This “new recipe” for advanced, energy-efficient window coatings got a big push toward the marketplace in March, when Oregon BEST (Built Environment & Sustainable Technologies Center) awarded a commercialization grant to an industry-university team to support research, testing and product development. Oregon State’s Chih-hung Chang and University of Oregon’s G.Z. “Charlie” Brown will be working with startup companies CSD Nano of Corvallis and Indow Windows of Portland.

The saved energy and reduced costs could be gigantic, says Paul Ahrens, CEO of the OSU spinout company CSD Nano. “If you were to put the coating we’re developing on all the architectural glass out there, you would save hundreds of millions of dollars in electricity currently used for lighting,” says Ahrens.

In 2010, he began a graduate program in mechanical engineering at Oregon State University. He wanted to work on innovative, high-risk projects that solve problems and push technology in new directions. So for his thesis, he aimed to reduce injury risk for chainsaw users. The problem is called “kickback” and happens when the tip of a fast-moving chain accidentally hits an object and lurches toward the user’s face. Chainsaw injuries now send about 36,000 Americans to the emergency room every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Arnold combined a miniature gyroscope with other sensors to create a brake that would stop the chain more rapidly than the mechanical devices used on most saws today.

When baby Claire entered the world, she shifted priorities for Drew and his wife Ashleigh. Education became more than progress toward a degree and an engineering career. It became a stepping stone toward a secure future for their daughter.

Personal and professional lives overlap. Take two other examples from this issue of Terra. Ruth Milston-Clements is on-call 24/7 for the care of laboratory fish. The phone might wake her from a deep sleep or interrupt dinner for her family. Scott Ashford, an earthquake engineer, understands what will happen when the next major quake hits the Northwest. He worries about the safety of his own family as well as the future of communities across the region.

Drew Arnold now works as a product engineer for one of Oregon’s most respected manufacturers, Blount International in Portland. His job is demanding, but the Arnold family also enjoys company-sponsored Easter egg hunts, barbecues and other activities. Moreover, through the Oregon State University Advantage program, Blount sharpens its competitive edge with research by Oregon State engineers. The company’s long-term success rides on the shoulders of such partnerships and on the babies who are our future.

Illustration by Leslie Herman

Like the auto industry, trucking companies are looking for new ways to cut fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. A partnership between Oregon State University and Daimler Trucks North America is making inroads by developing an 18-wheeler that combines high strength for heavy payloads and increased fuel efficiency for sustainable performance.

Part of the Super Truck program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and Daimler, this effort already has yielded promising early results: a prototype carbon-fiber chassis rail and an innovative design for cruise control. The partnership began in 2009 when Daimler contacted John Parmigiani, a research assistant professor in Oregon State’s School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (MIME), seeking ideas. Daimler is the leading commercial truck manufacturer in North America.

Parmigiani led a research project to replace the rails, key chassis components that run from front to back, with lighter materials. By using carbon fiber — the same material used for rocket nose cones — instead of steel, Daimler achieved significant weight reduction.

“Carbon fiber is a great material to use. The weight difference is amazing.”

— John Parmigiani

The partnership with Oregon State was a positive experience, says Derek Rotz, a senior manager in advanced engineering for Daimler — so positive, in fact, that the company hired Brian Benson, one of the graduate students who worked on the project.

“We learned a lot about the design,” Rotz adds. “There still needs to be more work done before we put the carbon fiber rails into mass production, because they are more expensive.”

The next step will be to integrate the rails into a production prototype. Headquartered in Portland, Daimler Trucks North America manufactured 141,000 vehicles in 2012. Its brands include Freightliner, Western Star, Freightliner Custom Chassis, Thomas Built Buses and Detroit.

In a separate project, MIME professor Kagan Tumer used “intelligent systems” to create an adaptive cruise control that improves fuel efficiency.

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THE OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY ADVANTAGE delivers bottom-line benefits for business through access to career-ready graduates and world-class research. To discover what the Venture Accelerator and the Industry Partnership Program can do for your business, contact Ron Adams, Executive Associate Vice President for Research, Oregon State University, A312 Kerr Administration Building, Corvallis, OR 97331, 541-737-7722.

The pulpy leftovers of juicing and crushing, called “pomace,” are finding their way into products as diverse as gluten-free muffins, biodegradable flowerpots and edible food wrappings, thanks to Oregon State Extension researcher Yanyun Zhao and cereal chemist Andrew Ross. Loaded with antioxidants and dietary fiber, pomace also controls bacteria and preserves fats, making it versatile as well as nutritious.

“We now know that pomace can be a sustainable source of material for a wide range of goods,” says Zhao.

Illustration by Leslie Herman

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), sometimes referred to as “drones,” have been the focus of recent international attention because of their military use. However, these systems also have many domestic uses that are practical and benign and should be embraced for their potential to save money and lives.

UAVs are an emerging industry that Oregon can help lead, and the state would be wise to support it.  Oregon State University has formed a consortium with industry, government and others to develop the use of these aerial systems, a potential multi-billion dollar job growth engine that will also provide significant benefits to society.

Under a mandate from Congress, the Federal Aviation Administration will establish several test sites for UAVs by 2015, and one of those sites could be in Oregon. Our state offers a unique combination of research excellence, varied terrain, relevant industry and local applications in agriculture and forestry.

There’s not much that UAVs can do that a pilot in a small plane couldn’t do, but they can do it more safely and at much lower cost. UAVs can monitor and help manage wildfires or support a search and rescue mission. They can help forest-product industries plant trees to avoid wind or heat damage. They can monitor wildlife, improve irrigation, detect crop-disease outbreaks and gauge environmental health.

Decades of experience in remote sensing have drawn OSU to this venture. Our oceanographers use NASA satellites to monitor global phytoplankton productivity and identify harmful algal blooms. We use optical remote sensing to detect earthquake faults, assess wildfire impacts on forests and measure tsunami inundation patterns. We have instruments on the International Space Station to study shoals and ocean shores.

Natural Extension

We have already formed the OSU Unmanned Vehicle System Research Consortium to bring a national UAV test center to Oregon. The business and job potential is high. With more than 300 companies and nearly 7,000 employees, Oregon’s aviation sector sees UAV technology as a natural extension of industry within our state that already is building helicopters, small aircraft and aviation components. OSU and industry partners n-Link and Prioria have conducted the state’s first FAA-sanctioned mission – a UAV flight over McDonald Forest near Corvallis that provided live video of the research forest.

We recognize that the transition toward the civilian benefits of UAVs has raised privacy concerns. Protection from prying cameras where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy is a legitimate concern, legally protected by current law and the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Every new technology raises some kind of social concern, and society figures out reasonable solutions. We urge that these solutions be pursued in parallel with the needed technical research as the FAA develops a comprehensive privacy policy.

This technology will be developed somewhere in the United States. Because of Oregon’s comprehensive scientific and industry experience, and our state’s ideal geography, we can choose to be a leader in this exciting venture. That choice would be good for Oregon business, industry, researchers, workers and our environment.

Illustration by Leslie Herman

The widespread availability of knowledge is a key element of Oregon State’s land grant mission. Since 2006, OSU Libraries and Press has maintained a publicly available repository (ScholarsArchive@OSU) of scientific papers and student theses and dissertations. This archive — and ones like it at other universities — could be a cost-effective solution for a new federal initiative to make more research information available to the public.

Traditional channels of scholarly publication preclude access by the general public who, in the case of state and federally funded research, paid the bills. Journals that charge an annual subscription fee restrict information to those who are affiliated with institutions that can pay the fee. Costs vary widely but can be as much as $20,000 a year or more.

