Frederick A. Provorny is the founder of the Center for New Technology Enterprise, (the “Center”). The Center is an independent nonprofit educational organization that offers a comprehensive integrated Web-based program that not only gives students from a wide variety of disciplines real-world experience in facilitating technology commercialization from research institutions and government facilities by focusing on new venture creation but also harnesses the talents and motivation of its students by giving them opportunities to gain extensive experience in evaluating and finding applications for new technologies and furnishing entrepreneurs with an extensive and diverse suite of services in conjunction with a network of professionals, serial entrepreneurs, executives and investors. From 2004 to 2007, he was Director of the Maryland Intellectual Property Legal Resource Center (“MIPLRC”) and a Visiting Professor at the University Of Maryland School of Law. For five years before taking the helm at MIPLRC, Professor Provorny was the Harold R. Tyler Professor of Law and Technology at Albany Law School and the founding Director of the New York State Science and Technology Law Center (“STLC”), the first program of its kind in the United States.

Professor Provorny brings to the Center more than thirty years of experience in intellectual property law, complex business transactions, venture capital, and technology commercialization and economic development. As Director of MIPLRC, he was responsible for a program that provides hands-on experience to law students and provides free intellectual property and business legal services to emerging technology companies throughout Maryland. Under Professor Provorny’s leadership, MIPLRC expanded from one site to four sites in technology incubators throughout Maryland, vastly enhanced the scope and complexity of its services, increased its enrollment from 2 to 17 students, attracted evening students and initiated year-round operation and nighttime office hours. MIPLRC developed a national reputation and built partnerships with a wide variety of stakeholders, including economic development organizations, chambers of commerce, government agencies, and other educational institutions during his tenure.

Under Professor Provorny’s direction, the STLC conducted an extensive series of educational programs offered throughout New York State for entrepreneurs, faculty, professional service providers and others that covered legal and funding issues facing emerging technology companies. Professor Provorny built a statewide interlocking network of partnerships between the STLC and a wide variety of stakeholders, including, but not limited to, economic development organizations, angel and venture capital groups, chambers of commerce, state and local government agencies and other educational and research institutions.

While Director of the STLC Professor Provorny created and directed the annual SmartStart Venture Forum®, at which emerging technology companies with extraordinary prospects presented to an audience of venture capitalists and other investors from all over the East Coast, Canada, and as far away as California and Japan. Under his leadership, the Venture Forum became one of the premier events of its kind in the East. Despite the fact that the Venture Forums held in October 2001 and October 2002 occurred during one of the worst periods for private equity investment ever, more than 36% of the presenting companies received funding as a result of their participation in these events. The Venture Forum led directly to the creation of the Upstate Venture Association of New York, Inc`. and the opening of offices in upstate New York by venture capital firms based in Boston.

After Professor Provorny started his career as Law Clerk to Judge Harold R. Medina of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, he joined the faculty of the Syracuse University College of Law. He has also taught at Brooklyn Law School and the University of Baltimore School of Law. In addition to practicing in his own firm and with major firms in New York City and Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Professor Provorny was an Assistant Company Counsel for Monsanto Company in St. Louis. Professor Provorny has served as a mentor at the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Robert H. Smith School of Business of the University of Maryland. He has consulted for research institutions and entities in the private and public sectors on major matters involving technology transfer, economic development, private equity investment in the technology sector, and other issues involving the confluence of law, technology and business. Professor Provorny is an inaugural recipient of the Certified Licensing ProfessionalTM (“CLPTM”) designation and holds CPA certificates in Maryland and Missouri. He is also on the Biotechnology Advisory Board of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (“UMBC”), and served on the Advisory Board of the Due Diligence Fellows Program of the Pennsylvania Angel Network. Currently Professor Provorny is teaching Legal & Ethical Issues in the Science Professions in the Professional Master of Professional Studies: Biotechnology and the Certificate in Professional Studies: Biotechnology Management programs at UMBC. Starting in 2009, he will be teaching several courses in the Technology Transfer Certificate Program at the FAES Graduate School at the National Institutes of Health.

While Professor Provorny was in private law practice in Washington, D.C., the Industrial Biotechnology Association and the Association of Biotechnology Companies jointly requested that he conduct the legal work necessary to accomplish the merger of the two organizations and put the merged entity onto a firm legal footing. The product of these efforts was the creation of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (“BIO”), which Professor Provorny represented from its inception on July 1, 1993 until he moved to New York to commence his duties at Albany Law School and establish the STLC.

Professor Provorny graduated summa cum laude from New York University and magna cum laude from Columbia Law School. He was an editor of the Columbia Law Review and a Columbia University International Fellow. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, is on the Commercial Arbitration Panel of the American Arbitration Association, is active in numerous professional organizations and has published articles in academic and professional journals.

Valerie S. Gaydos is an angel investor, serial entrepreneur and business development expert. She has been involved with many start-up companies in the areas of strategic planning and operational development. She has been an investor and advisory board member gathering vital business information and locating experts, financing and key resources that allow entrepreneurs to implement their ideas and grow their businesses.

Ms Gaydos’s company, Fifty-First Associates, LLC (www.51st.com) specializes in business & organizational development. She also serves as Executive Director of the Private Investors Forum (Philadelphia) (www.privateinvestorsforum.com), a nonprofit (501(c) (3)) organization of accredited private investors in the Mid-Atlantic region, which produces the Annual Angel Venture Fair. (www.angelventurefair.com). From 2004-2008 she served as President of the Pennsylvania Angel Network (www.paangelnetwork.com), a statewide angel investor network designed to assist in the creation and support of Pennsylvania angel investor groups. Ms Gaydos serves as Corporate Secretary and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for New Technology Enterprise, an independent nonprofit (501(c)(3)) organization providing comprehensive, trans-disciplinary education to facilitate the formation and development of new entrepreneurial ventures that drive economic stimulus and create high-paying jobs. She also serves on the Policy Committee of the Angel Capital Association, the largest association of angel investors in the United States.

