A Technology Venture Development Company

[ News Releases ]

NANOMECH RECEIVES NAVY CONTRACT
December 2009

The United States Department of Agriculture Supports Phase II SBIR Grant for Low Cost Production of Yeast from Rice Bran
October 2009

HerbiScreenTM Uses Novel Biochip to Help Streamline Safety Testing for Herbicides in the World’s Food and Water Supply
September 2009

SFC Fluidics®, LLC Receives Funding from US Army for Development of Traumatic Brain Injury Diagnostic Device
September 2009

Vegrandis, LLC Awarded Phase I Grant from the National Institutes of Health to Develop Tool for Cell Electrophysiology Studies
August 2009

U.S. Marine Corps Awards Phase I SBIR Contract to NanoMech
August 2009

BioDetection Instruments, LLC Will Develop a Portable Instrument to Screen Poultry for Avian Influenza
July 2009

Dignitaries Attend Ribbon Cutting for New Headquarters
June 2009

Vegrandis, LLC Garners Subcontract for Development of Biosensor for Biowarfare Agent Detection System
May 2009

Duralor® Opens Arkansas’s First Nanomanufacturing Operation
May 2009

Fayetteville Technology Company Receives $1.5 Million in Recent Grants for Technology Development
April 2009

Technology Executive and Entrepreneur, James M. Phillips, Joins NanoMech as Chairman of the Board
March 2009

» More

[ Other Related News ]

SFC Fluidics Working on Mobile Brain Injury Device

Duralor opens Arkansas's first nanomanufacturing operation: Facility will also house NanoMech’s headquarters and research laboratories

Duralor Product Changes Metal-machining Industry

NanoMech Keeping Tools Tough

Tech By BlueInGreen Betters Water, Wildlife

Duralor Plans Springdale Headquarters, Will Add 110 Workers

DOE to Provide up to $21.5 Million for Research to Improve Fuel Efficiency of Light-Duty Vehicle Engines

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BlueInGreen

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Duralor

GuardInFresh

NanoMech

SFC Fluidics

Vegrandis

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About Us Board of Directors Development Team Portfolio Companies Support
    Virtual Incubation Company is a business incubator for startup companies that own innovative technology with significant commercial potential. We develop new companies by partnering technology entrepreneurs with business experts, technology experts and seed stage investors.

    We provide portfolio companies with senior management experience, intimate knowledge of technology startup companies, and proven processes to execute business strategies. Using modern communications technology to create highly effective and efficient virtual teams, we specialize in helping startup companies that are located outside technology hot zones across the United States.

    We are technology focused, business centered, and success oriented.


    Technology Specialists

    The present rate of technological progress is historically without parallel. This rate of change will continue to accelerate due to critical mass being reached with enabling (foundation) technologies.

    This unprecedented rate of technological growth has caused a critical shortage of people who can bridge the gap between the technology and business worlds and provide the leadership necessary to maximize the probability of success for a technology-based startup company.

    Virtual Incubation Company can help you make the journey from an idea to a successful technology-based enterprise by utilizing our virtual team approach. Specialized team members are only brought in when they are needed. This approach maximizes return and minimizes cost.

    Our Mission

    Virtual Incubation Company serves two separate, but mutually interested companies: Our portfolio companies and members of our investor network. Because of this, we carefully recognize and acknowledge two distinct missions:

    For our portfolio companies, the mission is to maximize the probability of portfolio company success by reducing risk, implementing excellent business practices, and facilitating essential capitalization.

    For investors in our portfolio companies, the mission is to provide our investor network with high return investment opportunities in thoroughly screened and assessed, well-conceived and managed, technology-based startup companies with excellent growth potential.

    Our People

    Virtual Incubation Company's portfolio development team and board of directors consist of highly skilled professionals who have an impressive number of years of experience in their area of specialty.


    Calvin Goforth Dr. Calvin Goforth, Chairman
    Virtual Incubation is a technology venture development and enterprise incubation company. At Virtual Incubation, Dr. Goforth works in the areas of client identification and screening, business planning and commercialization strategy, and technology development strategy. Dr. Goforth has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (with a minor in Electrical Engineering) from Stanford University.

    Dr. Goforth's strengths include his ability to synthesize an understanding of a technology and its place in the market and to formulate a vision for product differentiation and sustainable competitive advantage. He also brings a systematic and analytical approach to problem solving and planning. He has extensive experience in technology company startup and development and has broad science and engineering skills that encompass multiple disciplines. He has experience and understanding of intellectual property development and management, risk analysis and mitigation, and growth-company organizational development.

