The Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship will have an interim director identified in the near future, a UNCW official announced Thursday.

Ron Vetter, University of North Carolina Wilmington’s associate provost for research and dean of the graduate school, gave a brief update at Thursday's Coastal Entrepreneur Awards on developments at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), which cosponsors the annual awards program with the Greater Wilmington Business Journal.

“I am pleased to report that the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship will continue to expand,” Vetter said. “We expect to announce an interim director for the CIE in the next week or two, with an external search for a permanent director beginning this fall.”

The CIE has been without a head since the departure of executive director Jim Roberts on March 26.

Vetter announced also that Laura Brogdon, who has served the CIE as an administrative associate since its beginnings, has been promoted to the center’s manager of programs and operations. The position is a more accurate reflection of Brogdon’s role at the CIE, he said.

Another key position has been filled, Vetter said.

“I have appointed Dr. Craig Galbraith, a professor of technology, entrepreneurship and corporate strategy, as the director of the university’s technology office, and we are working to develop and fill a new staff position to support innovation and commercialization activities," Vetter said.

Galbraith will head UNCW’s Office of Innovation and Commercialization (OIC), an internally focused center that will serve the university's entrepreneurial community. The OIC has as its mission to nurture ideas and research coming from faculty and students at UNCW and help move them down a path to commercialization.  

The two complementary centers, although separated by an organizational boundary and under separate directors, will pursue a common goal of enhancing the tech and entrepreneurial environment locally, Vetter has said in the past. Both centers report to him, and both directors – who will work closely together – are housed in the CIE building.

Galbraith, a member of the management faculty in the Cameron School of Business, said he sees his new role as more than just facilitating technology transfer and identifying patentable products developed by the UNCW community.

He wants the OIC to mentor its clients and link them to resources and possibly to help university innovators find very early seed money. Even if some student ventures fail, Galbraith said, there is value to them as part of a “good educational experience.” UNCW-born ventures that do prove commercially viable will ultimately transition from the OIC to the CIE so they can take advantage of the external exposure and resources the CIE can provide, Galbraith said.