Ames Laboratory, U. S. Department of Energy,
Ames, Iowa Ames Laboratory, U. S. Department of Energy,
Ames, Iowa Ames, Iowa -- A metallurgist with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University has won a national award for his efforts in transferring technology from the laboratory to the commercial marketplace.
Thomas Lograsso has been selected to receive the 1996 Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer from the Federal Laboratory Consortium, which represents over 700 federal labs and research facilities and more than 100,000 scientists.
Lograsso is being recognized mainly for his work as director of the Iowa Companies Assistance Program (ICAP) and manager of Ames Lab's Materials Referral System and Hotline (MRSH). In the past few years, both programs have flourished under his leadership. Lograsso also performs scientific research and serves as associate director of the Lab's Materials Preparation Center, a DOE User Facility.
Lograsso assisted in ICAP's creation in 1993 and has served as director for most of its existence. A state-funded program, ICAP has supplied nearly 200 Iowa manufacturing firms with short-term research and development assistance. Companies may receive as much as 40 hours of technical support at no cost in areas such as designing industrial processing techniques, materials analysis, quality assessment and testing, materials characterization and process improvement.
"The Iowa Companies Assistance Program gives us access to the expertise we need, and they're knowledgeable enough to apply it to the production environment," says Phil Kooima, vice president for manufacturing at the Kooima Co. in Rock Valley. In 1995, ICAP worked on over 100 projects with companies from 35 Iowa counties, including Vermeer Corp., Pella; Sauer-Sundstrand Co., Ames; Fruehauf Trailer Corp., Ft. Madison; Helco Manufacturing, Murray; and the Frigidaire Co., Webster City.
Initiated in 1983, the MRSH maintains a data base for materials preparation and characterization, as well as laboratory and commercial materials suppliers. It is regarded as the world's leading authority on sources of materials in single crystal form. As the manager of MRSH for the past four years, Lograsso has seen the number of requests grow -- over 800 last year alone from U.S. businesses, universities and other federal research facilities needing information for a variety of materials and materials characterization problems.
But for Lograsso, finding solutions to problems isn't the only reward. "I'd like to think that we have all the answers for the people who contact us, but what we're really doing is educating them," says Lograsso. "We're not just providing immediate answers, we're helping them to learn the answer. It's some teaching as well, and that will help them in the future."
Lograsso's work benefits the future of Ames Lab as well, says Otto Buck, director of the Metallurgy and Ceramics Program at Ames Laboratory. "Interacting with private companies and other research facilities helps keep the Lab informed of practical problems, stimulating some research of our own and possibly providing an alternative source of funding," says Buck. "Also, being located in central Iowa, it's very good that we can help out Iowa and Iowa companies," he adds.
Lograsso will receive the award at the Federal Laboratory Consortium National Technology Transfer Meeting in Seattle next May.
Ames Laboratory is operated for the DOE by Iowa State University. The Lab conducts research in various areas of national concern, including energy resources, high-performance computing, environmental cleanup and restoration, and the synthesis and study of new materials.
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