Recognizing the continued role of publishers and the need to facilitate public access, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a policy memorandum on February 22. It directs federal agencies with more than $100 million in annual research and development expenditures to work with stakeholders to make articles and research data associated with federally funded research freely available to the public within 12 months of publication.

The OSTP policy directive is a significant milestone for public access to scholarship. It benefits OSU researchers by increasing the readership and impact of their scholarship. It also provides accountability to the public by enhancing access to the scholarship they funded.

In fiscal year 2012, OSU researchers received more than $176 million in funding from federal agencies. What the OSTP directive means for these scientists will depend on agency requirements still in development, but the existing National Institutes of Health (NIH) public access policy may serve as a model to other agencies. The NIH requires articles that result from NIH funding to be available in the freely accessible PubMed Central database within 12 months of publication. While individual agencies are charged with developing policies, the memorandum does encourage interagency cooperation in order to make the processes and, potentially, the systems uniform.

ScholarsArchive@OSU already provides access to thousands of faculty and student articles and was recently ranked seventh among U.S. single institution repositories. The use of institutional repositories to preserve and make federally funded research available to the public has several benefits. It leverages infrastructure that is largely in place, and it enables institutions to monitor and ensure policy compliance for their own authors.

For scholars, access to the work of their peers is fundamental to the advancement of research. Making well-organized research data more widely available encourages reuse and supports inter- and intra-disciplinary collaboration. It also enables the private sector to leverage public research and invest in and develop new products and services.

Last year, the National Science Foundation began requiring the inclusion of data management plans as part of grant proposals. The Oregon State University Libraries and Press supports OSU faculty in meeting this and other federal data requirements. Our services are likely to evolve to support new agency requirements that result from the directive.

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Editor’s note: Michael Boock is head of Oregon State’s Center for Digital Scholarship and and associate professor with OSU Libraries and Press. Read the open-access policy approved by the Oregon State University Faculty Senate on June 13, 2013.

Lee Buckingam master's student in the College of Forestry, created a program that simulates greenhouse operations. (Photo: Nick Houtman)

When Lee Buckingham’s dad brought home a broken HP computer, Lee took it apart and fixed it. He was 15 years old.

Through high school and college, the Oregon State graduate student in Forest Engineering, Resources and Management fed his appetite for technology (“I like to build them from parts”) and taught himself to write programs.

Now, Buckingham will receive a prestigious award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for using his computer skills to assist the U.S. greenhouse industry. He will travel to Washington, D.C., in June to receive the USDA’s Excellence in Technology Transfer Award for 2012.

Buckingham created Virtual Grower, a program available online that enables greenhouse managers to estimate the costs of raising a crop by a specific date. “It’s kind of a SimCity for greenhouses,” said Buckingham, a native of Milan, Mich. “Most of the cost of raising a greenhouse crop is for heat. By specifying materials, dimensions, fuels, location and type of plant, growers can get an estimate of what it will cost them to produce a crop.”

From 2004 to 2005, he worked for the USDA in Toledo, Ohio. He received a master’s in plant ecology from UC-Riverside in 2009.

At Oregon State, Buckingham works with Professor Claire Montgomery to model forest vegetation in response to fire.

The journey from idea to innovation turns, twists and hits the occasional roadblock. Follow the progress of an Oregon State idea that is making the wood-products industry more sustainable. Research by wood-science professor Kaichang Li has enabled Columbia Forest Products, North America’s largest manufacturer of hardwood plywood, to switch from adhesives made with formaldehyde to a safer alternative.

Illustration by Heather Miller

Oregon State staff and students round up beef cattle on the Zumwalt Prairie near Enterprise. (Photo: Lynn Ketchum)

The Black Baldies cluster inside the holding pen as if glued together, waiting. They know the drill. Quietly, a cowboy coaxes the cows toward the sorting shed, where they’re about to be artificially inseminated. One by one, they enter the “squeeze chute,” a hydraulic contraption that closes in around the animal to hold her steady. Over bursts of disgruntled mooing, a second man reads out a number printed on each cow’s ear tag as a research assistant records it in a ledger. Ranch manager Kenny Fite, wearing hot-pink latex gloves up to his elbows, administers the bull semen, which has been chilling in a giant vat of liquid nitrogen.

A few of the cows balk, but most endure the process with placid resignation. Cattle prods (“hot shots”) are forbidden here at the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center in Union. Yelling, too, is verboten. Instead, Fite and his team gentle their cows into compliance. It helps that the chute’s design was inspired by Temple Grandin, the internationally renowned animal-behavior expert who gave several lectures at Oregon State in 2010. Her innate sensitivity to animals’ feelings and fears has revolutionized livestock handling.

“You have to remain calm and have patience,” explains Oregon State researcher Reinaldo Cooke, who frequently cites Grandin in his work at the other Eastern Oregon ag research center in Burns. Cooke’s cattle-handling expertise is in demand all over, garnering invitations to speak and consult across the American West and abroad.

“Cattle have their own temperament, just like people,” says Cooke, who grew up on the rangelands of Brazil. “Some are more prone to stress, which causes problems for health and reproduction.”

That’s why discovering ways to minimize stress in cattle is a research priority in Cooke’s lab. Handling by humans — vaccination, castration, insemination, supplementation, transportation, especially the long haul from ranch to feedlot — can suppress a cow’s immune system, depress her appetite and disrupt her hormonal balance. Studies show that a stressed animal is more likely to be a sick, scrawny, infertile animal — hardly the formula for business success if you’re a rancher or dairyman.

The stakes are huge. In Oregon, beef and milk ranked third and fourth, dollar-wise, among farm and ranch commodities for 2011. For these industries, together worth more than $1 billion, low-stress handling isn’t just a check-off box on the compliance list for animal-care protocols overseen by OSU’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (see “The Ethic of Care,” Terra, Fall 2012). It’s not even just the right thing to do for the animals. Humane, ethical care is critical to growers’ bottom line.

“In our industry if we were treating the animals bad, we would not be successful,” notes Dave Bohnert, director of the Burns research center. “The poor managers, the people who aren’t doing it right, aren’t going to be in business that long.”

When the subject of livestock abuse comes up, he frowns deeply. He recalls the notorious 2009 incident in California when hidden cameras captured a sick cow being pushed along a concrete floor by a forklift. The video went viral, playing over and over on TV for several news cycles — the animal-abuse equivalent of the Rodney King police beating. It sickened the nation. And it outraged Bohnert.

“All it takes is one or two bad events where you’ve got some bad employees or managers, where you’ve got downed cows that are being mistreated or you’ve got starved horses or cattle, and it’s a black eye for the whole industry,” Bohnert grouses. “But in reality, that’s a very, very small proportion of our industry.”

Red Tape for a Reason

If you drive east from Corvallis along Highway 20 into Malheur County — one of Oregon’s top beef-producing counties with 100,000 head — you might wonder how cattle can thrive here at all. Desert vegetation — sage, rabbitbrush, juniper, Ponderosa pine — stretches from horizon to horizon. Rain is rare. Frost is frequent. And grass is green for just over a nanosecond. For cows, that means eating dry, fibrous forage or hay much of the year. Out here, extra protein and other nutrients are essential supplements to the poor-quality grasses.

In Burns, Bohnert devotes much of his time to nutrition research, analyzing protein, fiber, nitrogen and mineral content to design optimal diets. So does Tim DelCurto, his counterpart farther east in Union. Rangeland ecology, too, gets a great deal of scrutiny at OSU. But whether the scientists are studying stress by measuring cortisol (a stress-triggered hormone), diet by analyzing ruminal fermentation (digestion), or ecology by tracking cattle via GPS collars, each study must pass muster with the university’s animal-care protocols.