    Under Dr. Goforth's direction, Virtual Incubation has developed a virtual enterprising model in support of its portfolio of technology based companies. The virtual enterprising model has allowed the portfolio companies to utilize skilled management, business processes, and administrative support at much lower cost than would normally be possible for a seed stage endeavor.

    Clete Brewer Mr. Clete Brewer
    Mr. Brewer has served as President of Horizant Sports, LLC since October 2002. Prior to that Mr. Brewer was cofounder of Edgewater Technology (EDGW:NASDAQ), formerly StaffMark, Inc. Mr. Brewer served from March 1996 through January 2002 as President and CEO and was Non-Executive Chairman until May 2002. Mr. Brewer continues to serve on the Board of Edgewater Technology. Mr. Brewer serves on the Executive Advisory Board at the Sam Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, and on other various private company boards.

    James HendrenDr. James P. Hendren
    Dr. Hendren has been a leader in raising the awareness of the importance of technology development in Arkansas' economic growth strategy since the mid-1980's. He received his doctorate in physics from the University of Arkansas in 1972, providing a foundation for his successful career in sophisticated software development in both the defense and banking industries.

    From 1980-1996, James was president, then Chairman until 1998, of Arkansas Systems, Inc. (ARKSYS), one of Arkansas' early "high-tech" companies. While growing that company from a small, home-grown company to an internationally known corporation, he served on the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority board of directors and helped organize the non-profit Association of Knowledge-based Companies of Arkansas. Appointed in 1999 by Governor Huckabee to serve on the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, he has continued his advocacy for a statewide technology strategy and most recently chaired the ADED's State Taskforce on Advancing Knowledge-Based Jobs. He also is involved as an investor/advisor to eight (8) start-up technology companies. He is actively involved in a number or non-profit organizations including the Quapaw Area Council, Boy Scouts of America.

    Blair JohansonMr. Blair Johanson
    Blair R. Johanson, president of Johanson Group, has over 25 years of business operations experience with a focus on strategic planning, budgeting, hospital and physician management, and marketing and human resource management. Mr. Johanson joined Johanson Group, a management consulting firm in 1999. Johanson Group has been in business since 1972.

    Prior to joining Johanson Group, Mr. Johanson was employed by Pendulum Practice Management Company, Physicians Resource Group, Inc., and Charter Medical Corporation. As a senior vice president, regional operations vice president and hospital administrator, he provided development and operations leadership for numerous physician practices and hospitals. He is a graduate of the University of Arkansas, Sam Walton School of Business with a master's degree in business administration and bachelor's degree in personnel administration.

    Ramsay Ball Mr. Ramsay Ball
    Mr. Ramsay Ball, a commercial real estate broker since 1983, specializes in investment real estate services, including income properties, land and development. In addition, Mr. Ball has extensive experience in office leasing, office brokerage, retail leasing, retail brokerage, industrial leasing, industrial brokerage, land sales, development, project management and consulting. Mr. Ball received his M.B.A. in Finance from the Louisiana Tech University, and his bachelor's degree in Marketing from the University of Arkansas.

    Ramsay Ball has formed over 30 entities that have invested in real estate and venture capital in the region and is manager of CDFP Capital Management 2006-LP, a $35 million real estate fund. He serves as manager of the technology investment company Alpha Fund I and serves on the boards of BlueInGreen and Virtual Incubation Company.

    Mr. Ted Dickey
    Mr. Dickey received a B.A. from the University of Arkansas, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Thereafter, he earned a Juris Doctorate and was admitted to the Arkansas Bar. He spent over six years at Stephens Inc. in their Corporate Finance Department employed as a Financial Analyst, an Associate in the Financial Services Group and then as a Vice President in the Private Placement Group. During this time, he was responsible for placing debt and equity securities with institutional investors for public and private companies. Ted is a Chartered Financial Analyst, licensed with the Arkansas Real Estate Commission, a 2004 Arkansas Business selection to the "40 Under 40" list of businesspeople in Arkansas, and is the former chairman of the Arkansas Ethics Commission.



    Calvin Goforth Dr. Calvin Goforth, President
    Virtual Incubation is a technology venture development and enterprise incubation company. At Virtual Incubation, Dr. Goforth works in the areas of client identification and screening, business planning and commercialization strategy, and technology development strategy. Dr. Goforth has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (with a minor in Electrical Engineering) from Stanford University.

