Donald R. Pettit Astronaut

This year's Keynote Speaker was NASA Astronaut Dr. Donald R. Pettit, who in addition to his distinguished space career, was also a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico from 1984 to 1996.

Dr. Pettit's projects included reduced gravity fluid flow and materials processing experiments onboard the NASA KC-135 airplane, atmospheric spectroscopy on noctilucent clouds seeded from sounding rockets, fumarole gas sampling from volcanoes and problems in detonation physics.

Dr. Pettit brought a unique perspective from the laboratory to outer space, from the U.S. Space Shuttle to the Russian Soyuz, from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Important items and training sessions included:

• Creating New Jobs Using Federal T2
• Regional, State and Local Initiatives supporting Federal T2 and Job Creation
• Technology to Market Success Stories
• Business Aspects of Patent Reform
• Technology Transfer Metrics, Beyond Patents
• Government License Agreements
• Novel Tools for the Technology Transfer Specialist
• In the Trenches: Protecting Software
• Fuels Review, Budget Cuts and Needs
• Agreement for Commercializing Technology
• The Great Debate: 'Research for Research Sake' vs. 'Research for Innovation/Jobs Sake'
• SBIR/STTR Technology Transfer Initiatives
• Regional Awards Presentations

Regional Technology Transfer Awards
Annual awards are an important part of the regional meeting as it is our opportunity to recognize outstanding contributions by member laboratories, representatives, and non-federal partners.

This year we presented the awards at our special Thursday evening (September, 6, 2012) Awards Event [see regional awards link above].