To strengthen the culture of entrepreneurship that integrates and supports continuum of technological entrepreneurship across the campus, RPI established a new position of Vice Provost for E*ntrepreneurship. Robert A. Chernow is founder and president of Educational Services for Entrepreneurship, a nonprofit organization assisting universities in shaping their entrepreneurship initiatives. In this role, he has assisted with benchmarking, strategic planning, curriculum redesign and launching new student and alumni programs. He was a consultant to Entrepreneurship,Innovation and Leadership Institute at Howard University, serves as a volunteer at   Massachusetts   Institute of Technology's Deshpande Center and has also provided consulting services to a number of other colleges and universities.

Mr. Chernow recently completed an "Atlantic Fellowship" in entrepreneurship working with the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the HM Treasury in the United Kingdom to develop an entrepreneurship position paper culminating in recommendations to make the U.K. a more enterprising nation. This high-level government initiative incorporates business, academic, science, and technology initiatives proposed to be infused at all levels of the public, private, and academic sectors. Before forming his own consultancy in 2004, Mr. Chernow served as senior vice president and head of entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where he worked with universities, women's/minority organizations, and angel/venture capitalists to expand entrepreneurship programs. At the Kauffman Foundation, he created models for introducing entrepreneurship into all disciplines on a university campus.

Robert Chernow's interests in entrepreneurship are founded on a 21 year career in the health care industry specializing in health care data analysis and technology. He served as president and chief operating officer at Intelliclaim Inc., Norwalk, Conn.; principal, Global Human Resources Solutions at PricewaterhouseCoopers, New York, N.Y.; president and chief executive officer, New York and Presbyterian Health Plan, New York, N.Y.; senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Value Health Inc., Avon, Conn.; and president, Managed Care Services Group at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Westport, Conn.

He has founded two companies in the health care management sector: Corporate Health Strategies, New Haven , Conn. , and World Specialists Online, Westport , Conn. , and Sao Paulo , Brazil . He grew Corporate Health Strategies to $50 million in revenues and negotiated its sale to Metropolitan Life, assuring MetLife's re-entry into managed care.

Throughout his career, Mr. Chernow has served as a guest lecturer at universities including MIT, Stanford, and the Harvard Business School, as well as the U.N. Business Council and the organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He earned a B.A. in Economics from Colgate University and an M.P.H. in Health Care Management from the University of California, Berkeley.

Since its inception, the Incubator Program's mission has been "giving life to new ideas." It is rooted in the firm belief that ideas both come from the University and are drawn to it. It is the Incubator's goal to augment the University's special role of providing a fertile environment for the growth and development of new ideas, and additionally to create opportunities for the application and further evolution of those ideas into the greater community through the channels of commercial activity. This greater mission encompasses three core objectives:

VARPI, an umbrella education and networking organization for technological ventures in the Incubator, the Rensselaer Tech Park , and the Capital Region at large. VARPI holds educational workshops and presentations on issues critical to new businesses.

Rensselaer Technology Park is a university related park for technology ventures seeking a unique environment focused on the interface between industry and education. A fundamental objective of the Park is to develop interactions between tenant companies and the university. Such interactions enrich the educational environment of the university and help the companies stay on the leading edge of their technologies. All companies in the Park automatically become "affiliates" of Rensselaer and members of the "Venture Affiliates of RPI." Building a synergistic environment is a responsibility shared by all members of the Park staff.

The Technology Park is the owner/developer/operator of multi-tenant rental space in the Park. 13 buildings comprising 425,000 square feet of space have been developed and the leasing/fit-up/management is administered by the Park office.

Established in 1988, the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship lies at the core of the school's mission to educate future entrepreneurs who will guide their organizations in the conversion of technical ideas into new businesses, products, services, and solutions. The Severino Center is a key part of the overall Entrepreneurship Program (the Vice Provost for E*ntrepreneurship Chairs the Severino Committee). Through outreach programs, education, collaborative research, and publications, the SCTE responds to the call of the new economy by helping to support the work of aspiring entrepreneurs-many of who will become the business leaders of the 21st century.