/Dvorak] led the creation of Noetic Technologies Inc., the for-profit intellectual property development and management arm for the research foundation and university....

-----------------

HA, 12/4/06

USM's biotech stature growing

..."The growth in the biotech area has represented the largest part of our growth in research funding," which has soared from about $40 million annually to more than $100 million in the last year, said Ken Malone, chair of the department of economic and work force development.

Contributing to Southern Miss' efforts to bring research ideas to market is Noetic Technologies, the university's licensing and marketing arm that matches business people with researchers to launch commercial ventures, said Noetic President and Chief Executive Officer Les Goff.

Noetic now is actively promoting between 50 and 60 patents, he said.

"Our industry partners take technology that would normally sit on a shelf and really make it into something," Goff said. That way, the partnerships profit and royalties come back to the university and its research foundation. "Everyone has what I would call a little skin in the game," he said.

And licensing income can mean big money for universities battling budget woes.

While polymer science, biochemistry and marine science are Southern Miss' main opportunities for new patents, Goff said a bevy of other disciplines have much to offer as well.

A recent success came out of the forensic science department, when instructor Dean Bertram's partnership with researchers at Forrest General Hospital yielded a new way to enhance fingerprints taken from desiccated human tissue. The method was marketed as a kit after partners incorporated KDL Solutions, LLC - and it's been used by coroners after Hurricane Katrina and the U.S. Department of Defense in Iraq, Goff said.

Noetic also is marketing research from the mathematics, construction, computer science and disabilities studies fields, he said....

Looks like more patents are coming.  This can be added to Info's list above:

H.A. Update--USM research team makes discovery that could combat medical infections
By Rachel Leifer
American Staff Writer
 
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070204/NEWS01/70204002

"Scientific, business and news organizations from New York to Beijing are praising a promising recent discovery at the University of Southern Mississippi’s polymer science school.
...

With National Science Foundation funding, Urban’s research team says it has found a way to modify the surface of medical devices to allow the antibiotic penicillin to coat them, killing bacteria that try to glom on."

For more on this story, see Monday's Hattiesburg American.

The Secretary of State's web site, http://www.sos.state.ms.us/, provides very limited corporate name and officer information for businesses in the state. Noetic's annual filings for 2005 (dated 5/3/05) and 2006 (dated 5/25/06):

For both years the "Registered Agent and Office" is listed as:

Hanbury John I
118 College Drive
PO Box 5116
Hattiesburg MS 39406

For both years the president is listed as Leslie Goff, and the secretary and treasurer are listed as Angeline Dvorak.

Is Leslie Goff Ken Malone's spouse?

Curmudgeon wrote:

---

Is Leslie Goff Ken Malone's spouse?

---

Not unless they have a blue state marriage. Les appears to be a "he".

This is the most disturbing post I have read since the days of Pileum (a major fraud that went unpunished!).  If there is anyone at USM that wants to dig into this, please reread the post on Foundation Financial Results.  It has a link that shows you how to get the annual IRS filing that should provide significant additional clues about the Foundation's misdeeds.  The raise provided to Tim Ryan is making a lot more sense to me now.  He is playing the game at the gnome's direction.