CIC Appoints New Executive Director

By Susan Kim, STAFF WRITER

The Chesapeake Innovation Center (CIC), Anne Arundel County's business accelerator for homeland and national security technology, has appointed Sarah Djamshidi as its new executive director. She comes to the incubator after serving as director of the University of Maryland Technology Advancement Program.
"I've been around tech startups and I've been working with tech entrepreneurs for awhile," said Djamshidi while glancing toward the bigger picture. "It's a global business economy. I don't think you can ignore that trend. In working with startups that have a local focus, the idea is to help them have a global outlook."
Many Anne Arundel County-based companies are locally headquartered, but globally focused, Djamshidi said, noting that the CIC will continue to bridge the county's emerging technology with government buyers.
She has seen many small businesses succeed or fail, but added that there is no "silver bullet" that leads to that rise or fall of a particular business.
"Companies fail for many reasons," she said. "Some are predictable, but some aren't. Every single startup is occurring in a different marketplace. It's a matter of the right time and the right demand. And then you can peel all of those things back and look at the founder's personality and key skill sets."

Members Progress
The CIC debuted in 2003. Located on Admiral Cochrane Drive in Annapolis, it's located in what is known as the "Informatics Corridor," given its close proximity to the National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, Capitol Hill, The Pentagon, and major defense contractors, universities and private sector customers in the Baltimore-Washington region. It offers resources and contacts that help launch and grow businesses.
PharmAthene, which specializes in the development of effective medical countermeasures to a range of potential biological and chemical weapons, joined the CIC in 2003 and graduated in 2007.
"We are grateful to the Anne Arundel Economic Development Corporation for supporting the CIC," said David Wright, PharmAthene president and CEO. "The services and contacts provided by the CIC have been an invaluable resource for our company, particularly during our formative years. Since joining the CIC in 2003, PharmAthene has successfully grown from an organization of one to now more than 35 full-time positions in Anne Arundel County, with additional offices in Canada."
The CIC also builds invaluable bridges for its members, said Chris Sleat, chief technology officer for another CIC graduate, Inclinix, which is now based in Wilmington, N.C. Inclinix is the result of the 2006 merger between CIC member Realinterface Expert Systems Inc. (RESI) and PharmaTech Solutions.
Inclinix is an enrollment contract research organization and provides pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical-device organizations with a comprehensive, yet flexible, standard operating procedure for clinical trial enrollment success.
"The merger allowed us the opportunity to embed our RESI technologies more deeply into the pharmaceutical marketplace and could not have happened without our connection to the CIC," said Sleat.

Track Record
For her part, Djamshidi said she is hoping to build on the CIC's track record.
"At this point, I want to try to understand and strengthen the capabilities of the CIC," she said. "I believe in the mission of the CIC. My goal first and foremost is to continue to create value for all the constituents we have."
With the variety of companies involved in the CIC, Djamshidi is sure of one thing: Her work life will be vastly diverse. "I can't say one day will ever be the same as the next," she said.