    Dr. Goforth's strengths include his ability to synthesize an understanding of a technology and its place in the market and to formulate a vision for product differentiation and sustainable competitive advantage. He also brings a systematic and analytical approach to problem solving and planning. He has extensive experience in technology company startup and development and has broad science and engineering skills that encompass multiple disciplines. He has experience and understanding of intellectual property development and management, risk analysis and mitigation, and growth-company organizational development.

    Under Dr. Goforth's direction, Virtual Incubation has developed a virtual enterprising model in support of its portfolio of technology based companies. The virtual enterprising model has allowed the portfolio companies to utilize skilled management, business processes, and administrative support at much lower cost than would normally be possible for a seed stage endeavor.

    Mark Kidd, Vice President of Finance and Administration
    Mr. Kidd is a certified public accountant licensed in the state of Arkansas with over 30 years experience in accounting and financial management. Prior to joining Virtual Incubation Company, Mr. Kidd spent a brief period as an independent accounting and management consultant. His experience includes over eight years as Vice President and Corporate Controller of Cooper Communities, Inc., a diversified real estate development company, where he was responsible for internal and external financial reporting, budgeting, financial planning, and corporate governance activities. His experience also includes nineteen years with electric and gas utilities where he was responsible for a variety of accounting and regulatory accounting matters. He began his career with BKD, LLP as a staff auditor. Mr. Kidd graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a B.S. in Accounting and a M.S. in Accountancy.

    Randy Andress, Senior Electrical Engineer
    Mr. Andress holds a B.S.E.E. as well as a B.A. in English from the University of Arkansas. His experience includes microcontroller and DSP systems, motion control software, industrial control applications, and vision systems for military band aerospace applications. He performs circuit board design, electrical system design, and programming in C/C++ and assembly languages. He also writes technical support documents and conducts training classes for technical support personnel.

    Maggie Brown, Senior Graphic Designer
    Ms. Brown graduated from the University of Arkansas with a B.A. in Advertising and Public Relations. She took an M.A., graduating Summa Cum Laude, with a concentration in graphic design, also from the U of A. She is a member of the 2005-06 Chancellor's List, the 2002-05 National Dean's List, and is a 2001 All-American Scholar. She is also the recipient of the 2005 Edsel Ford Scholarship.

    Ms. Brown has experience in a variety of graphic design areas, which include: print media, photography, illustrations, logos, and web development.

    Robert Fink, Business Development Management
    Mr. Fink has over 25 years of experience in engineering, project management, and research and development for clients in a wide variety of industries. He most recently held a senior management position in a consulting engineering firm, where he provided management, business development, marketing, and leadership of the technology group. He has extensive experience in project management and has provided technical coordination and leadership for several efforts in the power industry to forge consensus between the government and industry on important regulatory issues.

    Mr. Fink received his B.S. and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering from Rice University. Much of his career has been spent working in the areas of instrumentation and control systems and human-system interfaces. He has particular strengths in coordinating multi-disciplinary groups of professionals, academics, and practitioners working to apply new technologies in specific applications. He combines an understanding of the underlying technologies, business implications, and real-world constraints, and the ability to communicate effectively with various stakeholders to be successful in these endeavors.

    Ms. Kimberley Fuller, Director of Market Research
    Ms. Fuller graduated from Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) with a Bachelor of Science in Clinical Psychology and Statistics, and subsequently completed her M.B.A. at St. Mary’s University (also in NS, Canada). Prior to joining VIC in 2006, Ms. Fuller served as the director of financial services at one of the nation’s top competitive intelligence research and consulting firms, Fuld & Company Inc., where she helped clients determine appropriate market research objectives, managed research projects, identified ideal market niches, and assisted clients in developing product and company positioning strategies.

    Ms. Fuller has also worked in the pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries where she gained experience in designing quantitative market research studies, completing statistical analyses, preparing actionable marketing plans, and conducting focus groups.

    Robyn Goforth, Scientific Research Support
    Dr. Goforth received her Ph.D. in 2001 in Chemistry and Biochemistry. In addition to her work with Virtual Incubation, she is presently working as a Research Professor in the Molecular Biology Research Laboratory at the University of Arkansas. As a member of the Virtual Incubation's client development team, she provides scientific research support especially for funding proposal writing.

    Dr. Goforth has extensive experience with peptide synthesis as well as high-performance liquid chromatography systems; size-exclusion columns; circular-dichroism methods; and a variety of peptide and protein modification, purification, and characterization techniques. More recent work has been with DNA cloning, RT-PCR, protein expression and purification (including extensive work with FPLC systems), Western blotting, and other techniques such as Blue Native PAGE, co- and immuno-precipitation, and crosslinking techniques for the study of both soluble and membrane proteins.

