Wayne Hodges has more than thirty years experience in Innovation, Commercialization and Incubation Management.
Mr. Hodges is Vice Provost Emeritus of the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute. Prior to retirement, he was responsible for a comprehensive set of Georgia Tech services that help industry, entrepreneurs, communities and economic developers become more competitive through the application of science, technology and innovation.
As a member of the team that organized the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) in 1980, Mr. Hodges has been actively involved in the management and growth of what has become an internationally recognized technology incubator that helps entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies. Founded in 1980, ATDC is a start-up accelerator that has helped create millions of dollars in tax revenues by graduating more than 120 companies, which together have raised more than a billion dollars in outside financing. ATDC has provided business incubation and acceleration services to hundreds of Georgia startups—most of which are not based on Georgia Tech research, but which benefit from the close proximity to the university. ATDC was recently recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the ten most impactful and important science and technology incubators in the United States.
During his tenure at Georgia Tech, Mr. Hodges established and led the ATDC Seed Fund that has invested in more than 75 Georgia companies. He also initiated the formation of VentureLab at Georgia Tech. More than $50 million has been invested in the VentureLab companies that have come through the Georgia Tech VentureLab program. This proactive technology transfer program, now run by the Georgia Research Alliance for Georgia’s research universities, has been the model for similar programs at a list of other U.S. and international universities. Mr. Hodges also served as president of the Georgia Advanced Technology Ventures (GATV), a 501 C-3 organization, formed to manage and develop Technology Enterprise Park adjacent to the Georgia Tech campus.
Mr. Hodges served on the National Advisory Board for the U.S. Manufacturing Extension Partnership (part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology) and on the Executive Committee for the Southern Growth Policies Board. He also served as liaison to economic development organizations and agencies in Georgia and has been actively involved in the formation of such organizations as the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA). He has also served as president of the Georgia Economic Developers Association (GEDA) and was on the board of directors for a variety of technology-based organizations, including the Business and Technology Alliance.
Our Team
H. Wayne Hodges, Executive Director
Tiffany Wilson Karp, General Manager & Chief Operating Officer
Tiffany Wilson Karp has spent over 11 years bringing innovative medical technology from benchtop to bedside. She joined the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI) in 2011 to direct business development activities, build strategic relationships and bring together core members of the medical device ecosystem. She is working with universities, clinicians, industry, investors and startups focused on innovation, patient care and economic growth. She currently leads all day-to-day operations of the Center.Karp joined GCMI from Scientific Intake, where she served as the Vice President of Business Development & Strategy, evaluating marketing and distribution opportunities and driving product development projects for the global obesity market. Prior to Scientific Intake, Karp was Vice President of Corporate Strategy & Finance at ACell, Inc., a regenerative medicine & tissue engineering company based in Columbia, Maryland. At ACell, she led broad range of initiatives including corporate finance, investor relations, strategic & operational planning, business development, regulatory, and reimbursement. Karp began her career in management consulting and investment banking, and brings considerable US and international experience in strategic planning, business development, financial analysis, and market evaluation in technology related industries.
Karp is the current President-Elect of the Southeast Medical Device Association (SEMDA) and also serves on the board. She led the Sponsorship Committee of the 2013 SEMDA Conference and has served as the Co-Chair of the Medical Device Subcommittee of the Metro Atlanta Chamber Bioscience Leadership Council. Karp earned a BBA in International Business from Loyola University and an MBA from Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.
Mark McJunkin, Director, Operations
McJunkin brings over 20 years of concept development, design, CNC manufacturing and rapid prototyping capabilities to GCMI. Prior to joining the GCMI team, McJunkin was an instructor in the School of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Institute of Technology to build patterns of applied knowledge in learning design communication conventions and computer aided design to undergraduate engineering students. In addition, he managed the BME machine shop to demonstrate a "clean shop" mentality and founded the BME Guild mentor program that encourages self reliance, safety and curiosity in the minds of young innovators. At Tech, McJunkin worked collaboratively with academic researchers and graduate students to refine testing devices for neurological and fluidic studies, among other novel medical technologies. McJunkin founded ProductM, LLC, a design & marketing consultancy where he has designed and machined a wide range of products, including medical devices, consumer products and bicycle products. He won the IDSA bronze award for his design of the Scimeasure Analytical Systems biology CCD chip camera and has had work featured in MODA "Made in Georgia exhibit." In addition, he has worked with Lorence/Yoo Design in model building/design for fabrication and mentored under Ronnie Thomson in aerospace manufacturing quality and design for CNC manufacturing at LH Thomson Co.With proven success in both the athletic and medical technology industries, McJunkin holds numerous utility and design patents. With a unique ability to work across the many disciplines required to pull together and refine products, he leads real-time design collaboration sessions with innovators focused on getting things to "work." McJunkin is highly trained in manufacturing quality and design for CNC manufacturing and aims to produce products locally with high-tech, high-craft tools. He is an advisor to the Georgia Tech BME design curriculum and serves on an advisory committee at HSM Works, a Danish computer aided manufacturing company. McJunkin earned a Bachelors in Fine Arts with Honors in Industrial Design at Carnegie Mellon University.
Patrick Strane, Project Engineer
Patrick Strane recently joined the GCMI as a project engineer. He is a 2013 graduate of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering program at Georgia Tech and Emory University. Strane brings a unique combination of mechanical and biomedical engineering experience, preclinical research and machine shop knowledge to the GCMI team.At Georgia Tech, Strane earned a position as a research assistant in the Matrix Biology and Engineering Lab headed by Dr. Thomas Barker, Associate Professor in the Coulter Department. Strane's research focused on focal adhesion and cell migration and he was involved with a paper called Phage-based molecular probes that discriminate force-induced structural states of fibronectin in vivo, published by Dr. Barker’s lab. For his extensive work in the Matrix Biology and Engineering Lab, Strane was awarded the President’s Undergraduate Research Award (PURA).
In addition, Strane was one of 19 students to be chosen as part of the 2012 class of Petit Undergraduate Research Scholars, which provides a great avenue for determined undergraduates to pursue a high level of academic research with one-on-one mentoring from talented graduate students.
Besides research, Strane was heavily involved with the machine shop guild (BME Guild), which involved training new students to use the machines in the shop, setting up new machines and learning new machine tools to instruct others on their use. He earned a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.