![\"Mary](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/2012-spring-magazine-Holz-Clause120125a048.jpg\")
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Mary Holz-Clause arrived in December as the University of Connecticut\u2019s first vice president for economic development. With more than 30 years in the field of economic development, she most recently served as associate vice president for extension and outreach at Iowa State University, where she was responsible for advancing economic development opportunities with key partners of ISU on local, national, and international levels. She spoke with UCONN Magazine<\/em> about the ways in which UConn can contribute to economic development across the region.<\/p>\n The first is taking the things that happen here \u2013 the research, inventions, and technology \u2013 and leveraging them for the benefit of the University. We do this by supporting the inventive work of faculty, evaluating their discoveries against market needs, protecting\u00a0 the intellectual property if there is commercial potential, and finding a commercial partner to license the technology and take it to market. More importantly, we help industry and provide solutions to problems in health care, national defense, energy, and many critical areas. As a result, our work can help create and retain jobs and a healthy tax base.<\/p>\n UConn has a very strong foothold with economic development now, with the advent of the Technology Park and Bioscience Connecticut. We\u2019ll be helping businesses develop and then locate in the region, bringing high-quality, high-wage jobs that retain our highly educated graduates and workers. Technology parks at other universities oftentimes create a lot of spinoff businesses and collaborations with established firms. That is what we anticipate will happen here.<\/p>\n Economic development is part of the role of any public research university \u2013 taking the research and entrepreneurial interests that happen here, putting them into the next fold of commercialization, and helping to create a venue for students and faculty to pursue entrepreneurship. We hope to not only take what we have at UConn to the citizens of Connecticut and to the region, but to also find out what the needs of the communities are, what the needs of industry are, and then be very intentional about connecting them with our\u00a0 resources \u2013 technical experts, market experts, unique facilities, highly trained workers, and companies.<\/p>\n If we can continue to focus on areas where UConn is very strong, we can then bring together our resources across disciplinary teams. This will help not only spur our research, but eventually also stimulate commercialization.<\/p>\n For instance, researchers at the Health Center in Farmington already collaborate with those in the School of Engineering in Storrs, so we need to make it easy for a variety of researchers and those from the new Jackson Labs program to know who our experts are and what\u2019s going on with researchers in the School of Engineering or the School of Pharmacy on the Storrs campus. We need to help them uncover the many hidden gems campus-wide that can provide additional strength and opportunity through interdisciplinary collaboration.<\/p>\n Certainly some of the areas in which UConn has a lot of strength \u2013 advanced materials, energy, fuel cells, and bioscience. Stem cell research is where Connecticut is particularly innovative and creative in sponsoring and encouraging research, and it is where we\u2019re now beginning to see some spinoff products and companies from that initial investment.<\/p>\n Alumni are the key to offering good internships and making connections within their businesses for students. Particularly with the downturn of the economy, many students who normally would find a traditional job are now saying, \u2018What can I do to create my own future?\u2019\u00a0 To be really successful in helping these budding entrepreneurs, we are coaches and guides. And that\u2019s how alumni can help: They serve this role. People do business with people. That\u2019s really what economic development is about.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mary Holz-Clause, the University\u2019s first vice president for economic development, talks about the ways in which UConn can contribute to economic development across the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":56959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1715,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-56933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-10 18:49:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56933"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60342,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56933\/revisions\/60342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/56959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56933"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=56933"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=56933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How can universities help drive economic development?<\/h2>\n
How will your office be of benefit to the University, the region, and beyond?<\/h2>\n
How will the University build alliances that will assist economic development?<\/h2>\n
What sorts of industries will UConn seek to align itself with?<\/h2>\n
What role can alumni play in these efforts?<\/h2>\n