Contact: Maridith Geuder
Mississippi State officials will join regional industry and local government representatives Monday, December 16, to break ground for a facility that will assist new technology start-up companies throughout Northeast Mississippi.
The Ralph E. Powe Center for Innovative Technology, to be located in the Mississippi Research and Technology Park across U.S. Highway 82 from campus, is a collaboration among a number of partners: MSU's Research and Technology Corp., the Tennessee Valley Authority, U.S. Department of Commerce, Appalachian Regional Commission, and Golden Triangle Enterprise Center.
The 1 p.m. ceremony at the building site, 201 Research Blvd., will involve, among others, MSU Interim President J. Charles Lee and Charles E. Shoopman Jr., TVA senior manager of economic development operations.
Powe, a mechanical engineering graduate of MSU and its vice president for research from 1986 until his death in 1996, oversaw the establishment or expansion of several major campus research facilities. They include, among others, the Engineering Research Center, T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disability, Raspet Flight Research Laboratory, and Diagnostic Instrumentation and Analysis Laboratory.
The 25,000-square-foot Powe Center will feature a 5,000-square-foot Class 1000 microelectronics "clean room," in which the concentration and size of particles, as well as temperature and humidity, can be controlled according to federal standards.
To assist in developing high-tech businesses, the center also will provide managerial and marketing support, business plan review and intellectual property management, as well as access to MSU's extensive research facilities.
For additional information about the ceremony or the facility, telephone Marc McGee, coordinator of research outreach and development, at (662) 325-3570.