Matt Thomas

Director of Business Development

mthomas@sura.org

In his role as Director of Business Development, Matt Thomas promotes technology transfer and commercialization of Jefferson Lab and SURA-member university inventions and technologies.  Among other new initiatives, he created the SURAfund program, designed to bridge the "valley of death" by providing seed-stage equity investments by linking university startups with VC partners across the country.  In addition to pursuing licensing opportunities and startup companies centered around these promising new technologies, he also identifies and establishes relationships with business partners for joint research and development across all SURA program areas.

Before joining SURA in 2002, Mr. Thomas was the Chief Operating Officer at Sydcor Enterprises, an Austin, TX-based startup company providing supply chain and inventory management services to Dell Computer Corp.  Prior to that he served as Marketing Manager and Engineering Manager at a small firm in the digital imaging sector, Applied Science Fiction (recently acquired by Kodak).  He began his career at 3M Company in design engineering for the Electronic Products Division.

Mr. Thomas holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.  He and his wife Andrea and their two children live in the beautiful hill country of Austin, Texas.

SURA Organization