Partner Profile: Dick Greeley | |
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Climate change is one of the defining issues of the century for the world. Even though I'm advanced in my career, I'm not ready to give up and say, “Okay, well, that's the next generation’s problem.” I wanted to do something.
This issue of the GCI newsletter features Dick Greeley, Associate Director of Licensing, U-M Office of Technology Transfer and creator of the GCI's CCU Activity Hub. Dick has over 30 years of experience in high technology, formerly serving as a Director of Licensing for Microsoft, a Director of Technology Business Development and a Director of Strategic Planning and Investing at Hewlett-Packard. Among other start-ups, he founded Career Map. He has an MBA from Boston University, a BS in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from Tufts University, and a MA in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) from Penn State.
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You have a fascinating & varied background. How did you happen to start a company while also working full-time and working on a MA?
I started taking courses GIS because I have always loved maps and thinking visually to explain trends and make decisions. So I took a few courses, and I got a certificate. And I said, “Well, this is fun–I think I'll just keep going and get a degree, even though I am later in my career.” One of the requirements for the MA was completing a capstone project. Since I had not worked in the field previously, I was curious about GIS jobs, career paths and outcomes in general. What are they like? Where are they? How do careers change over time? I thought I could map GIS careers for my project which worked so well that I decided to turn it into a company, which I named CareerMap.
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What brought you to the U-M Office of Technology Transfer?
Prior to coming to U-M, I was climbing the corporate ladder for a large computer company. At one point, I was part of a big team, bringing a really big computer system to market. We finished it, and then it was time to do it all over again. And I thought, “Am I just turning the crank, doing a lot of the same things I did before?” I realized that I valued more doing what hadn’t been done before, things that wouldn’t otherwise get done without more personal initiative. This lead me to an interest in new technologies and turning research into new businesses. So when my work at my last startup ended, I was excited when I had a chance to come to Michigan and work with all the world class technologies that are created here.
That's why CareerMap is interesting; very few people are looking holistically at aggregated career outcomes. In a similar way, when I was thinking about creating GCI's CCU activity map, I realized that no one's taking the high view of what's going on. Where's the work being done? Who's doing what? How are these activities interconnecting?
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What do you do at the U-M Office of Technology Transfer?
Our goal at U-M Office of Technology Transfer is to help every inventor make an impact with their innovations. My role in the licensing team is to protect the intellectual property (through patents, copyrights, etc.), provide general business consulting to help advance the commercial potential and put any agreements in place to support the partnerships that we establish while working with the researchers.
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What is the CCU Activity Hub?
The vision for the project is an interactive global map tracing worldwide carbon policy, research, funding and economic impact. It’s a way of making connections between where the research and funding is going, what technologies are actually getting turned into projects, where the startups are happening and where the policy is changing.
We need to understand the gaps in the chain of bringing promising technologies to market. We also need to see the redundancies. It may not always be worthwhile to have multiple people working on the exact same activity by themselves when they might partner with each other instead. In this way, we can make changes faster and make finite funding go further. A lot of the data is available, we just need to make sense of it.
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What is coming down the pike for the CCU Activity Hub?
We have a lot of ideas to improve the Activity Hub–more data, real time information, deeper analysis, better visualizations, etc. This work is far from a finished product. It is in its early stages and hopefully will be constantly evolving and improving.
I am hoping to work with a data science class at U-M this fall to update the site as a class project. If that works out, we will provide more detailed analyses of what kinds of technology are in which areas, where the research is being done, and how that is translating into protectable intellectual property which is important to attract investment. Ultimately, all of these things have to work in concert for us to make an impact on the environment.
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If people want to contact you about the CCU Activity Hub, to have something added or just to comment on it, how should they do that?
I would be glad to talk more to see what would help people understand the landscape of CCU activities. Just reach out to me at: rgreeley@umich.edu.
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Climate Group
Climate Week NYC 2021
September 20-26
Climate Week NYC 2021 will focus on fulfilling and increasing commitments made by businesses, governments, and organizations. It is the time and place where the world gathers to showcase leading climate action and discuss how to do more, fast.
Hosted annually by international non-profit the Climate Group in conjunction with the United National General Assembly, and in partnership with the COP26 and the City of New York, Climate Week NYC is a global opportunity to come together to accelerate climate action and assess progress ahead of COP26. . For more information, click here.
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