A Southwest Virginia-based corporate research leader is trading maroon and orange for orange and white.
Brett Malone was president of the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center for more than four years. Last week, the University of Tennessee announced that Malone has taken a similar position, running its Cherokee Farm Development Corp.
Malone is president and CEO of the corporation, whose University of Tennessee Research Park at Cherokee Farm is just across the Tennessee River from the Knoxville campus. The CFDC develops and supports real estate and innovation essential to the university’s research and development goals, according to a university news release.
The University of Tennessee built the research park in the early 2000s, to house facilities and offices for public and private research and demonstration.
“What attracted me to this opportunity was CFDC’s ambition and appetite to grow in new ways to support UT’s research priorities,” Malone said in a news release. “They have a great vision and an outstanding team, so it’s exciting to be invited to lead the organization.”
The Knoxville site is focused on clean energy and quantum computing innovations and has a strong partnership with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Malone said in a LinkedIn message exchange.
“Bittersweet to leave VT but I felt a real calling to lead commercialization of important technologies,” he wrote in the exchange.
Among its partner companies is Volkswagen’s first North American innovation hub. Another partner is Spark Innovation Center, with focuses including technology-based startups in the region, according to the news release.
Malone’s three degrees at Virginia Tech culminated with a 1996 doctorate in aerospace engineering. The year before, he co-founded software firm Phoenix Innovations at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center. It remains part of the center, serving the aerospace industry. He returned to run the Corporate Research Center after 20 years involved with companies in biotech, robotics, engineering and software.
In Malone’s time at the helm, the CRC experienced a 50% revenue increase, according to the University of Tennessee’s news release. It expanded to key research hubs across Virginia, including partnerships with the Thomas Jefferson National Lab.
Elizabeth McClanahan, CEO of the Virginia Tech Foundation, is now the CRC’s president. The foundation owns the corporate research center.
McClanahan, a retired Virginia Supreme Court justice, said in a written statement that the center is grateful for Malone’s time there.
“For four years, Brett’s spirit, enthusiasm, and view of the world as a place of abundance helped to put VTCRC on a new trajectory,” McClanahan said. “Going forward, Virginia Tech’s intellectual prowess in key industries and the University’s presence in other important Virginia locations will become even more vivid with the strategic support of VTCRC.”
