Technology Transfer on the Agenda at Congressman Garamendi’s Manufacturing Advisory Committee Meeting

Congressman John Garamendi convenes a meeting of his Manufacturing
Advisory Committee at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

BERKELEY, CA - Congressman John Garamendi (D-Fairfield, CA), the author of two Make It In America bills, today convened a meeting of his Manufacturing Advisory Committee at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory. The meeting brought together more than two dozen community leaders from local businesses, cities, economic development agencies, labor organizations, and the regional national laboratories: LBNL, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). The meeting, held at a facility built with Recovery Act funds to facilitate cyclotron research at LBNL’s synchrotron light source, focused on technology transfer from American public research to private manufacturing.

Businesses in attendance included an LED manufacturer and companies in the chemical, transportation manufacturing, energy, bio-diesel, and solar industries.

"The key here is how to get this technology out of the laboratory and into the business world. This brings us to my primary agenda: how do we Make It In America and rebuild our manufacturing base?" Congressman Garamendi said at the meeting. "All of you are involved in one way or another with this challenge. If we pull this off, America will make it."

At the meeting, LBNL gave an update on its Second Campus project with six sites under consideration. Once constructed, the site will consolidate the Lab's biosciences research and help to accelerate the commercialization of LBNL’s research in advanced biofuels, biological sensors, medical imaging, cleaner combustion, chemicals, and more. More than 30 startup companies from across America are already in operation based on LBNL’s research, creating thousands of good jobs.

LLNL and SNL focused on the combustion and cyber security technologies found at the labs’ new Livermore Valley Open Campus. While traditionally facilities focused on national security research for government purposes, LLNL and SNL have been committed in recent years to opening their research to private investment. Within the first 90 days of the Livermore Valley Open Campus operations, 1,700 visitors arrived to look for opportunities for collaboration and manufacturing at LLNL – and SNL had a fourfold increase in private sector interest.

Business leaders asked lab representatives about a diverse set of issues, including intellectual property rights, methods to examine emerging technologies at the labs, types of collaboration, services available for tech transfer on the lab and municipal level, incentives to keep business opportunities local, connecting energy to the power grid, and more.

In 2010, Congressman Garamendi introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to help streamline technology transfer at America’s national labs by fostering collaborative scientific research, technology development, and the appropriate transfer of research and technology to users in addition to the national security laboratories.

"America is behind some of our competitors in linking public innovation to job creation. We used to be number one in this. We can be number one again, and meetings like this are a way to make it happen," Congressman Garamendi said. "America is in good hands when the world’s smartest researchers, savviest entrepreneurs, and hardest workers come together to build our economy and create rewarding jobs."