New UND Discovery magazine focuses on research in the marketplace
It's amazing how many businesses and services exist today because of UND research and scholarly activity.
Vice President Johnson, in her letter to readers, touched on one example and one exceptional man, Arne Brekke. As a UND professor, Arne took a scholarly spark and buffed it into a successful travel business that, to this day, is world famous for its heritage tours to and from Scandinavia and other parts of the globe.
That's but one instance in which UND research, driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, transcended the laboratory and classroom to become an economic success story in the state and region.
In this issue, you will find more stories like Brekke's. These are stories in which UND scholars spun an idea — sometimes on purpose and other times by accident — into a business or a means to enhance an existing one.
We visit with Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor Leon Osborne of the Regional Weather Information Center to see how an experiment to feed weather information to the aviation industry instead turned into a lucrative weather data and computer science business responsible for the "511 system," the most successful national weather and road condition provider for motorists.
Then there's Steffes Corp., a manufacturer based in Dickinson, which 25 years ago sought ways to strengthen itself against the boom/bust cycles of the agriculture and oil industries. The company bought the rights to a cross-disciplinary UND research project that studied the effectiveness of using electro-thermal-storage bricks to heat buildings with off-peak power. The project proved to be a great success for Steffes Corp.
UND continues to have an impact in western North Dakota's oil patch. In our cover story, we explore the relationship between UND's College of Engineering and Mines and Tioga, N.D.-based Neset Consulting Services. UND provides many of Neset's geological experts, or "mudloggers," who guide drillers toward potential sweet spots for oil production. UND's bolstered Petroleum Engineering program and the graduates it is churning out make it possible for companies like Neset to be industry leaders in the Bakken and beyond.
I hope you enjoy reading this edition of UND Discovery magazine as much as we enjoyed producing it for you!
UND Discovery is published by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development, with assistance from the Office of University Relations, Peter Johnson, executive associate vice president:
research.UND.edu
