Mike Schwenk
Vice President, Commercialization, Battelle
Director, Technology Deployment and Outreach, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Mike Schwenk has more than thirty years of technical and business management experience in government, non-profit, and corporate settings. For much of that time, he has championed numerous efforts to move research out of the laboratory and into the hands of business. If this can best be characterized as technology-based economic development, then it is fair to say that is his passion.
These days Mike is wearing two hats. In his current roles for both Battelle and PNNL, his responsibilities involve coordination of all technology transfer and economic development activities. This spans a nationwide network of six DOE national laboratories and Battelle's private laboratories at the corporate headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.
Mike offers a unique perspective on how businesses large and small can gain access to—and benefit from—the vast resources of our national laboratory system to stimulate innovation and increase competitive advantage; he’s seen it and lived it from all sides. He is a vocal advocate of private and public collaboration that pairs the best of government resources and private-sector know-how to solve the nation’s most pressing challenges.
Nationally, Mike serves on the Industrial Research Institute’s Science and Technology Policy Committee and is co-chair of IRI’s Managing Technology Transfer working group. He sits on the Public Policy Advisory Committee for the International Economic Development Council, including subgroups on Innovation and Energy. Mike is an active participant in the National Academies’ University Industry Demonstration Project (UIDP), and was an invitee to the National Science Foundation’s Discovery-to-Innovation Project.
Regionally, Mike was appointed by Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire to the board for the Washington Technology Center, a statewide economic development organization focused on technology and innovation. He is heavily engaged with Washington State University, chairing both the WSU Research Foundation and the WSU-Tri-Cities Advisory Council. Closer to home, Mike chairs the Three Rivers Community Roundtable, and is chair of the Tri-City Development Council. In 2008, he was named Tri-Citian of the Year, an annual recognition awarded to an individual in the community who has demonstrated "service above self," as well as outstanding leadership and contribution for positive development, economic growth and quality of life in the Tri-Cities.