There was some grumbling in the beginning, back when attending veterinarian Helen Diggs tightened up on reporting and spearheaded OSU’s accreditation review by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC).

“A few people had to be dragged to the table screaming, ‘I don’t know why I have to justify this!’” Bohnert recalls. “The new daily reporting system, I’ll admit, was something I initially felt was going to be a royal pain in the neck. Every day, I’ve got to log into it and let OSU’s attending veterinarian know that our animals are being cared for properly and everything’s OK. Sometimes it’s frustrating, the red tape you have to go through. However, I understand and acknowledge that we need to do everything in our power to make sure that OSU’s animals are treated properly and that we can document proper care. That’s just the cost of doing animal research.”

An Evolution in Attitudes

Teddy, a Black Angus with a white blaze on his forehead, looks formidable, weighing upwards of 1,300 pounds. Yet this hulking creature that could knock you flat with a well-aimed kick is scared of the dark. “Cows are just like big babies,” says pre-vet teaching assistant Erin Mason, who’s giving an animal-facilities tour on campus for students enrolled in ANS 121, Intro to Animal Sciences. Learning the stressors for cows — loud noises, dark places, sudden motions, unfamiliar routines — is Chapter 1 for anyone who wants to work with livestock.

In his left side, Teddy has a “cannula,” a surgically implanted rubber window something like a porthole. Through this porthole, the contents of his stomach can be easily accessed and analyzed for teaching and research. Given a choice, Teddy surely would prefer grazing on the open range to facing a clump of wide-eyed undergrads who are about to stick their arms inside his stomach. Still, as a teaching cow at OSU, he gets top-notch treatment in strict adherence to animal-care protocols. And soon, he’ll be residing in a new, high-tech facility equipped with the latest in Temple Grandin designs. Phase 1 of the James E. Oldfield Animal Teaching Facility on the Corvallis campus opened in the fall. Phases 2, 3 and 4 will be rolled out over the next several years.

Ballooning interest in Animal and Rangeland Sciences, whose enrollment has spiked four-fold since the 1990s, brings with it an evolution in attitudes in the department and across all disciplines that work with animals. One signal: A tenure-track position has been created to study the “human-animal bond.” Another sign: VM 739 (Veterinary Medical Ethics) and ANS 315 (Contentious Social Issues in Animal Agriculture) are now part of the curriculum at Oregon State (see sidebar). Perhaps the strongest indicator of Oregon State’s animal-welfare mindfulness is the flying-colors report conferred on the university by AAALAC along with whole-campus accreditation in March 2012.

“We’ve changed so much in Oregon since I came here in the late ‘90s,” says Bohnert. “I think there’s a bigger awareness. In our industry, in general, we realize that we want to minimize the pain and stress to animals.”

Connections to Asia are expanding. They encompass a wide range of activities including academic conferences, student exchanges and faculty collaborations. They focus on business, engineering, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, wood science, music and more.

The university’s growing international influence is fueled by student recruitment through INTO OSU as well as by direct enrollment in many of our leading research-based graduate programs, says Provost Sabah Randhawa.

“OSU enjoys a strong reputation in Asia and is cited as one of the top 150 universities in the world in international ranking programs,” Randhawa adds. “Many top universities in the region are eager to partner with us for student and faculty exchange programs and global research initiatives.”

Business
The Global Business Analysis Group is working with Dalian University of Technology and the City University of Hong Kong in China and with Yonsei University in South Korea. Researchers are focusing on supply chains, sustainability, business law and operations management.

Apparel and Aging
With colleagues in China, Taiwan and South Korea, Oregon State researchers are exploring cross-national consumer behavior in the domestic and international textile and apparel industries.

Earthquakes and Tsunamis
In Indonesia, Oregon State researchers are working with scientists on the historical record of earthquakes and tsunamis. The subduction zone just west of Sumatra is similar to the Cascadia subduction zone off the Oregon coast.

Music
For the past 12 years, Oregon State’s Department of Music has conducted an exchange program with the cultural ministry of Henan Province in China.

Pharmaceuticals
Oregon State scientists are participating in the search for new antibiotics with colleagues in China, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand. In Indonesia, they are identifying novel compounds with antimicrobial benefits.

Environment and Agriculture
Air quality, dam construction and agricultural crops are under study byOregon State and Chinese colleagues. They have documented the impacts of polluted air and dam construction. Agricultural scientists have focused on grass seed, forage crops and livestock.

With a wave of the hand and click of the fingers, Jason Muhlestein controls a computer in the College of Engineering. (Photo: Jeff Basinger)

Tired of doing the scroll, click and drag with a mouse? A team of Oregon State University student engineers has developed a more natural way to use computers. Their “wireless hand sensor” may not only help reduce hand and wrist injuries associated with repetitive motion but may have applications in robotics, medicine and computer gaming.

Mushfiqur Sarker, Jason Muhlestein and Anton Bilbaeno attached their sensor to a glove equipped with communications capability and conductive fabric. By moving the hand left and right or up and down, users can move objects on a computer screen. Moreover, by touching the glove’s thumb to a spot on one of the fingers, they can perform operations such as opening or closing files or navigating through a digital map.

The students won the Industry Award at the annual Oregon State engineering expo last spring. In July, they took second place (and a $7,500 award) in a national analog design contest sponsored by Texas Instruments, one of the world’s largest microprocessor manufacturers. They estimate the cost of the wireless glove at just under $50.

“It allows you to control a computer from a distance,” says Muhlestein. “It could be fit to other devices, such as a ‘smart’ TV, an air conditioner equipped with wireless capability or sundry devices in the home.”

Remote control is familiar to gamers (Nintendo’s popular Wii computer game uses a “Wiimote”), and new devices such as Leap Motion (leapmotion.com) recognize hand gestures. The students saw room for improvement. “We didn’t like the fact that you have to hold it (the Wiimote),” says Muhlestein. “Our device eliminates all of that. We also don’t need any extra hardware. Everything is on your hand.”

The heart of the invention consists of two components: an accelerometer to measure the velocity of hand movements and a gyroscope to track rotation. They comprise an “inertial measurement unit” that is attached to the back of the glove, leaving the thumb and fingers free.

In manufacturing, the glove could give technicians a natural way to control robotic arms. It could also assist surgeons in performing operations remotely.

“The wireless hand sensor project was exceptional because it approached the project from a real usability standpoint,” says Donald Heer, who taught the capstone design course in which the students were enrolled. “They thought about the user, the technology and marketability. This very broad approach really let them shine as one of the best examples of Electrical and Computer Engineering senior design.”

For the time being, further development has taken a back seat to other priorities. Sarker is now pursuing a Ph.D. in “smart grid” technologies at the University of Washington. Muhlestein has entered the master’s program at Oregon State, working in analog-to-digital signal conversion with professor Un-Ku Moon. Bilbaeno is employed by Allion Engineering Services in Portland.

If it were commercialized, their invention could compete with another innovation that traces its roots to Oregon State. Alumnus Douglas Englebart invented the computer mouse in 1964.

“Oregon State University Advantage should foster increased bottom-line success for business,” said Rick Spinrad, OSU vice president for research.

