The El Pomar Institute for Innovation & Commercialization (EPIIC) is in the midst of its first major remake in 17 years with a new endowed chair, who is its acting director, and several new programs targeted at entrepreneurs.
Started under a different name in 1991 with grants from the El Pomar Foundation and the University of Colorado, the organization has, throughout its history, been focused on helping local entrepreneurs and students at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs turn their innovative business ideas into economic opportunities. The grants also funded endowed chairs at UCCS that form the core of EPIIC’s staff.
The grants had funded three faculty positions at UCCS, but Michael Larson, the endowed chair of engineering and innovation, left UCCS a year ago to become senior research scientist at the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition; Thomas Duening retired in September as the chair of business and entrepreneurship and was replaced by Larry Plummer, who now also serves as EPIIC’s acting director; and Terry Boult recently retired as chair of innovation and security. Larson wasn’t replaced and the process of replacing Boult is just beginning, UCCS Provost Lynn Vidler says.
UCCS officials are considering whether to restructure Boult’s former chair, which had been linked to the campus’ College of Engineering since he specialized in computer science. Once a new chair is named, they will join Plummer and Luke Doster, who recently was promoted to EPIIC’s strategic program director, to restart several of the organization’s current programs and launch several new initiatives, Vidler says.
“We are excited for the new leadership and chairs and to continue to make an impact in innovation and entrepreneurship in Colorado Springs,” Vidler says. Boult’s former chair is expected to be filled sometime in the 2025–26 academic year.
“We have a new vision, and my mandate is to reinvigorate and revive our programs,” Plummer says. “Terry [Boult] deserves credit for making cybersecurity a big thing for both the university and the city as a whole. We can bring in someone [to fill the other El Pomar chair] who will be the next big thing for the university and the city. Our job is to help [UCCS] students and the community develop an entrepreneurial mindset.”
EPIIC was started to help students and local entrepreneurs start businesses, but Plummer says entrepreneurship is about more than just startups. Many large corporations look to hire employees with an entrepreneurial mindset to start a new division, launch a new product or develop new markets, he explains. EPIIC is envisioned to be a catalyst for a thriving environment of entrepreneurship and startups.
“This is a reboot of EPIIC. I left one of the best business schools in Canada to come to a campus with a student body that has a much different profile, which is about as close to an entrepreneurial opportunity as an academic can get,” Plummer says.
Plummer and Doster are restarting EPIIC’s current programs, including:
The Garage — an on-campus center that offers student entrepreneurs access to resources, equipment and services to establish their business and get mentoring and guidance from UCCS faculty and local business leaders. One of the program’s most successful graduates, Colorado Springs-based Salt Athletic, produces bags that store cleats and reduce odor and are used by more than 1,000 professional and 2,000 collegiate athletes.
EPIIC Nights — feature guest speakers on business and innovation, including a recent program on the neuroscience of storytelling, celebrations and other events designed to catalyze innovation and networking.
Lion’s Den Pitch Nights — student entrepreneurs from local colleges compete for prizes by pitching their business plans to a panel of judges who include local business owners, faculty from local colleges and others in a format similar to the television show “Shark Tank.”
Venture Attractor at UCCS — a university-based research initiative to boost regional economic development and strengthen the local startup community, focusing primarily on early-stage startups in the sports and outdoors, health innovation and human performance sectors.
Scale to $1 Million Boot-Up Camp — open to startups worldwide with cohorts of 12 companies selected by experienced investors, offering a four-month online curriculum that entrepreneurs and faculty nationwide teach to help participating ventures develop a foundation for growing the value of their company to $1 million.
Ventures in the boot camp compete for $50,000 Torch Grants that don’t require founders to give up a stake in the company but do require recipient companies to move to Colorado Springs for at least a year. Grant recipients are expected to hire UCCS graduates, employ students as interns, participate in research on startups or teach a class if they don’t give the school a stake in the company. Nightingale Caring Solutions, which provides nursing-care analytics to hospital administrators, won a Torch Grant last year and moved to Colorado Springs from Philadelphia.
Plummer also is raising $500,000 to launch:
Lab2Market STEM Startup Lab program — an expansion of UCCS’ The Garage center, designed to help science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduate students commercialize their research. Plummer hopes to use $75,000 of the $500,000 to fund the first three years of the program that would make small grants to student entrepreneurs for producing prototypes for proving their concept.
Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans — UCCS is applying to join seven other business schools in offering a program Syracuse University started in 2007 to provide a combination of online and on-campus cutting-edge, experiential training in entrepreneurship and small business management to post-9/11 veterans. Plummer wants to raise $300,000 of the $500,000 for the first three years of this program.
Membership in the Intercollegiate Angel Network — UCCS wants to join two other universities in a new online platform Duening started to connect student and faculty entrepreneurs to accredited investors (high-net-worth individuals) that include alumni, donors and boosters from member campuses. Investors pledge a part of any returns they make on deals to the school connected to the venture in which they invest.
EPIIC also supports the UCCS Center for Entrepreneurship, a College of Business program Plummer directs that promotes entrepreneurship, venture creation and economic development in Southern Colorado through research, teaching and service projects. And lastly, EPIIC supports the business school’s entrepreneurship major, an entrepreneurship minor open to all UCCS students, as well as the campus Entrepreneurship Scholars Program for researchers.