    Amy Lea, Research Administrator
    Ms. Lea received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Arkansas and is a member of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society. Currently she is seeking a Master of Arts in Public Administration from the U of A. She also has a Paralegal Certificate from the U of A Continuing Education and was named Valedictorian of her class.

    Ms. Lea was previously the office manager at a law firm. She has experience in the legal, education, customer service, and medical fields.

    Anna McCain , Senior Technical Writer/Liaison
    Ms. McCain earned her B.S. in English/biology education at Louisiana Tech University and her M.S. in chemistry at the University of Arkansas. She has experience teaching chemistry, physical science, general science, and earth science at the junior high and high school levels. This experience has given her a broad base of knowledge in the sciences and practice in communicating the sciences to the community at large.

    Ms. McCain has research experience that includes micro-scale, nuclear magnetic resonance studies of biological membranes as well as more practical, bucket-scale research in the food sciences. More recent work has combined her background in English and chemistry in work as a scientific/technical writer. She has worked closely with professors and researchers in enology, chemistry, entomology, and food science in helping them prepare research findings for publication in refereed journals. At Virtual Incubation she works with researchers and business development specialists in the collection, organization, and presentation of research findings for patents and grant proposals.

    Ms. Jennifer Morio, Administrative assistant
    Ms. Morio is a native of Fayetteville, Arkansas. She has worked in the position of administrative assistant for many years, to include the executive assistant to a Portfolio Manager of a nationally rated investment company with over $400 million in assets. She brings extensive knowledge of the area which has proven to be a key asset to her support position.

    Ms. Dianna Neely, Accounting Manager
    Ms. Neely graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Arkansas with a B.S.B.A. in Accounting and Computer Information Systems. She has extensive experience in financial accounting and systems suppport. She most recently served as the Accounting Manager at Cooper Communities, where she was responsible for supervising the general ledger, fixed asset, and accounts payable functions. She was responsible for the financials for five business units, maintained the financial system, and prepared budgets. Ms. Neely previously worked for Staffmark, where she was a Regional Controller and the PeopleSoft Support Supervisor. As Regional Controller, she directed the financial reporting for 54 staffing branches in 4 states. As PeopleSoft Support Supervisor, she maintained the system, prepared documentation, trained users, worked with technical staff, worked on upgrades, worked on interfaces with others systems, provided help desk support, and tested patches.

    Ms. Kathy Overton, Accounting Coordinator
    Ms. Overton joins the Virtual Incubation team with over 30 years experience in accounting. She most recently held the position as Controller of Roll Service where she was responsible for supervising the general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable and payroll reporting for seven locations within three states. She was also responsible for all recycling reports for Wal-Mart contracts.

    Her previous experience includes 23 years with Cherokee Nation Industries of which 12 years were spent in the payroll, accounts payable and the cost accounting departments. The last 11 years with Cherokee, she was manager of production and inventory control for all commercial and military contracts supporting Sikorsky Aircraft, Boeing, and McDonnell Douglas.

    Debby Winters, Company Counsel/Patent Attorney
    Dr. Winters has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Georgia. She completed postdoctoral training in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, NY working on the expression of cytochrome P450 with funding from an NIH Postdoctoral Training Grant. She studied the molecular detection of such foodborne pathogens as Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter jeuni and E. coli O157:H7 by PCR and Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis in the Food Science and Poultry Science Departments at the University of Arkansas. She has extensive experience in both cloning and sequencing of DNA coding for specific genes in these microorganisms and has widely published in these areas.

    Dr. Winters graduated magna cum laude with a J. D. from the University of Arkansas where she was on the Arkansas Law Review. She began her career in Intellectual Property law while working at Blakely, Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman in Denver, CO. Her legal practice has also involved bankruptcy and corporate law both in private practice and in corporate settings. She is licensed to practice in both state and federal courts. She manages the intellectual property for Virtual Incubation as well as handling other legal matters. Dr. Winters is admitted to practice before the Arkansas State courts, the Western and Eastern Districts of Arkansas, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.



  • Virtual Incubation provides the initial management, business development and administrative teams for its portfolio companies. As the portfolio company matures and after a stable foundation for growth has been built, Virtual Incubation helps the portfolio companies identify and recruit permanent in-house employees to transition into the management team.





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© Virtual Incubation Company, LLC ∙ 535 W. Research Center Blvd. Suite 135 Fayetteville AR 72701 ∙ Tel: 479-571-2592 Fax: 479-571-8814