Meena (left) and Jaana Rajachidambaram, masters students at OSU, worked in collaboration with Sharp Laboratories of America to improve the performance of thin-film transistors used in liquid crystal displays. Such research will expand with the new Oregon State University Advantage program. (Photo: Jim Carroll))

“It will dramatically increase private industry access to talented OSU faculty and researchers, take better advantage of OSU’s unique capabilities, increase the number of spin-out companies, and expand education and job opportunities for students and other Oregonians,” Spinrad said.

Within the next five years, the program also is expected to increase industry investment in OSU research by 50 percent and lead to the creation of 20 new businesses. Hundreds more OSU students will work not only with existing companies, but become involved in every stage from fundamental science to business plans and running start-up companies.

Two key parts of Oregon State University Advantage will be the OSU Venture Accelerator and the Industry Partnering Program.

The Venture Accelerator will begin immediately with $380,000 in support from the OSU College of Business, Office for Commercialization and Corporate Development, and the University Venture Development Fund. It’s designed to identify innovation or research findings that might form the basis for profitable companies, and streamline their development with the legal, marketing, financial and mentoring needs that turn good ideas into real-world businesses.

The Industry Partnering Program will be co-directed by the OSU Foundation and the OSU Research Office. Officials say it will become a “one-stop shop” to help industry access talent; do research and development to aid business success; bring in millions of dollars in private investment in research; and ultimately produce the type of experienced graduates wanted by global industry.

“Many programs and people will be involved in all of these initiatives, but the broad theme is to increase the societal and economic impact of OSU,” said OSU President Ed Ray.

Richard Oleksak, a doctoral student at OSU, developed a continuous-flow microwave reactor to synthesize nanoparticles for low-cost solar cell manufacturing. His research was sponsored by Voxtel, Inc., and is the type of work that will increase at the university with launching of Oregon State University Advantage. (Photo: Jim Carroll)

“This is a mission that’s critical to the future of Oregon and the nation,” Ray said. “Producing high-achieving graduates ready to work and create new businesses and jobs is the most important part. But we also see more that can be done in meeting the needs of existing industry, expanding existing business, creating new businesses and jobs, and getting students much more involved in their real working careers while they are still undergraduates.”

To serve as a base for the program, it’s anticipated that a 2,000-square-foot facility will be identified and occupied between OSU and downtown Corvallis later this year.

Various features of Oregon State University Advantage, the Venture Accelerator and the Industry Partnering Program include:

• Expanded university research will be directed toward industry business needs, while providing opportunities for students, economic growth, patenting and licensing of new discoveries and inventions, and new companies.
• Outside entrepreneurs and executives will work with faculty and students to evaluate new ideas, and the best ideas will be considered for proof-of-concept grants and equity investments.
• At least 300 OSU students each year will work with Venture Accelerator projects, and more in the Industry Partnering Program, doing research, identifying markets, and creating business plans.
• The end result should be improved educational programs and a major increase in the societal and economic impact of OSU’s research, already the largest in the state at $281 million a year.

“It’s a massive job to translate research into a profitable company,” said Ron Adams, executive associate vice president for research. “Students can help us analyze ideas, study market potential and do the legwork on so many tasks. There’s plenty of work to go around.”

Work of this type will greatly enhance educational opportunities, officials said.

“The students will have the opportunity to get practical experience working with the business community while helping drive the economy,” ” said Ilene Kleinsorge, dean of the OSU College of Business. “This experiential learning will prepare them to have an immediate impact to their employers when they graduate from the College of Business.”

OSU has been working in initiatives related to this for a decade or more, and has many success stories in commercialization, industry investment in research, and student internship programs. About 1,200 students are already involved in its entrepreneurship programs and more than two dozen companies have evolved from OSU research.

The Oregon State Venture Accelerator Program is a component of the South Willamette Valley Technology Business Accelerator, featured by the governor’s South Willamette Valley Solutions Group at the Oregon Business Plan Summit last December. The South Willamette Valley Regional Solutions Center will seek funding for the regional accelerator initiative during the 2013 Legislative session. At this stage, details remain to be determined.

More information is available at Oregon State University Advantage.

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For other stories about Oregon State partnerships with business:

1. Behind the Screens, new materials for a sustainable economy
2. Value-Added Scientist, go-to assistance for seafood producers
3. New Corvallis microtechnology firm, new product for chemical manufacturers from the Microproducts Breakthrough Institute
4. Running Clear, technology for real-time water-quality monitoring
5. New OSU Spinoff company, biosurfactants for cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other industries
6. Testing our Metal, process testing and product development for Oregon’s metal products industry
7. The Science of Design, research for product development in the outdoor apparel industry
8. Biotech Partnership, gene technology for plant development
9. Cradle of Innovation, Oregon State’s Office of Commercialization and Corporate Development
10. Spinoffs Boost Oregon’s Economy, new companies emerge from Oregon State research labs
11. From Problem to Profit, seeds for new products in the proliferation of western juniper
12. Trading on Trust, business development, face-to-face
13. Product Lines, 12 companies, 300 jobs, $100 million in investment

Kathryn Higley

As concern about climate change has grown, nuclear energy — long a polarizing subject — has gained increasing favorability. Its low carbon footprint, reliable power supply and strong safety record convinced many critics that nuclear power should be a bigger part of our energy mix.

That newfound favorability suffered a setback on March 11, 2011, when an earthquake struck off the coast of Japan. The resulting tsunami damaged the backup systems essential to the safe shutdown of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station. Over the next several weeks, as the Japanese people struggled to limit the extent of the damage, a slow-motion accident unfolded. While the world watched, radioactive cesium, iodine and other nuclides were released to the air and surrounding ocean.

Suddenly, the nuclear power renaissance seemed very much in doubt.

For more than 50 years, Oregon State’s Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health Physics (NERHP) has been engaged in nuclear power plant design and safety research. Lately, our department has been in the spotlight because of our focus on creating safer and simpler nuclear technology, such as the NuScale small modular reactor. But Fukushima brought attention to a lesser-known competence at OSU: radioecology.

Oregon State is one of the last U.S. academic institutions actively doing research in this unique, interdisciplinary field, which focuses on the movement of radioactive nuclides and their impact on humans and the environment. We travel to places like Johnston Atoll in the Pacific to evaluate radiological risk and find strategies to clean up Cold War-era contamination. We study radionuclide uptake by plants and animals — findings that have been incorporated into environmental protection standards for the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as guidance by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

After Fukushima, we answered hundreds of calls from the public and media. In June 2011, we participated in a Woods Hole Institution expedition to the Fukushima coast on the research vessel Ka’imikai-O-Kanaloa with funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the National Science Foundation. We designed and built a radiological sampling system for seawater and helped collect and analyze marine organisms for contamination. We studied mechanisms of radiological contamination of tea plants in Japan. With Corvallis-based Earthfort, we tested the company’s proprietary compound for reducing the movement of radiocesium in soils in hopes that it might be used in Japan. And we joined the OSU Marine Council Action Coordination Team dealing with marine debris arriving on our coastline.

Our research has helped put Fukushima in perspective. The tragic accident caused a slowdown in nuclear power development worldwide. But today, scientists are reasonably confident that the radiation will have no measurable public health effects. And the best reasons for pursuing this energy technology remain: reliable power with minimal carbon emissions.

We will remain on the frontlines of reactor safety, radioecology and environmental protection. We will continue to advocate for more research and public education in radiation sciences so that as a society we can make informed choices about our energy mix.

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Editor’s note: Higley’s expertise has been highly sought by news media covering the consequences of the Fukushima disaster. See her comments on the burial of radioactive wastes in the Nov. 5, 2012 Christian Science Monitor.

In all, Oregon State research totaled almost $281 million last year, just shy of OSU’s top research performance achieved in 2010. Meanwhile, private sector financing reached nearly $35 million, a 42 percent increase in the past two years.

