Attention to invention: helping entrepreneurs get their inventions to market can be a great economic development tool.

When Vladimir Gelfand emigrated with his family from Russia to the United States in the early 1990s, he was certain that he would find a welcoming environment for an invention he had been working on for several years.

"This is one of the great things that I have always heard about this country," says Gelfand, who is 53 years old and works as a mechanical engineer for an injection molding company in Wheeling, Ill.

"I have no connections with anyone in power," explains Gelfand. "But because things are supposed to be more open here and there is less bureaucracy, I thought it would be easy for me to find someone who could listen to my idea and then give me some direction in terms of what part of the government might be interested."

That idea is officially called the Gelfand Internal Combustion Engine, which in the simplest terms marries the fuel efficiency of a compact engine with the power of an engine that might be found in an SUV by changing the way the piston works and essentially increasing its productivity.

"I have always thought that the potential for something like this is enormous because it reduces emissions and greatly increases fuel efficiency, and aren't those the two things everyone is always saying are so important?" asks Gelfand.

In early 2005, Gelfand was awarded a patent for his invention, but he has so far failed to find anyone who can begin the complicated process of transforming his vision into a marketable product. And that's after making contact with what he says is a "long list" of both state and federal agencies charged with encouraging inventions and technological innovations.

"When you think about it, this is really a very serious matter," says Steven J. Rauschenberger, a former Illinois state senator, whom Gelfand contacted nearly three years ago.

"I thought his idea was very interesting and I tried to make some connections for him," explains Rauschenberger. "But watching what has happened or not happened from afar has really surprised me. No one has seemed able to give Mr. Gelfand a straight answer, or even more important, to point him in the direction of an agency or company that might actually be able to do something with his invention."

A REAL WEAKNESS

Rauschenberger believes Gelfand is very frustrated, but, he says, what bothers Rauschenberger the most is that "his case suggests that we may have some real weaknesses in our system. We are always saying, certainly at the state level, that we want to help entrepreneurs and inventors for economic development purposes. But I wonder how many other people are out there like Mr. Gelfand who have a great idea but can't get anyone in the government interested?"

Bob Berglund, president and CEO of the State Science and Technology Institute in Westerville, Ohio, which serves as a resource center for technology-based economic development groups across the country, says that there very well may be good ideas that never make it to market. "We don't want that to happen," Berglund says, "but it stands to reason that even with all of the different programs set up in the various states to support inventors and entrepreneurs, some ideas unfortunately still get away from us."

But if the number and size of technology-based economic groups at the state level is any indication, adds Berglund, the chances of any great idea being lost is becoming more unlikely.

"At the science and technology level we try to focus on the specific types of services that an innovator needs," says Tom Walker, the chief operating officer and executive vice-president of the Oklahoma Technology Commercialization Center (OTCC), which has offices in both Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

"The whole idea is to help technology-based entrepreneurs start up and grow here in our state," says Walker. "And to do that we have a structured commercialization process that we shepherd them through to get them ready ultimately for accessing risk capital, whether it's in the form of seed funding or angel funding or venture capital, that sort of thing."

A contractor for the Oklahoma Center for Advancement of Science & Technology, which operates through an annual appropriation from the Oklahoma legislature, OTCC has helped inventors and entrepreneurs raise nearly $300 million in the last eight years, all in a larger effort to expand the state's economy.

Oklahoma has traditionally relied on gas, oil and agriculture, but about 20 years ago the state legislature created the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology to fund new researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs who were not getting attention.

MAINE MOTIVATES

Beginning in the late 1990s, Maine lawmakers, worried that companies were not investing in research and development in their state to the degree that they were in other New England states, passed legislation that created the Maine Technology Institute, in order to generate more numerous opportunities for entrepreneurs and inventors.

According to a recently released report issued by the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Southern Maine, in the last five years the Maine Technology Institute has help to fund some 440 projects representing $15.5 million. In addition, some 60 percent of MTI-funded research projects have given birth to marketable products and services.

"We have really been fortunate in that many of these projects have received both private equity and debt investment as well as public grants, which is the kind of mix we like to see," says Betsy Biemann, the president of MTI.

"We take very seriously every proposal we get from any individual or entity and judge those proposals for their promise of technology as well as their commercialization plan," explains Biemann.

In an effort to cast their net as widely as possible, MTI makes about 150 awards a year, the vast majority of which are in the form of seed grants of some $12,500. But the institute also makes larger awards of up to $500,000, which Biemann says are conditional loans. "Once someone commercializes their technology, they have to pay us back, but it is interest free."

For inventors and entrepreneurs who come up short, says Biemann, "we still provide feedback."

Biemann says a person applying for one of the larger awards will receive three written peer reviews from the experts and a summary of the comments from technology board discussions. The board may invite the person to resubmit the proposal to offer more information about the targeted customer, the market for the technology, and whether there is any existing competition for the product. Yet even with such a rigorous and independent review process, a good invention can get away.

MORE GROUPS OUT THERE

One of the newest technology-based economic development groups is Idaho TechConnect, which received $300,000 from the Idaho Legislature in 2006 and is currently the state's only private-public business development organization.

"We are spread out across the state," says Hank Artis, the vice-president for business development of Idaho TechConnect, which has four regional offices in Post Falls, Nampa, Jerome and Idaho Falls. "But our approach is the same everywhere. The first thing we do with anyone who comes to see us is to ask where they are in terms of the commercialization process, whether or not they have their intellectual property secured, and what are the market opportunities for whatever it is they are working on."

Then the organization identifies the types of financing required in order to go to market.

Noting that start-ups represent some 15 percent of Idaho's gross product, even though they make up less than 5 percent of the total business of the state, Artis says Idaho TechConnect serves inventors and entrepreneurs by trying to find investors who may be interested in early-stage investments and market opportunities.

Ultimately, adds Artis, a good invention for any state-supported business development agency is one that "is a technology that you can form a cluster around. That's where the economic development part comes in; not particularly by helping one inventor with one project, but supporting an idea that will create other businesses and jobs."

Some of those ideas may be years in the making. "That's why whenever a state thinks about starting one of these kinds of programs, it really needs to look at it as a generational kind of investment, not a three- to five-year effort," says Walker in Oklahoma. After 20 years, the state is finally seeing some momentum with some of the companies. "You have to be there to help them through all of the stages of growth--and that is something that requires long-term thinking," Walker says.

Gelfand, meanwhile, says that although he is disappointed in the reception his invention has so far received, he remains hopeful that he will eventually secure financial assistance to move his project from the drawing board to the next stage.

"One inventor by himself does not have much of a chance against the entire world," says Gelfand. "But if a big company or a government agency took it on, I would have a chance, which is all I am asking for."

Garry Boulard, a frequent contributor to State Legislatures magazine, is a freelancer in Albuquerque, N.M.