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Water program incorporates; moves off MSU campus – Project WET is another tech transfer success

When Dennis Nelson moved to Montana 15 years ago, he interviewed one of his first employees while she sat on a shipping box. At the time, the small office had a single employee, a desk and just one chair.

Today Nelson’s Project WET (Water Education for Teachers) http://www.projectwet.org has grown to 16 employees and has outgrown its space at Montana State University.

On July 1, the program that has spread to 50 states and 17 countries is incorporating and moving to new offices on Oak Street in Bozeman. Separate shipping and manufacturing facilities will be housed on Gold Avenue. The program will be called the Project WET International Foundation.

Nelson said Project WET’s relationship with MSU and its subsequent move off campus is similar to the way in which a number of small companies in the valley have started with an invention or an idea and grown into full-blown businesses.

"MSU originally provided us a home," Nelson said. "Now we’re successful enough to be on our own."

Nelson started Project WET while working for the North Dakota State Water Commission. Geared toward teaching basic facts about water such as the hydrologic cycle, the program trains educators how to share those facts with students using hands-on activities.

Nelson came to MSU in 1989 to launch a multistate pilot project in Montana, Idaho and Arizona. Two years later, the U.S. Department of the Interior provided major funding for the program to expand to all 50 states.

Since then, the program has spread across the globe, with programs starting recently in Costa Rica, Argentina and Fiji.

"Believe me, these countries have every water issue we do," said Nelson, who estimates his project reaches 25,000 teachers and 1 million students each year in the United States through its network of state and local education partners.

Currently funds come primarily from private sources such as philanthropist Valerie Gates, Nestle Waters, a branch of the international food and beverage company headquartered in Paris, and from publication sales.

Project WET publications have increased from a single curriculum guide, now translated into several languages, to 50 different books on water. Ten more are in production. The foundation also is adding a line of education kits based on Project WET activities.

Nelson has done a good job of taking an idea and developing it into a company with an expanding product line, according to Becky Mahurin, who heads the MSU Technology Transfer Office http://www.montana.edu/wwwvr/index.html .

"Project WET is a great example of MSU developing technology, in this case educational product, and then spinning the company out of the university," said Mahurin. "We are proud of the success of this program and know that it will continue to serve the educational community in its next phase as an independent company."

Nelson said the project benefited from MSU’s entrepreneurial environment and the ongoing support of its administration.

"I can’t emphasize enough that their support has been essential for going from a concept to where we are today," Nelson said.

The foundation plans to host an open house at its new location this fall.

For more information, visit http://www.projectwet.org

Contact: Dennis Nelson, (406) 994-5392 or [email protected]

by the MSU News Service

http://www.montana.edu/commserv/csnews/nwview.php?article=2475

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