UC Davis gets $2 million to boost entrepreneurship studies

UC Davis gets $2 million to boost entrepreneurship studies
cbuck@sacbee.com
Tuesday, Nov. 03, 2009

A $2 million gift to boost entrepreneurship studies at UC Davis was announced this week by the university's Graduate School of Management, part of its continuing efforts to propel innovative ideas out of the classroom and into the business world.

The bequest is from the estate of Charles J. Soderquist, a University of California, Davis, alumnus, benefactor and the inspiration behind the university's Center for Entrepreneurship. He died in 2004 after a brain hemorrhage at age 57.

The $2 million will be divided roughly equally: half to establish an endowment to support the center and the rest to fund a professorship in entrepreneurship studies.

This week, UC Davis business school professor Andrew Hargadon was named the first recipient of the Charles J. Soderquist endowed chair.

Hargadon, who heads the center and collaborated with Soderquist on UC Davis' entrepreneurship efforts, said Soderquist felt strongly "that good science needed good business" to have an impact.

"There's a lot of misunderstanding about the boundary between science and business," Hargadon said Monday. "It's often seen as tainting science, but before science can have the impact, it needs business to get out in the real world."

In a statement, Steven Currall, dean of the Graduate School of Management, called the $2 million "a trailblazing gift that will catapult the center to higher levels of recognition and achievement."

UC Davis' Center for Entrepreneurship was launched in 2004 after Soderquist teamed with Hargadon and local venture capitalist Scott Lenet to co-teach a class of graduate students from the business, engineering and life sciences departments. The students worked with entrepreneurs, investors and business executives on getting research ideas ready for markets.

The center has since enrolled more than 40 doctoral candidates in its yearlong business-development fellowship program and more than 300 in its entrepreneurship academies, which are weeklong "boot camps" on how to commercialize research.

UC Davis officials said the center has contributed to development of energy-efficient LED street lighting, high-efficiency solar cells and technology to convert wastewater into biodegradable plastics.

Soderquist, who had two graduate chemistry degrees from UC Davis, launched California Analytical Laboratories, an environmental consulting and testing firm in Sacramento. It became a multimillion-dollar business. He later helped launch dozens of high-tech companies.