“Research produces revenues for practically every sector of Oregon’s economy,” said Rick Spinrad, vice president for research at Oregon State. “It’s our best bet for moving the state forward.”

Industry funding included payments for testing services, environmental analysis, prototype development and licensing fees for the use of OSU-developed intellectual property. Businesses partnering with the university ranged from global corporations (HP, Intel and British Petroleum) to Oregon companies (NuScale Power, Voxtel, Precision Castparts and Benchmade Knives).

Total technology licensing revenues increased about 3.5 percent over FY11 to $4.3 million. OSU signed 108 new licenses, a 277 percent increase, with companies in the fields of biotechnology, forest products, agriculture, healthy aging and manufacturing.

Industry funding accounted for about 12 percent of Oregon State research revenues in FY2012. (Source: OSU Research Office)

“Technology licenses enable existing and emerging businesses to turn OSU research into marketable products,” Spinrad added. “The benefits show up in faster, more efficient computer technologies; improved health care; renewable sources of energy; more competitive manufacturing; and wheat, hazelnuts and other crops that generate higher yields and resist disease.

“And it’s about more than just the economy,” Spinrad added. “Research also saves lives. It guides policies that protect public health and reduce the impact of natural hazards in our communities.”

Funding from federal agencies has declined about 5 percent since FY10. A drop was expected because in FY10 and FY11, OSU received a total of about $35 million in one-time federal funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Nevertheless, over a five-year period, funding from federal agencies has grown appreciably. For example, two agencies — the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy Office of Science — saw an increase in appropriations of about 27 percent. However, during that time, OSU’s grants from those two agencies grew at almost twice that rate, about 49 percent. Grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, OSU’s largest single source of research funding, grew 58 percent in that period.

“This research success is really a testament to our faculty who continue to focus on state and national priorities in areas such as food production, technology, health care, energy and the environment,” said Spinrad. “Their success makes great opportunities available to our students and is the basis for partnerships with government agencies and Oregon businesses.”

Oregon State faculty continued to increase their success rate in competitive grant proposals to foundations and federal agencies. More than 50 percent of all proposals received funding in FY12. That continues a trend that began in FY08, when the OSU success rate was 38 percent.

“Competition for research funding is increasing,” said Spinrad. “But we continue to hire talented research faculty with support from the Campaign for OSU. We’re creating new partnerships with businesses, agencies, foundations and universities and attracting students who want to make a difference. Patents, licensing agreements, startup companies – traditionally seen as indicators leading to future growth – are going in the right direction.”

Among companies signing licenses with Oregon State last year were three new startups: Applied Exergy (energy storage), Microflow CVO (chemical mixing) and CLJV (forest products). Since 2006, OSU has spun off 11 companies that have attracted more than $180 million in capital investment.

The university had its best month ever last September with more than $42 million in funding, led by its single largest grant for the year from the NSF. With an initial investment of $12 million, Oregon State partnered with the University of Oregon to establish the Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry, which has labs and research teams on both campuses. Following discoveries that led to dramatic improvements in semiconductor performance and reductions in the use of toxic chemicals for production, that initiative has already spun off two startup businesses and generated more than a dozen patents.

Altogether, Oregon State’s largest grants in FY12 came from six federal agencies and one state agency for work in agriculture, chemistry, public health, cancer prevention, nutrition, environmental protection, alternative energy and marine resources. They include:

• $12 million for the sustainable materials chemistry center (National Science Foundation)
• $7 million for nutrition research and assistance (Oregon Department of Human Services)
• $3.9 million for research to address the growing threat of childhood obesity (U.S. Department of Agriculture)
• $3.7 million for research in support of coastal communities (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
• $3.4 million for a multi-agency ocean research program housed at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
• $2.9 million for the study of diet in cancer prevention (National Institutes of Health)
• $2.8 million for new ways to monitor air and water pollution by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and to protect human health (U.S. Public Health Service)
• $1.9 million to support ocean research through ship operations (National Science Foundation)
• $1.9 million to study methods for producing biofuels from woody debris (U.S. Department of Agriculture)
• $1.9 million for development of aquaculture methods in developing countries (U.S. Agency for International Development)

Private foundations provided a significant portion of Oregon State’s research funding. For example, grants from the Murdock Charitable Trust supported work in sustainable materials, ocean chemistry and biomedical research. A $450,000 Murdock grant enabled the College of Engineering to purchase a multi-chamber facility for testing the durability of new concrete mixtures, and additional funds support scientists working on seafloor processes and neurodegenerative diseases.

Other nonprofits such as the Agricultural Research Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Ford Family Foundation supported work on natural resources, coastal ecosystems and rural communities respectively. Such grants have provided critical seed funding for ideas that have led to major projects in areas such as ocean wave energy.

Jonathan Hurst, right, was recognized by Popular Mechanics magazine with one of ten Breakthrough Innovator awards for 2012.

An era of walking robots that can help people with physical disabilities, take on dangerous missions or aid in disaster response is about to begin. One of the leaders in this emerging field, Oregon State University engineer Jonathan Hurst, was recognized in October by Popular Mechanics with one of its “Breakthrough Innovator” awards of 2012.

The science in this field is rapidly expanding, said Hurst, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Oregon State, who received the award along with his colleague, Jessy Grizzle, at the University of Michigan. Ten awards were made to scientists and engineers around the nation.

The researchers have built two walking robots, MABEL and the next generation model, ATRIAS. In each case, the technology is based on a fundamental understanding of how animals walk and run, using minimal energy to accomplish a maximum of locomotion and sensory response.

Hurst said walking robots are about where the automotive industry was 150 years ago, full of promise, with a number of new inventions and about ready to take off.

“In the next 20 years you are going to see legged robots all over the place, doing all kinds of jobs,” Hurst said. “The sky is the limit.”

Beginning with funding from the National Science Foundation for MABEL, and continuing with $4.7 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Oregon State and Michigan experts worked from principles of animal locomotion. The mechanical system closely interacts with the software control system, such as fiberglass springs working together with computer control to create efficient and stable walking and running gaits.

“So far much of what we’ve done has been with computer simulations, as we spent the past three years designing and building ATRIAS,” Hurst said. “The simulations are working, and our robot was walking three days after it was built. Now we’re going to demonstrate the control ideas on the real machines.”

Robots that ultimately can walk and maneuver over uneven terrain have a range of possibilities, Hurst added. One would be helping to power prosthetic limbs for people, or use an exo-skeleton to assist people with muscular weakness. But there could also be applications in the military, in disaster response, or any type of dangerous situation.

For something that humans usually learn to do by the time they are a year old, walking is still a mystery to most scientists. The complexity of sensory and mechanical input from nerves, vision, muscles and tendons has challenged the most sophisticated concepts in robotics.

MABEL, however, is able to run a nine-minute mile and step off a ledge. ATRIAS is even lighter, faster, and has three-dimensional motion capabilities. Some of these advances have been possible, Hurst said, because the Oregon State and Michigan researchers took a step back to better understand the fundamental forces at work before even trying to build something.

Most robots today work in a very static or highly controlled environment, but humans live in a mobile, unpredictable world, and with further advances robots may soon be able to join it.

“Your TV-picture screen in 1964 may be so thin that it can be hung like a painting on the wall or mounted like a vanity mirror in a table model.” Popular Mechanics, January 1954

Popular Mechanics’ prediction took considerably more than 10 years to come true, but today’s flat-panel screens have gone well beyond that early vision. Some of them are nearly as big as a living room wall. They bring us unimaginably sharp detail, from the spots on butterfly wings to the grimace on a linebacker’s face.

