October 29, 2020 – 

Diverse Capabilities and a Focus on Employees Fuel Crystal Steel’s Growth and Success in Delaware and Beyond

Emad Mohamed was traveling for work in the Philippines and Japan in late February, and as he returned in early March, his first priority was to talk to owner Bill Lo about the coronavirus.

“It was already a big deal there, and I knew this was going to be serious,” says Mohamed, executive vice president for Crystal Steel Fabricators, which has expanded from its headquarters in Delmar, Delaware, to five additional locations in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Tennessee and Manila in the Philippines. “We immediately started daily meetings, closed the shop break room, sent crews to clean the common areas in each facility, segregated shifts (to clean between them), closed existing bathrooms and rented portable bathrooms to which staff members were assigned and limited movements between departments, all in an effort to minimize contact between employees.”

But Crystal Steel went even further. They checked temperatures daily; upgraded the existing time-clock phone application; bought lunch for everyone for three months; and made it clear that employees with symptoms or high temperatures should stay home. They even paid affected employees before the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program loan was made available.

The result? Zero cases of COVID-19 at its Delmar and Federalsburg facilities since the pandemic started.

Crystal Steel furnishes and installs structural steel and miscellaneous metals to job sites up and down the East Coast and to parts of the Southeast. The types of projects it has worked on includes government buildings, medical facilities, education structures, historic renovations and sports venues.

Employees – the Primary Driver of Crystal Steel’s Growth and Success

Mohamed feels that Crystal Steel’s focus on its employees is the primary driver behind its growth and success. When he joined the 28-year-old family-owned business in 2006, it was doing about $15 million to $20 million in revenue. The company brought in $130 million last year, and Mohamed says they’re on pace to do $150 million this year, even with the challenges of the pandemic.

“We are using more technology, have started using robotics, and we hope to expand our second shift, but we’re being very careful with COVID and making sure we have the proper number of people working with a proper amount of spacing between them,” he said, adding that the company currently employs around 300 people with 75 of them in Delaware.

Even as it opens facilities in other places, Crystal Steel Fabricators says Delaware is home.

“This is a very friendly state, and political leaders and staff have been there over the years to help us,” says Mohamed. “There was a point when we needed more power, and the power company told us it would cost $120,000 to upgrade. Governor Markell visited us, made a call, and a year or so later we had the power we needed at no cost.”

Another visitor, U.S. Senator Chris Coons, stepped in a few years ago to urge the American embassy in Manila to issue visas so the company could train some of its Manila-based project managers. The embassy agreed, and about 15 employees have been able to visit Crystal Steel facilities to learn firsthand about the company’s U.S.-based manufacturing processes.

More recently, Crystal Steel partnered with a third party to develop LEAN manufacturing processes. This effort was aided by the Delaware Division of Small Business awarding a $72,000 grant to support the company’s investment of about $300,000.

“Success to me starts with people and safety, helping to give them the skills to have a career, not just a job,” Mohamed says. “When I see someone move from being a welder to foreman to plant manager and then to project manager, that feels like a personal success. We often hire people who have just been released from jail. We like to give them the opportunity to turn around their lives.”

A One-stop Shop for Structural Steel and Miscellaneous Metals

Bring When talking about the company’s projects, think in terms of “thousands of tons” of steel. Some of its recent projects include the Dulles Airport Metrorail for Bechtel, the Meritus Medical Center in Hagerstown, Maryland, that required 3,200 tons of steel, and the United States Tennis Association Grandstand and South Campus (1,600 tons) in Flushing Meadows, New York, where the U.S. Open is held.

“We are fortunate to have been able to participate in monumental projects, such as the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C., and ‘Empty Sky’ – the September 11 memorial in Jersey City, New Jersey – that will last hundreds of years,” Mohamed adds.

Each project offers a unique challenge in terms of the intricacy of the work. Mohamed likes to say simply that Crystal Steel does complex projects due to diverse capabilities.

