"A Glowing Example"
Tennessee Alumnus Magazine
Spring 2006
by: Diane Ballard
Woman scientists, long a scarce commodity, are more plentiful today. But a woman scientist who's also an entrepreneur remains a rare breed.
Kimberly Kelly-Wintenberg is one of the few. In less than 5 years, she and her colleagues at Knoxville's Atmospheric Glow Technologies Inc. have grown a fledgling technology into a thriving small business with almost $8 million in federal contracts, $6.5 million in private investments, and 32 employees. Atmospheric plasma technology can decontaminate buildings, purify air, sterilize medical equipment, and perform similar tasks economically and efficiently. Last fall, AGT brought home its second R&D 100 Award, an international honor that recognizes the most promising technological inventions of the year.
It's been "almost intoxicating," Kelly-Wintenberg, AGT president and chief operating officer, says of the business's success. But the rigors of growing a company and taking it public have drawn her away from her first love: "My days of working at the laboratory bench are over. Now I focus on business development of the technology and fundraising."
She came by her scientific interests naturally. Her father was a chemist at Eastman Chemical in Kingsport, Tennessee, and her mother earned a degree in biology while Kelly-Wintenberg was in high school. Both rank extraordinarily high in their daughter's esteem. "They are the best role models I could have," she says.
Kelly-Wintenberg completed a Ph.D. in microbiology at UTK, did postdoctoral training at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and then returned to UTK as an instructor. Eventually she began working with UTK engineering professor J. Reece Roth, father of the technology that became the foundation of Kelly-Wintenberg's business. "Reece had no interest in commercializing the technology, so I worked with Mike Devine [then UTK vice--chancellor for research] to spin off the business." Roth is a professor emeritus at UTK and retains a small ownership position in AGT.
Entrepreneurs need to be gutsy, flexible, clear-headed, goal-oriented, and common-sensical, Kelly-Wintenberg says. "And you better respect others' opinions, because you can't do it all yourself. It takes teamwork."
Despite her determination, she says the transition from research to manufacturing and selling products sometimes seemed like an elusive goal. "The hardest thing was taking a very early stage technology and making it into a product," she says. "There are lots of twists and turns, and sometimes it's hard to keep your focus. It takes time. It's a daily learning process."
Kelly-Wintenberg developed good proposal-writing skills at UT, so to get the business off the ground back in 2000, she wrote a number of proposals to bring in federal contracts and grants. "One of our mottoes here is do what you do best. So I wrote grants. We took a shotgun approach," she recalls, soliciting funding for projects even remotely related to plasma technology. Most panned out, so the company was able to bring in enough money to fund core technology development, even though staff efforts were diluted by the broad spectrum of projects.
The plasma technology is what Kelly-Wintenberg calls a "platform" technology - it can be made into a number of products for different purposes - air purification, decontamination of biological warfare agents, disinfection of agricultural products, and materials processing, for example.
"Our newest product, the PlasmaAire™ TriClean Max, uses filtration to trap microorganisms and chemicals. Then the plasma oxidizes and destroys those contaminants without releasing any harmful emissions." Odors are destroyed, as well as bacteria and viruses. AGT's air-filtration system can be retrofitted to existing air conditioning and ventilation systems. When the PlasmaAire™ technology was introduced in 2002, it won an R&D 100 award.
AGT received its second R&D 100 award for the new PlasmaGen APR-510-S, which uses plasma technology to quickly and easily extract DNA samples from microorganisms. Existing methods of extracting DNA can take up to a day. Eventually applications of the technology could include testing human cells found in blood, sputum, or fecal matter for the presence of disease or biological agents.
What sets AGT's plasma apart? Or to begin at the beginning, what is plasma? It is a gas with an electrical charge, the most abundant form of matter in the universe. When you apply an electromagnetic field to a gas, it glows. Think computer monitors and plasma TV screens. AGT's plasma, Kelly-Wintenberg says, is cost-effective and simple to make. It doesn't require a vacuum system or chemicals, and it operates at normal temperatures in open air. UT owns nine patents surrounding the atmospheric plasma technology. AGT has licensed six, and has right of first refusal on the other three, she says.
Kelly-Wintenberg praises the university highly: "UT is an investor in our company. We love having a close relationship with UT. It's critical to our business to have analytical tools, and we subcontract with UT to use theirs. Having access to those instruments and testing devices that we can't afford has allowed us to build our reputation and create new jobs for the area."
"We also have two UT graduate students working with us. It gives them an opportunity to see how a small business works, and it gives us access to excellent talent."
Her roles as wife, mother, scientist, and small--business owner provide Kelly-Wintenberg a singular perspective: "As a woman, you have to establish your credibility early in the process. I think woman leaders are held to a higher standard than men. I've had people tell me women don't belong in science. Some people underestimate you - which is not altogether a bad thing! Today, it's exciting to see women taking leadership positions in managing and operating businesses - including science based ones.
"Success for me is balancing career and family; I usually go home in the evenings and do dinner and family time. I think that's important, so I work later in the evening."
She also thinks it's important to mentor young women and to replenish a community that has been good to her. "My ambition is to make this company a success and maybe do it again with another company. Ultimately I would like to establish an economic growth fund to help small start-up businesses and to give them guidance and expertise. There will always be a teacher inside me."