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Jenkins MBA HiTEC Alumnus Launching Company Based on Team Project

The Entrepreneurship Collaborative (TEC) is the NC State Poole College’s home for innovative start-ups and budding entrepreneurs, serving as an ‘entrepreneurial ecosystem’ that reaches far beyond the NC State University campus.

The latest example of their work is Tethis Water Treatment Systems, a new venture that got its start in Poole College’s Jenkins MBA high technology entrepreneurship and commercialization (HiTEC) course sequence. It was recently nominated for The National Council for Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer’s University Startups Showcase. The company also is one of 23 semi-finalists competing for funding in the NC IDEA’s fall 2012 grant cycle.

The company, led by Scott Bolin, co-founder and chief executive officer, has begun to commercialize a new technology to be used in hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking.’ This process involves pumping water, sand, and chemicals deep underground in order to extract natural gas, and has great potential to boost domestic energy production. This advance in extraction technology has led to a 600% increase in natural gas production since 2006, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Tethis’ filtration process will allow dirty water from the fracking process to be cleaned on site where the gas wells are drilled. Traditionally, truck drivers with hazmat licenses are paid to bring the dirty water to treatment facilities off-site – a slow and expensive process.

“Not only is our onsite service cheaper, but it allows reuse of all of this waste water for future wells, reduces the water treatment costs by about half and the overall cost per well by 20 percent,” said Bolin.

The team’s technology acts like a sponge through which the dirty water passes and is desalinated. A belt press filter is used to extract the desalinated water, which can then be reused. The entire set up is versatile, efficient, portable and easy to operate, he said.

“We need to fit with what the industry is currently using. That means we need to have a treatment device that fits on a tractor trailer skid, that uses a minimal amount of electricity and is simple to use with little training,” Bolin said.

Tethis, which recently incorporated, is looking to attract seed capital that will enable the company to begin manufacturing and selling its technology to various oil and gas companies. With the potential growth in the natural gas industry, there could be significant interest.

“We’ve never had a single industry insider ever say anything but positive things about our idea,” Bolin said. “We’re very fortunate to be plugged in to a legacy of NC State entrepreneurs, and we want to be able to do them right and pay it forward.”

This venture reflects Poole College’s mission, which is to provide real world management education for technology oriented individuals.

HiTEC, which is part of the Jenkins MBA programs’ entrepreneurship and technology commercialization concentration, was established with an NSF grant that was awarded in 1994, shortly after the college was established in 1992, to a multidisciplinary team that included management and engineering faculty teaching graduate students in engineering, management and other disciplines across the NC State campus.

That makes it the oldest concentration in the college’s Jenkins MBA program – which now includes seven concentrations – and continues to be led by a cross-disciplinary team including Poole College’s entrepreneurship faculty and faculty in NC State’s College of Engineering. In addition, serial entrepreneurs bring real world perspective through their mentorship of the student teams. The focus of this concentration is to teach the students how to assess the commercialization potential of new technologies coming out of NC State and other universities in the University of North Carolina system and other sources, said Roger Debo, HiTEC program director.

The companies started by those student teams have helped to attract over $250 million dollars to Triangle businesses over the years and have provided consulting and training services to Fortune 500 companies. Their HiTEC model is being used by universities in the U.S. and abroad.

In the past year, Poole College’s graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurship faculty launched The Entrepreneurship Collaborative (TEC), to serve as an entry point for faculty, students, mentors and others interested in engaging with Poole College’s graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurship education and research community.

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