Prior to becoming involved with Fifty-First Associates, LLC, and launching Capital Growth, Inc., (www.capitalgrowth.com), a venture capital publishing and business development company, Ms. Gaydos was Assistant Director of the Greater Baltimore Committee Technology Council (“GBC Tech Council”). In that capacity she was instrumental in connecting emerging technology companies with sources of financing. She drafted, garnered support for, and successfully lobbied in favor of passage of key technology business and manufacturing legislation in Maryland and. She also established “tech@work”, the GBC Tech Council’s first newsletter and quarterly journal.

Before working at the GBC Tech Council, Ms. Gaydos served as Legislative Research Analyst for the Pennsylvania State Senate Policy Development & Research Office, the Office of Member Services, and Majority Whip D. Michael Fisher (Pennsylvania Attorney General 1996-2004, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 2004 to present). She also interned as U.S. Senate Staff Assistant for the late U.S. Senator H. John Heinz, III.

Ms. Gaydos is the owner and publisher of various business and political publications including the Commonwealth Register (www.commonwealthregister.com)(1980-2008), a daily summary of activities in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Pennsylvania Report (www.pa-report.com), a candid bi-weekly review of Pennsylvania politics and The Annual Guide to Entrepreneurial Venture Financing (1998-2007), an annual compilation of business and financial contacts, advice and venture information.

Ms. Gaydos a BA in Russian Language and Economics from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In her spare time she races sailboats on the Chesapeake Bay, enjoys scuba diving, golf and is a volunteer for Blue Ridge Border Collie Rescue.

Now an Intellectual Property Specialist/Contracts Officer at the renowned Energy Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota, Mr. Martineau joined the Center for New Technology Enterprise (the “Center”) in the fall of 2007, while he was a third year student at the University of Maryland School of Law. Mr. Martineau was the first student at the Center. Professor Provorny specifically recruited him because of Mr. Martineau’s impressive performance, work ethic and client skills while he worked at the Maryland Intellectual Property Legal Resource Center during his second year. Mr. Martineau received his Juris Doctor degree cum laude in 2008. He has decided to continue his participation at the Center because his work closely matches his interests in technology commercialization, intellectual property law and business development.

In addition to his law degree, Mr. Martineau possesses a Master of Science degree in Biochemistry and Molecular-biophysics from the California Institute of Technology (“Caltech”), and a Bachelor of Science degree with thesis and general and departmental honors in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the University of Maryland College Park. Mr. Martineau’s research as an undergraduate focused on two component signal transduction and as a graduate student involved protein structure and folding, especially computational modeling of folding and protein-ligand interaction. He received a full Banneker-Key Scholarship to pursue his undergraduate studies and a full fellowship to pursue his graduate degree. While at Caltech, he was a Teaching Assistant in biochemistry and neurobiology classes.

Mr. Martineau has used his scientific education and research experience at the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology and in industry to help develop new chromatography techniques, predicts protein-ligand interactions, and predict protein structure based solely on amino acid sequence. Because of his extensive scientific background and experience, Mr. Martineau is very much interested in working with biotechnology pharmaceutical, medical device and other life science start-up companies, and has already drafted patent applications for these types of clients at the Center. He has also drafted trademark applications, a wide and varied array of contracts, assisted clients with entity formation and the drafting of by-laws, operating agreements and shareholder agreements, and provided other legal and business advice to help emerging technology businesses plan strategically for their futures (including funding opportunities).

Mr. Martineau has also worked for the US. Department of Health and Human Services, where he drafted Requests for Proposals and evaluated contract proposals worth more than one billion dollars. He also helped to resolve legal disputes arising from contested awards of government contracts, equal employment disputes, and medical malpractice claims against the federal government.

Mr. Martineau is admitted to the Maryland Bar and is registered to practice before the U.S Patent and Trademark Office.

Dr. Rajesh Nair joined the Center for New Technology Enterprise in 2009.

Before joining the Center, Dr. Nair was an associate and senior technology specialist in the Intellectual Property practice group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (“WilmerHale”). His responsibilities there included prosecuting United States and foreign patent applications, devising and implementing patent portfolio development and strategies, performing patent infringement, invalidity and enforceability analyses, and managing large patent portfolios. His responsibilities also included providing support for patent litigation, opinions, and patentability assessments in areas of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, nanotechnology, renewable energy technology, energy-storage technology, waste-to-fuel technology, materials science, semiconductor processing, software, and business methods. Before joining WilmerHale, Dr. Nair spent several years working in industry.

Dr. Nair received his J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law, where he was a student of Professor Provorny for two semesters at the Maryland Intellectual Property Legal Resource Center. Before attending law school, Dr. Nair earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of South Carolina. His doctoral research concerned the design, synthesis, and characterization of novel dipyridophenazine complexes of ruthenium(II) that function as molecular probes for biomedical and environmental applications. Dr. Nair has co-authored several publications on various topics concerning this research. After receiving his doctorate, Dr. Nair was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Fluorescence Spectroscopy at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Nair has also earned a M.S. degree in Inorganic Chemistry from Hampton University, and a M.Sc. degree in Chemistry and a B.E. degree in Chemical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India.

Dr. Nair is admitted to the District of Columbia Bar and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.