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Monday, March 15, 2010
Cutting-edge opportunities
By Michael Hartranft
Copyright © 2010 Albuquerque Journal Journal Staff Writer
When retired physicist Garth Gobeli was told the most suitable pair of hearing aids for his condition would cost $5,400 he figured there must be a better, more affordable solution.
The Albuquerque resident says he's come up with one: A device he says could benefit many of the 31 million people who suffer from hearing loss, and at a price that won't require a second mortgage.
This spring, the small company Gobeli founded — EarPOD Inc. — will be among the 20 presenters vying for financial backing for their products at the 17th annual Technology Ventures Equity Capital Symposium.
Hosted by TVC in Albuquerque, the forum affords an opportunity for investors nationwide and abroad to invest in companies commercializing cutting-edge technologies developed in national laboratories, universities and other research institutions.
"The amazing thing about 2010," said Sherman McCorkle, president and CEO of forum host Technology Ventures Corp., "is this year TVC was able to select 20 great presenters in this challenging economy. This number represents companies from more states with a broader diversity of technology than ever before."
The presenters were picked from a pool of 40 applicants. Fourteen are New Mexico-based companies, with two each from Idaho and Tennessee and one each from Washington and Wisconsin. They'll each get 10 minutes at the May 19-20 symposium to present the case for their products.
It will be a first for Gobeli, who has a doctorate in physics and spent most of his career in optics with Bell Labs and then Sandia National Labs. Now retired and working from an office in his home, Gobeli formed EarPOD Inc. to develop the EarPOD hearing device after his fateful visit to the ear specialist.
"It has one easily manipulated volume control for each ear and uses conventional earbud microspeakers that are electronically compensated for non-linearity of the speaker itself," he said. "In addition, it is compensated for sensioneural, or age-related, hearing loss."
The price would be a fraction of what was quoted for the device Gobeli was told would work best for him.
"Three hundred bucks, $350 in that range," he said. "That's for both ears, incidentally."
Thinking green
The average homeowner or business could take on a bigger role in water conservation with a device developed by Eco Products Group.
The Santa Fe-based environmental technology corporation is seeking funding to launch Ecofaucet, a device that allows a user to use a foot pedal to turn a faucet off and on for the task at hand, "whether it's washing, rinsing or a cooking application," said CEO Harmon Houghton, whose background is in computer systems and systems applications.
The result could be a 50 to 70 percent saving of the water that normally goes down the sink, he said.
Eco Products has 10 patents and pending patents, including a proprietary water faucet cylinder valve.
"It's really the first innovation in faucet design since Delta introduced the ball valve," Houghton said.
Geothermal conversion
Innovative product development isn't confined to Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
Roswell-based Berken Energy develops products for clean-energy production in the geothermal and photovoltaic industries, and is also focused on recapturing wasted heat to convert to power.
Among its products is the GeoThermoVoltaic System, which would use closed-loop water to access the earth's heat and convert it to electricity, using a technology similar to the thin-film technology that captures the sun's heat. The system requires less heat than current geothermal systems, meaning 80 percent of the land in the U.S. and all 50 states could create geothermal energy, Berken president Ken Newman said.
Berken has also developed the Reclaimed Thermo-Voltaic System to capture wasted heat in energy-intensive industries like data centers, refineries and steel foundries, and convert it to carbon-free power.
"We already have the product, we already have the patents, we already have the demonstration. This will get us into the manufacturing," Newman said of what the company hopes to achieve at the symposium.
The chances of finding success at the symposium are great, McCorkle said.
"Technology-based equity fundings in America are one in a thousand," he said. "If you go through the Technology Ventures Equity Capital Symposium process, our historic success rate is one in three, which is absolutely astonishing.
"And now," he added, "it totals over a billion dollars, which is even in today's world, a billion is still real money."
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