This technology — whether hooked up to your cable feed, DVD player, wi-fi or computer — is also becoming integral to daily life. It increasingly provides the platforms on which we shop, share photos, read books, keep up with friends, play games, manage finances and work. In 2011, the global flat-panel screen industry shipped more than $120 billion worth of products, enough to cover nearly 16,000 football fields.

Doug Keszler, center, works with graduate students Deok-Hie Park and Shawn Decker on a pulsed electron deposition chamber on the Oregon State campus. (Photo: Jeff Basinger)

However, our love of flashy high-res has a dark side. Manufacturing the semiconductors behind these electronic systems produces waste, lots of it. “The electronics and solar industries build devices where the materials input is very high relative to what ends up in the product. There’s tremendous amounts of waste and very high energy input,” says Doug Keszler, Oregon State University chemist.

Keszler and a team of scientists and engineers at Oregon State and the University of Oregon are leading a national consortium bent on greening the flat-panel display industry. In their future, windows, mirrors, walls and counters could display messages and harvest solar energy. “We’re trying to turn this industry into a truly zero-waste proposition while improving performance,” says Keszler, a principal scientist in the Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry (CSMC). “We’d like to do electronics the size of a wall. The question is: How do you do that efficiently without producing even more waste?”

Startups Provide Jobs

Scientists use a spectroscopic ellipsometer to analyze atomic structure in thin films. (Photo: Jeff Basinger)

The CSMC has already produced significant results: a metal-insulator-metal diode (a kind of electronic switch) that outperforms the fastest silicon-based semiconductors; water-based manufacturing techniques that reduce waste and improve productivity; high-resolution fabrication processes that forge thinner electronic components. With research roots going back more than a decade at OSU and UO, the center has spun off two startup companies, generated more than a dozen U.S. patents and developed an educational partnership to inspire more Oregon high school students to attend college. It also helps graduates to create their own careers. In cooperation with the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, CSMC students join business leaders in the chemical and electronics industries to identify commercial opportunities stemming from research.

“About two-thirds of all Ph.D. graduates in the physical sciences now find their first job in a startup company,” says Keszler. “There is very little education to prepare students for that career path. We train them to recognize market value in their research, so they can work effectively with entrepreneurs and business development people.”

Two startups have already hired the center’s graduates. Amorphyx (www.amorphyx.com) is commercializing a new electronics manufacturing process that limits the production of unwanted industrial byproducts. Moreover, it trims a six-part process to two steps, offering the possibility of tripling production capacity in an existing facility.

In collaboration with another spinoff, Inpria (www.inpria.com), the center has broken a barrier in high-resolution circuitry, going below the 20-nanometer scale and enabling computer chips to accommodate more functions at higher speeds.

New materials and water-based manufacturing process may be key to reducing waste in the semiconductor industry, says Doug Keszler. (Photo: Jeff Basinger)

These achievements reflect gains reported by Oregon State engineer John Wager, physicist Janet Tate, graduate student Randy Hoffman and other researchers as early as 2003. They noted that transparent thin-film transistors made of zinc oxide could lead to new kinds of liquid-crystal displays, the dominant type of flat-panel screen. In 2006, HP licensed the technology and has been developing applications in collaboration with OSU.

At UO in 2003, researchers in Darren Johnson’s chemistry lab discovered a solution-based process for making nanoclusters, leading to the possibility that new semiconductors could be made without hazardous chemicals. Jason Gatlin, the UO graduate student who discovered the process, instigated a new UO-OSU collaboration when he shared his findings at a conference sponsored by the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute.

“We’re pushing the boundaries of science and seeing things no one has ever seen before,” says Keszler. “There’s a lot of joy in the intellectual exchanges in such a diverse group.”

To attract more young scientists to their journey, CSMC students will begin working with Hermiston High School teacher Lisa Frye and her chemistry classes this fall. They will provide support, advanced instruction and resources to inspire high-school students to consider careers in science.

“What we’re after over the next 10 years,” says Keszler, “is to put the (industrial) ecosystem together that allows you to print electronics on flexible glass. They will be high performance, durable, and include applications such as solar collectors.”

We’ve come a long way from the futuristic idea of hanging TV screens like paintings on the walls of our homes.

Robert Zemetra leads Oregon State's wheat-breeding program. (Photo courtesy of Robert Zemetra)

Still, the Oregon State University wheat breeder doesn’t regret his decision to create new plant varieties for a living. “Between getting to teach, working with students at a university and doing the wheat breeding, I can’t think of a better job,” he says.

Wheat growers have gotten a good deal too. Since 1993 when he was a professor at the University of Idaho, Zemetra has led the development of nine new strains of soft white winter wheat. In more than two decades of wheat-variety improvement, efforts by him and his colleagues have enabled farmers to produce more grain and earn more money as they’ve supplied products to millers, bakers and even noodle makers in the United States and abroad.

It’s the kind of achievement the architects of the land grant university system envisioned when they passed the Morrill Act 150 years ago. When he signed the bill into law, President Abraham Lincoln called public universities an investment of the people’s hope, support and confidence. (For details on the political history of the Morrill Act, see Milestones in the Legislative History of U.S. Land-Grant Universities)

A Timeline for Oregon Wheat

Starting in the Willamette Valley, wheat farmers grew crops that fed miners in California’s gold country and fetched top dollar in East Coast markets. Today, Portland, Oregon, ships more wheat than any other U.S. port.
Read more…

Zemetra takes that mission seriously. “Our primary thrust is to improve the productivity of wheat cultivars, so we improve profitability for wheat growers,” he says.

Matchmaker

In 2011, the native of California’s San Fernando Valley accepted the endowed Warren Kronstad Wheat Research Chair at Oregon State. He followed in the footsteps of former OSU wheat breeder James Peterson who is now vice president for wheat research at Limagrain Cereals in Colorado.

As a researcher, Zemetra is matchmaker, data collector and analyst. He marries existing wheat strains to produce stronger offspring that resist disease and thrive in Northwest soils and climate. He evaluates new varieties for traits such as their ability to resist disease (stripe rust, Pseudocercosporella foot rot and Septoria leaf blotch, among others), straw strength (will plants remain standing in a stiff Northwest wind?) and grain quality.

“You can think of disease resistance as a form of insurance to prevent loss,” he says. “Losses can occur through lost yield because of disease, or if farmers have to pay for fungicide treatment. It’s an ongoing battle.”

One of his primary adversaries is a tiny fungus, Puccinia striiformis, which causes a disease known as stripe rust. On wheat leaves, the organism erupts into orange blisters and diverts the plant’s energy from making grain to the care and feeding of more fungus. It reduces grain production and can kill plants outright. Moreover, it can evolve rapidly, creating a moving target for researchers who need to make sure that wheat varieties have the right genetic characteristics to stay ahead of the disease.

Front Lines

Stephens wheat, a popular variety introduced by legendary OSU wheat breeder Warren Kronstad in 1978, was highly resistant to stripe rust, but in 2000, the fungus evolved new races, Zemetra explains. Stephens became partially susceptible and gave way to other varieties such as Foote (named for Oregon State’s first wheat breeder, Wilson Foote), Goetze (particularly useful in the Willamette Valley) and ORCF 101 and ORCF 102, herbicide resistant Oregon State cultivars, which now dominate wheat acreage in Oregon and Washington.

“Disease resistance is being overcome a little faster in some lines. Some races (of the fungus) are more aggressive. The challenge is making sure we have resistant lines for the growers. We’d like to reduce their use of fungicides,” says Zemetra.

