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Businesses describe how they profit from UB partnerships
By ELLEN GOLDBAUM
Contributing Editor
UB announced at last week’s UB Business Partners Day 2008 a slate of new, improved ways for business, government and community organizations in Buffalo Niagara and throughout the upstate region to access the university’s vast array of top-notch technical resources and talent.
Thomas R. Ulbrich, executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership in the School of Management, talks with Kim Yaeger of Medical Simulation Design at UB Business Partners Day, held on June 6 in the Buffalo Hyatt Regency.
PHOTO: DOUGLAS LEVERE
In an expanded new format, this year’s Business Partners Day featured a full morning of 11 workshops with local and regional businesses telling their own success stories about how they have profited from partnering with UB. The university also is unveiling a new, Web-based tool for businesses that want to partner with UB.
“Today, we are saying the university wants to help maximize your outcomes so that your successes are, in every way, Western New York’s successes,” said Marsha S. Henderson, vice president for external affairs. “In short, UB is your competitive advantage. We are looking forward to working with you.”
More than 400 people attended the event, including executives from diverse large and small businesses, ranging in focus from banking and legal services to manufacturing and health care. Their interests range from better patient care to streamlined employee processes to new company start-ups, each focusing on improving their bottom line.
Congressman Brian Higgins delivered the luncheon’s keynote speech.
The workshops provided information on a multitude of partnering options that UB offers companies and organizations. Workshops were led by presenters from New Era Cap Co., Moog Inc., Fisher-Price, BBX Racing, Empire State Development, Toby Laping Associates, Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, GEICO, Independent Health, BlueCross BlueShield of WNY, Niagara Frontier Auto Dealers, People Inc., CTG, PharmIdeas, IBC Digital, Bergmann Associates, Luvata Buffalo and Erie County.
In the high-tech sector, Ben Porcari, founder and president of IBC Digital and a Business Partners Day presenter, said his company’s longstanding partnership with UB’s Center for Computational Research (CCR) has allowed him to compete for projects that his company otherwise wouldn’t pursue.
“CCR has the computational firepower of a major movie studio,” said Porcari. “Working with CCR allows us to integrate that firepower in our production pipeline and we’re able to use it as needed.
“For example, about a year ago UB helped us meet a deadline to produce the opening graphics for the Stanley Cup playoffs.”
According to Todd Sokolowski, director of fan/college business units for New Era Cap Co. and a Business Partners Day presenter, companies in a broad range of fields reap great benefits from partnering with UB.
“Getting your products on campus provides perfect exposure,” he said. “The 17-to-25-year-old age group is such a large influencer that advertisers change what they do in order to go after that market.”
In one workshop, information technology services and solutions companies CTG and PharmIdeas discussed a partnership with UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences that has created new ways to handle biomedical information. In another workshop, GEICO discussed its strategy for recruiting UB graduates.
UB also unveiled “YourBusiness,” a new, business-friendly resource, that makes it easier for businesses and other organizations to partner with the university. The Web site will aid UB’s outreach to the business community, Henderson explained.
“At a time when increasing economic pressures are a nationwide issue and the Buffalo Niagara community faces new challenges, it is more critical than ever that UB not only bolsters its existing partnerships with business, government and the community, but that it actively reaches out to establish new ones with emerging companies and organizations,” Henderson said.
She pointed out that the UB 2020 plan involves growing the university by 40 percent by the year 2020, which would increase UB’s economic impact from $1.5 billion annually to $2.6 billion, according to a report by the UB Regional Institute.
Underscoring that point, Henderson described the breadth of UB’s current and future economic impact, noting that:
UB researchers have disclosed 385 new technologies and received 61 patents in the past five years.
UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences has helped fuel the creation and retention of more than 5,000 jobs.
The UB Technology Incubator has helped create more than 1,000 new jobs over the past 20 years through partnerships with 63 companies that graduated from the incubator and 32 current users with annual revenues of $60 million.
UB undergraduates annually spend $145 million.
The UB student body will grow from its current level of 27,200 to 37,000 by 2020.
UB currently is responsible for generating 11,700 jobs in Buffalo Niagara and by 2020 is projected to be responsible for generating nearly 20,000 jobs.