Tom Kelly
Since February 2003, Tom Kelly has held a joint appointment as a technology licensing associate with the Office of Intellectual Property Administration and as a finance/budget manager in the Agricultural Research Center (ARC) of WSU`s College of Agricultural , Human, and Natural Resource Sciences.
Tom specializes in seed and asexually vegetated crops and fulfills the usual functions of technology licensing; the assessment and marketing of faculty inventions, working with attorneys on patent prosecution, and licensing technologies. As a licensing associate, Tom works on marketing and licensing of released crop varieties, and works with other groups, including cereal, legume, and horticultural variety release committees, plant breeders, and Washington state commodity commissions, in his ARC role.
Between 1992 and 2003, Tom worked full-time for the ARC in various functions involving grants, contracts, research proposals, database management, and reporting. Prior to coming to WSU, Tom spent seven years with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Africa and Washington, D.C., working in private sector development; two years with Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco as a credit analysis/international banking officer; and did a tour with the Peace Corps in Cameroon, West Africa as an advisor to a cocoa/coffee cooperative.
Tom holds an M.B.A. in international management from what was formerly called the American Graduate School of International Management (now the Garvin School of International Management or simply, Thunderbird). He also holds a B.S. in marketing from the University of Utah . While working at WSU, he has completed approximately 55 hours of prerequisites and coursework towards a B.S. in geology.
Tom enjoys his work as a facilitator of the variety release process in the ARC and in the licensing of released varieties at WSURF. As international licensing becomes more and more acceptable and important to WSU constituencies, he has begun making inroads in the arena of international licensing of WSU varieties. He believes in the land-grant philosophy and takes seriously his role in helping to better the lives of the citizens of the state of Washington . He also believes in the importance of good communication (in this world of hyper-communication).
