Stony Brook University’s most energetic commercialization expert (literally) has taken the reins of the university’s tastiest business incubator (also literally).
David Hamilton, known best for shepherding early-stage energy enterprises along the road to clean-gen commercialization, is the new interim program manager of the Food Business Incubator at Calverton.
Hamilton is already the chief operating officer of Stony Brook’s Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center and executive director of the university’s Clean Energy Business Incubator Program. He now adds the food-and-beverage-focused Calverton Incubator to his crowded commercialization dance card, working alongside Building Manager Yvonne Schultz.
Together, the duo will service the off-campus incubator’s 70-plus clients, including nine who lease long-term space inside the Calverton facility and dozens of others who rent time in the incubator’s shared kitchens.
Front burner: Dozens of early-stage food companies share time in the Calverton Incubator’s state-of-the-art kitchens.
As interim program manager, Hamilton – also interim director of SBU’s Strategic Partnership for Industrial Resurgence – will oversee all operational aspects of the roughly 24,000-square-foot incubator, ensuring the building’s utilities and equipment are up to snuff.
He’ll also lend his long experience with marketing, networking, fundraising and public relations to the Calverton Incubator’s early-stage clientele – “anything we can do to help these companies be more successful,” Hamilton said Thursday.
Much as he has at CEBIP and the AERTC, Hamilton intends to work closely with other executive staffers – in Calverton’s case, with Schultz, who has led the incubator through a period of unprecedented growth since becoming building manager in 2018.
Yvonne Schultz: Vital asset.
“Yvonne is an incredible asset,” Hamilton told Innovate Long Island. “She has done an amazing job running this facility and working with the clients.
“I look forward to leveraging her expertise to create even more positive outcomes for our companies.”
While running a food-focused program may seem like a departure for a business-development expert who’s staked a hefty claim as a regional clean-energy guru, “incubation is incubation,” according to the new Calverton manager.
“Supporting these companies is all about figuring out their wants and needs and answering those as best we can,” Hamilton said. “I’m going to approach Calverton the same way I’ve approached CEBIP and the Advanced Energy Center – find out what the clients need and figure out the best way to give it to them.”
To read the article at Innovate LI, click here.