Fostering Inland Startups

Kim Zentz has turned Spokane’s SIRTI from just another government agency into a dynamic business incubator, with success stories numbering among its clients.

Kim Zentz’s business cards should list “Problem Solver” as her official title. That, after all, is what she has successfully done time and again during her 25-year career. And that’s what she’s doing now for a state-funded agency in Spokane with the mission of nurturing startup companies, particularly in eastern Washington. 

“I am drawn to multidimensional business challenges,” says Zentz, executive director of SIRTI (Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute). “I love to see a problem and, no matter what it takes, try to rally the people involved to solve it.”

Her current position at SIRTI, the only organization of its kind in the state, has given her plenty of problems to tackle. Although the Inland Northwest region produces a great deal of innovation—particularly in areas like energy and health care—the area has been less successful at nurturing venture capital-backed companies. Only by creating more successful startups, Zentz says, can the region generate more innovation, more technology spin-offs and more jobs. “It is one of the key benefits of establishing a healthy innovation ecosystem in any community,” says Zentz.

Among SIRTI’s recent successes is Pacinian, a company that pioneered a technology for keyboards on touch screens that gives tactile feedback. Users have the sensation of typing on a real keyboard, while the small size and power efficiency of the keyboards make them desirable. The company recently received a multimillion dollar order from a major notebook computer manufacturer and signed a development agreement with a leading gaming company. “They [Pacinian] are hitting on all cylinders and are at the right place at the right time,” says Zentz.

Local leaders are effusive in their praise of the organization under Zentz’s leadership. “SIRTI plays a very useful role in the Inland Northwest in that it brings together people, ideas, technologies, facilities and investors. It is a great clearinghouse and matchmaker for the region,” says Len Jessup, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington State University. “Kim came in at a time when things were very topsy-turvy, and she has been a great stabilizing force, by team building and providing a sense of direction.”

SIRTI was established in 1994 with the goal of helping the region transition from a natural resource-based economy to one with a larger proportion of knowledge-based companies. But for many years, the organization fell far short of achieving its goals. Although it has a campus near downtown Spokane that offers entrepreneurs office space

Share this Article

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•