Maintaining wheat production is a collective effort. Zemetra’s breeding research proceeds as a cadre of scientists on the OSU campus in Corvallis and at OSU Agricultural Experiment Stations and Extension offices test new varieties in small plots and work directly with farmers to evaluate plant performance under commercial growing conditions.

The quality of new varieties released to the industry can be measured by the traffic on Zemetra’s phone. “Farmers aren’t shy. If I release a variety that’s good, I don’t receive many phone calls,” he says. “If anything goes wrong, I hear about it right away.”

Fortunately, his first year at Oregon State turned out pretty well. In 2011, Oregon wheat growers achieved their highest yield per acre (81 bushels) and highest revenues ($521.5 million) ever. Collecting data in the rain had a silver lining for the new OSU scientist.

Wheat near Pendleton, Oregon (Photo: Lynn Ketchum, Oregon State Extension and Experiment Station Communications)

It is arguably the plant that made the West. Pioneers brought wheat in practically every wagon on the Oregon Trail. It fed farm families in the Willamette Valley and miners in the John Day and California gold-rush towns. It was currency and foreign exchange.

As the nation grew, scientists developed dryland and irrigated growing techniques. They learned to control competition from weeds and to manage soils. And they bred new varieties that enabled farmers to keep up with demand. The partnership between scientists and farmers — envisioned by the creators of the land grant university system — has more than doubled yields, held diseases at bay and generated revenue for Northwest economies.

Starting with the Morrill Act of 1862, the impact has been worldwide. Here are some of the milestones for Oregon wheat.

George Harth outfit threshing wheat on Howard Pearcy Place, 1910. Garth-Scott steamer and J. I. Case separator (Ray Pearcy Collection)

1833: First receipt
Robert Ball records the first sale of wheat in the Willamette Valley.

1845: Good as gold
Wheat is used as legal tender to pay off debts in the Oregon Territory. Wheat export begins with shipments from Astoria to the East Coast via Hawaii.

1860s: River of grain
Wheat is a major commodity on Willamette River steamboats.

1861: Disaster
Heavy rains destroy flour mills along the Willamette River. Swelling grains burst warehouses.

Farmers used a team of 14 draft animals to harvest wheat. (Photo courtesy of OSU University Archives)

1862: Peoples’ universities
Abraham Lincoln signs the Morrill Act to establish land grant universities focused on the agricultural, mechanical and military arts.

1867: Best of show
Oregon flour is reported to be the highest-priced and best flour on the New York market.

1883: Connected by rail
The Union Pacific Railroad punches through the Columbia Gorge, reaching Portland and signaling the start of increased wheat production in Eastern Oregon.

1887: A statewide experiment station
Passage of the Hatch Act provides federal funds for ongoing agricultural research. Early efforts focus on a 35-acre farm near Corvallis.

1893: Sowers and reapers
Umatilla County produces 4.5 million bushels of wheat.

1901: Research network
The State Legislature appropriates $10,000 to establish the first agricultural experiment station in northeast Oregon.

1910: Better wheat
Oregon Agricultural College opens the Sherman County Agricultural Experiment Station with a focus on wheat variety selection.

1926: A league of their own
Farmers establish the Eastern Oregon Wheat Growers League in response to low prices and a catastrophic freeze in 1924. The league is the first association of wheat growers in the country.

Wilson Foote

1947: Fees by the bushel
The State Legislature authorizes formation of the Oregon Wheat Commission funded by per-bushel fees assessed to growers.

1948: Breeding champions
Oregon State University begins its wheat-breeding program under the direction of Wilson Foote.

Warren Kronstad

1961: Legendary hire
Wilson Foote moves into administration, and Warren Kronstad, Foote’s former graduate student, directs the wheat-breeding program.

1967: Foreign investment
OSU contracts with the U.S. Agency for International Development to improve wheat production in Turkey. By 1980, increased yields and production efficiencies had generated an estimated $750 million for the Turkish economy.

Wheat research plots (Photo: Lynn Ketchum, Oregon State Extension and Experiment Station Communications)

1975: Global impact
OSU’s Eastern Oregon research in dryland wheat production techniques is key to a USAID training program for agricultural scientists in developing countries. Warren Kronstad maintains relationships with about 200 programs.

1978: Top variety
OSU releases Stephens, a variety that quickly becomes one of the most successful in the Northwest. By 1980, Stephens is planted on more than 80 percent of Oregon’s soft winter wheat acreage and is the dominant variety in Washington and Idaho. It is estimated to have increased wheat revenues about $25 million per year between 1981 and 1984.

1998: Next generation
James Peterson arrives at OSU as the Kronstad Wheat Research Endowed Chair to direct the wheat-breeding program.

Jim Peterson led Oregon State's wheat breeding program for 12 years. (Photo: Bob Henderson)

2001: Bang for the buck
OSU Crop and Soil Science researchers developed a new nitrogen mineralization test to help wheat growers reduce fertilizer applications and save money.

2003: Herbicide resistant
Clearfield wheat, a variety released by OSU in cooperation with the German chemical company BASF, becomes Oregon’s most widely planted variety. It tolerates applications of an herbicide that is effective on downy brome and other persistent weeds.

2010: Revenues for research
Clearfield wheat royalties to Oregon State top $1 million, providing additional support for wheat research.

Wheat elevators at the Port of Portland, the nation's largest wheat export facility. (Photo: Tom Gentle)

2011: New leader
Robert Zemetra arrives at OSU as Kronstad Wheat Research Endowed Chair.

2011: Setting the bar
Farmers produce a record-breaking 80.5 million bushels, earning $521 million in farmgate revenues. Yield per acre (81 bushels) was double that achieved in 1977.

Sources:

Mike Flowers, Dept. of Crop and Soil Science, OSU Extension Service

Department of Crop and Soil Science, Oregon State University, Origin and Evolution 1907-1990, by Arnold P. Appleby

100 Years of Progress: The Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, Oregon State University, 1888-1988, 1990

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Read Kernel Chemistry, a story about wheat research from genetics to baking innovations, published by Oregon’s Agricultural Progress magazine, 2009.

Mark Whitham

Mark Whitham’s know-how is a sought-after commodity for small canners hoping to kick-start or upgrade their facilities. Coos Bay entrepreneur Mike Babcock isn’t the only one singing Whitham’s praises. Here’s what others are saying.

Fish to Soup

“When Mark came to the area, I sort of enlisted him to help with our processing records and update our cook times and scheduling,” says fisherman Mark Kujala, who runs his family’s cannery, Oregon Ocean Seafoods, in Warrenton. The family has canned salmon, tuna, and sturgeon under their brand, Skipanon, for nearly two decades. With Whitham’s input, Kujala soon will be releasing a new line of soups — old family recipes he’s keeping hush-hush for now. Whitham is also helping the company develop its own line of pouch-packed fish. “He’s very accessible,” says Kujala. “When I have questions in the middle of the day, I can call him up. Sometimes he’s out on the road, and he’ll pull over and take the time to listen and bounce off ideas.”

100 Diners

“Having Mark available has just been such an asset,” says Stan Eggas, owner of the Berry Patch Restaurant in Westport. “He has helped us come up with recipes and to start a processing and canning facility, which I frankly knew nothing about. It was just amazing.” Starting out as a tiny stand selling homemade jams, the business expanded to a restaurant that holds 100 diners. He also has been working with Whitham to develop a line of all-natural soups for high-end grocery stores. Eggas says Whitham helped him refine his recipes — chowders of salmon and razor clams, soups of tomato and chanterelle — to minimize preservatives and sodium and develop his canning process. “That OSU and Sea Grant have made this program and Mark available is really outstanding.”

