IST founder wins SBA’s young entrepreneur award

ORONO – Debbie Neuman, director of UMaine’s Target Technology Incubator, said this week that she was glad Chris Frank has been named the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Maine Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Frank, 29, of Orono, is chief executive officer of Intelligent Spatial Technologies, which has its offices at the Target center. He is expected to receive the award May 24 at a dinner at Spectacular Events Center in Bangor.

In a letter nominating Frank for the award, Neuman wrote that the young CEO moved only a few doors down the hall at the center in 2003 when he finished his graduate work and founded his business. He took a “huge leap” emotionally and financially, however, by deciding to establish a start-up company in Maine, she indicated.

Neuman said that as director of the center, she has seen Frank change since the days he was focused on his own research as a graduate student. The technology center, located on Godfrey Drive, offers support services to early-stage technology companies.

“He’s gotten involved in much more than his own business,” Neuman said while standing by the center’s reception desk. “He’s become a real leader.”

IST’s position and potential success next week at the Las Vegas competition is proof of the kind of technological business growth that is possible in Maine, Neuman said.

In a prepared release, SBA Regional Administrator Charles Summers and UMaine President Robert Kennedy each said Frank was a logical choice for the award.

“Chris Frank exemplifies the dedication and inspiration sought in the selection of one of Maine’s top young entrepreneurs,” Summers wrote.

Frank said he was honored to receive the honor.

“I think it’s great,” he said. “People in this state are starting to see what’s possible. There are a lot of positive things going on here.”

To qualify for the award, Frank said, his company had to be both profitable and at least three years old and he had to be under the age of 30.

“It was a six-month window where all of that came together,” he said.