Tom is the Executive Director of Cornell’s Center for Regional Economic Advancement (CREA) and is a Visiting Lecturer at the Johnson Graduate School of Management. CREA’s programs include Rev: Ithaca Startup Works, the Southern Tier Startup Alliance, and support of Cornell’s regional economic advancement efforts. Tom leads the Upstate NY I-Corps Node, and is the lead instructor for Cornell Engineering’s Commercialization Fellows program. He serves on the teaching team for eLab, Cornell’s student business accelerator, and teaches entrepreneurship and business strategy at Cornell.

He is an experienced entrepreneur having served as a startup founder and senior finance executive of high-growth companies. Previously, he was Director of Finance for the Triad Foundation, where his responsibilities included investing the Foundation’s $250m portfolio to top-quartile returns. His board affiliations include the Cornell Agriculture and Food Technology Park and Tompkins County Area Development, and as board vice-chair of the Business Incubator Association of New York State. Tom co-chairs the Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council’s Innovation Culture workgroup.

Tom has an AB and MBA from Cornell, where he was a recipient of the MBA program’s Albert J. Fried Fellowship for Leadership and Academic Excellence. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

As Director of CNYBAC, Kathi promotes effective and transparent operational procedures for the 60,000 square foot specialized multi-use biotech facility, CNYBAC.  The infrastructure supports innovation commercialization.   Kathi develops biotech innovation-oriented programs, coordinates resources and promotes educational and investment opportunities for clients and the startup community.  Kathi mentors medical device innovators relative to Good Clinical Practice regulations, FDA submission requirements and device classification as well as human factors usability testing.  Kathi created the Medical Device Innovation Challenge supported by a five-year $625,000 Empire State Development NYS Certified Business Incubator grant.  The grant also funds in part the Concept to Commercialization Boot Camp developed in partnership with High Tech Rochester and NYS Science+Technology Law Center.

Kathi volunteers as a GCP Instructor for the not-for-profit 15,000-member educational organization Society of Clinical Research Associates (SOCRA) and is founder and chair of the SOCRA NYS Chapter and SOCRA Annual Medical Device Conference, now in its 12^th year.  Kathi is also a member of the Business Incubator Association of NY (BIANYS) Board of Directors, a member of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Human Factors Engineering Committee and has been nominated to the Volunteer Faculty at Upstate Medical University (appointment in process) and the MedTech Advisory Board.

Kathi holds Bachelor’s degrees in English and Anthropology and a Master’s degree in Business.  Previously, Kathi was employed at Welch Allyn, a medical device manufacturer, as Manager of Clinical Affairs and as Director, Clinical Trials at SUNY Upstate Medical University.  Kathi is married to Pete Durdon, has 3 wonderful daughters who live in the area and has 5 energetic grandchildren.

 He is an award-winning developer whose previous incubator in 2012 won one of the most prestigious incubator awards in the world, the Dinah Adkins Incubator of the Year, General and Special Focus, from the National Business Incubator Association (NBIA). Mr. Herz has had a long career in public service, where he developed laws on incubation, the film tax credit, and many other tax benefits and credits, and many programs, including the NYS Elder Law, and the Arts & Cultural Affairs Law. He has been a business consultant, helping develop biotechnology in China and other places, and new economic development programs in New York City. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, a published poet, and publisher and editor, with his colleagues Steve Kuusisto and Andrea Scarpino, of the Nine Mile Magazine and Book Series. 

Arber Ruci has been leading and advising startups for 10 years.

Currently he is the Industrial Advisor and co-PI of a National Science Foundation PFI – RF (Partnership for Innovation – Research Partnership) focused on creating and commercializing Indoor Navigation systems for Blind/Visually Impaired and Neurodiverse people.

He has served as Industry Mentor for three National I-Corps teams. As Director of the NYC Innovation Hot Spot, Arber is responsible with engaging the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem and serves as liaison to thirty-two City, State and Federal funded business incubators. In this position he coordinates NYC incubators and is called upon to review and judge various grants and innovation competitions.

Additionally, Arber also serves as the Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the NYC Regional Innovation Node where he helps new ventures with partnerships and fundraising.

Prior to relocating back to NYC, Arber was CEO of an Internet-of-Things startup for 8 years. He spent 5 years at Stanford University in California as a student, consultant and vendor, where he was immersed in the Lean Startup Methodology – the entrepreneurship training program run by NYCRIN and the NYC Innovation Hot Spot.