Traditional Tribal Edibles

Jobs are sorely needed by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. “The unemployment rate on the reservation is really bad,” says Warm Springs elder Ron Supah. “The tribes need to seek opportunities to develop work for our tribal members.” Supah hopes to do that with a facility on the tribe’s reservation that will use retort pouches to preserve traditional foods such as elk, venison, berries and roots. Supah says the tribe is also considering packaging its sought-after Chinook salmon for sale in stores off the reservation.

Supah says the decision to use retort packaging came after he and other Warm Springs members visited Whitham at his Astoria lab. “We were pretty impressed by what we saw there,” remembers Supah. So far, Whitham has helped the tribe apply for a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant that will fund a feasibility study for the proposed facility.

Mike Babcock left a thriving lumber mill and set himself a new challenge: create a seafood business. (Photo: Pat Kight)

Still, in this one-time boomtown of lumber mills and commercial fishing, the entrepreneurial spirit lives. One man, Mike Babcock, is helping to kick-start Coos Bay’s renewal with an unlikely innovation: packing fish in pouches instead cans. Besides being flat and lightweight for cheaper, easier shipping, the laminated plastic-and-metal foil pouches are superior to cans in the No. 1 consumer yardstick: taste.

“Most store-bought tuna is twice cooked,” explains Babcock’s fish-packing guru, Mark Whitham, a food scientist with Oregon Sea Grant. “That means they cook all the nutrients and flavor out. Mike Babcock’s product is cooked only once, and it retains all the good fats, juices, and nutrients, and it tastes much better.”

It all began in 2010 when Babcock, a successful-but-restless sawmill owner, was looking for a new challenge. He heard about the packing pouches — called retortable or “retort” pouches in the industry — from coastal residents who had worked with Whitham on other projects. “I wonder if pouches would work for albacore?” he thought. To find out, he tracked down the food scientist, and together they investigated the pouch potential for Coos Bay. Within the year, Babcock had launched Oregon Seafoods.

The other "Bay Area." (Photo: Pat Kight)

Since October 2011 when he started shipping sustainably caught tuna and salmon under his label, Sea Fare Pacific, Babcock’s products have landed on the shelves of all eight Market of Choice grocery stores, as well as those of Portland’s trendy New Seasons Market for health-conscious shoppers. He also has created a line of smoked salmon for outdoor recreation giant REI, and his four flavors — sea salt, salt-free, smoked and jalapeno — have made their way to several other states.

From Freezer to Pouch

Just blocks from Coos Bay’s historic harbor, Babcock’s Oregon Seafoods plant is no bigger than a medium-sized classroom, but it’s packed to the gills with canning machinery. It’s cold inside. Workers wear hats and jackets under large, turquoise-colored aprons, latex gloves and hairnets as they pack fish for Sea Fare Pacific and several other brands.

“Of course, we would like to have more space,” says the 50-year-old businessman, a hairnet snugged over his red ball cap. “But we can do a lot with a small footprint.”

From the deep-freeze at Oregon Seafoods, workers carry salmon and albacore to the filleting room, where they slice up the fish and plop the chunks, red and raw, into small plastic cups. Two machines imported from Japan stand ready to package the fish into pouches. As the machine spins, another worker transfers chunks from the cups into 8-ounce pouches, which look like UPS envelopes, only silver.

The technical know-how behind Oregon Seafood’s processing, as well as the four specialty flavors developed for Sea Fare Pacific, came from Whitham. It was he who steered Babcock through his transition from mill owner to seafood processor. A soft-spoken, laid-back 57-year-old, Whitham is an unlikely revolutionary. Yet from his food lab at OSU Extension in Astoria, the Sea Grant scientist has been in the vanguard of Oregon’s canning coup.

If there’s such a thing as a food-preservation geek, Whitham is it. And if there’s one thing he “geeks out” about, it’s the flexible, lightweight retort pouches.

Oregon Seafoods workers load individual portions of cleaned and flavored albacore into pouches for sealing and cooking (Photo: Pat Kight)

“Retort pouches aren’t new,” says Whitham. “They’ve been around about 50 years, and, from what I’ve seen, they are really big in Europe and Asia. In general, they tend to be ahead of us as far as packaging is concerned.”

Coos Bay is just starting to catch up. The pouches’ advantages are many: lightweight and compact, they take less energy to ship than conventional steel cans. For the consumer or commercial chef, there’s no can to recycle. And their flat shape makes cooking more uniform. Again, it all comes down to flavor in the end.

Whitham’s larger mission — adding value to the region’s natural seafood bounty — underpins his 30-year career working with small producers up and down the coast. “Here in Oregon, seafood has really been a stand-alone product, and there’s just tremendous opportunity for adding value,” he says. With the right price point, package and recipe, processed fish can command double, triple, or even quadruple what it sells for raw. That in turn injects money and jobs into the community.

Injecting jobs and money into Coos Bay is exactly what Babcock is doing. A self-described “pedal-to-the-metal, get-it-done” type, the entrepreneur’s steely blue eyes are now focused on fine-tuning the process that took elbow grease and determination, along with Whitham’s expertise, to get moving. In Coos County where unemployment hovers around 10.5 percent — above average for both Oregon and the nation — the eight new jobs Babcock has created are a welcome boost.

From Cannery to Shopping Cart

On the cannery’s floor, the Japanese packing machines suck the air out of each pouch and seal it. Then comes the cooking. The oven — six feet around and15 feet tall with a massive metal door — looks more like a missile silo turned on its side than something from a commercial kitchen. It can hold a lot of product — more than 2,500 eight-ounce pouches, or nearly 475 pounds of fish. The pouches cook for 75 minutes at 240 degrees. Then they’re flash cooled to retain flavor.

In the cannery’s entryway, boxes full of packed tuna, ready to be shipped, testify that things are moving smoothly. But plenty of stumbling blocks stood in the way, Babcock attests. Whitham helped the entrepreneur persevere. “Whenever I have a problem,” he says, “I call him up and he’s there.”

Babcock isn’t sure why he left his successful business to start a new one in a field in which he had little experience. When urged to pin down a reason, he cites boredom. “The day-to-day operation of the sawmill was fine,” he recalls. “But we had been building the mill for a number of years, and once we got it built and we got to the monotonous day-to-day stuff, the challenge wasn’t there.”

The cannery lets him do what he loves best: build a business. These days, his schedule is full of food tradeshows. At first, he was skeptical about pitching his fish at the crowded tradeshow scene. But his first show was a total success, generating hundreds of sales leads.

That tradeshow, incidentally, was in San Francisco — the other “bay area.” Driving home, Babcock was elated — so elated, in fact, he just couldn’t wait to make another sale. So he stopped at a small health-food store in Eureka, California, and won yet another customer.

“Everywhere I go, people who try our product, they just fall all over it, they just love the quality, like they never tasted fish like this before,” he says. For that, and for the jobs he created in Coos Bay, Babcock credits Mark Whitham and Oregon Sea Grant. “This product has Mark’s name all over it. I want to keep this relationship going.”

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Editor’s note: In March 2013, Oregon Seafoods announced that with help from Mark Whitham, the company launched a new line of soups and sauces (Seafood Bisque, Smoked Salmon Chowder, three albacore curries and a West Coast Ciopinno). Improved labeling also noted sustainability qualities such as Dolphin Safe and Line Caught. The company’s products are in more than 500 retail outlets.