| Lawrence Gastwirt came to Stevens Institute in February, 1992 as Affiliate Professor of Management and Engineering Management, and Director of the Howe School Alliance for Technology Management (then the Stevens Alliance for Technology Management, as its founding in 1991 predated the formation of the Howe School). With Dr. Lemuel Tarshis, Director of Management Technology Transfer for the Alliance, Larry instituted and leads the annual HSATM Conference, now in its eighteenth year, and the HSATM Roundtable series, which has held over 80 meetings to date. These forums provide business and government executives the opportunity to exchange ideas in a collegial environment on a broad range of issues arising in the management of technology, with faculty of the Howe School and with a network of people in a diverse group of organizations confronting similar issues. With Dr. Jack McGourty, then a PhD candidate and Research Associate with the Alliance, Larry initiated the HSATM publication Current Issues in Technology Management in 1997, and has served as editor since 2006. Forty issues have been published since its founding, providing Stevens faculty and outsiders a platform upon which to expose their research and ideas to a broad business readership. Nearly 2000 copies are distributed, in addition to posting on the HSATM web site. Working with former University Professor Aaron Shenhar, Larry initiated the practice of dedicating a portion of Alliance Partner fees to fund seed research grants to Howe School faculty. $275,000 has been distributed over the past 12 years, mostly in $10,000 grants. This funding has been multiplied several-fold by subsequent external awards based on the results of the seed grants, thus helping in an important way to advance faculty research. The grants have also resulted in many faculty publications and conference presentations. In collaboration with Professor Donald Merino and then Chairman of the Management Department Fred Jensen, Larry contributed to the design and development of the Executive Masters of Technology Management program. The program has since conferred over 800 degrees. Through its role in the development of the EMTM program, its funding of research and its marshalling of industry support, the Alliance under Larry’s leadership has played an important role in the development of the Howe School. Larry served for 12 years on the Advisory Board of the Stevens Technology Ventures Incubator, in which role he helped guide many early-stage technology companies. During this period the Incubator nurtured 52 start-up companies and raised more than $10M in external funding. |
Before coming to Stevens, Larry enjoyed a successful 30-year career with Exxon (now ExxonMobil) Chemical Company, where he managed large multi-national technology organizations, as well as chemical business operations of global scope. His experience and expertise embrace industrial R&D management, new product and new business development, operations management, product and project management, strategic planning, and strategic alliances. |