“What differentiates us is that we’re a one-stop shop for structural steel and miscellaneous metals,” he says. “Most of our competitors do either or. We have a large in-house engineering team that offers services that others normally sub out. And we have enough people that we offer the capacity to be consistent and react very quickly to fast-track jobs. We do the very complex jobs that often scare other fabricators away.”

Closer to home, Crystal Steel worked on the new $314 million Bayhealth Medical Center in Milford, supplying 3,000 tons of steel and participating in an increasingly popular process called integrated project delivery (IPD), in which the designer, builder and major subcontractors work closely together from the outset. They share the same contract, and, if they deliver a project under budget, they all share some of the savings.

“IPD involves companies like ours in the project development from the start, which doesn’t normally happen in hard bids,” says Mohamed. “It’s often too late to do major changes in hard bid jobs, but under IPD, we were able to reduce the project cost by about $750,000 just by providing valued engineering during the design process and sharing equipment among the subcontractors.”

Growth over the last 28 years has come through acquisition, industry-specific certification to do government jobs and organic growth.

“We’re proud of the fact that we’ve been at the forefront of the digital revolution in the construction industry,” notes Mohamed, “because our teams are focused on finding new ways to collaborate to shorten the time from contract to delivery.”

Stay Up To Date With Delaware

October 22, 2020 – 

Wilmington, Delaware Company Enters Its Next Growth Phase

Last summer, Prelude Therapeutics was at a turning point. Founded in 2016, the Wilmington-based biopharmaceutical company is developing multiple experimental cancer therapies, three of which are in the clinical stage. Clinical development, however, requires significant funding. What’s more, the company is outgrowing its office and lab space — now housed in two buildings. 

To fulfill the requirements of the Delaware Strategic Fund, Prelude must hire more people by 2022. Certainly, Prelude needs to increase its staff to support its growing research and development activities.

Like many young life science companies, Prelude has yet to make a profit and relies on investors. In August, the company raised $50 million in a Series C round led by existing investors including OrbiMed Advisors and new investor Fidelity Management & Research Co.

Repeatedly tapping private investors and other sources, however, takes time and energy and can be distracting from focusing on research and development. So, it’s easy to see why an initial public offering is appealing. 

“If you want to continue to grow the company — and remain independent — an IPO offers two opportunities,” explains Kris Vaddi, founder and CEO of Prelude Therapeutics. “Public markets tend to give you higher valuation than private investors and can support the funding needs of a company with a growing pipeline; it could be 10-plus years before we can become profitable.” 

An IPO also offers liquidity to any angel or private investors who aren’t interested in long-term commitments, he adds.

Prelude initially filed with the SEC to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering, then increased the amount to $150 million.

On Friday, Sept. 25, at 11:30 a.m., trading began. (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Securities are the joint underwriters, and the symbol is PRLD on NASDAQ.)

By the end of the day, Prelude had raised $158.2 million, selling 8.3 million shares at   $19 per share. “All in all,” Vaddi says, “it was a successful outcome.”

Creating the Foundation

Credit Vaddi’s reputation and his team’s research for the positive results. 

A native of India, Vaddi has doctorate degrees from two universities, including the University of Florida. He moved to Delaware as a post-doctorate fellow at the DuPont Co. and later worked for DuPont Pharmaceuticals. 

In 2001, Vaddi and some colleagues left DuPont to join Incyte, then a Palo Alto, California, genomics company. Needing fresh talent and a new direction, Incyte moved to Wilmington, where it’s now based. 

Vaddi and his peers helped reinvent the company with Jakafi, the first federally approved medication for two bone marrow disorders. Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug, it’s brought in more than $1 billion in sales for Incyte.

With $5 million in seed funding, Vaddi started Prelude Therapeutics at the University of Delaware STAR Campus. The company later moved to the Delaware Innovation Space, formerly the Delaware Experimental Station. 

As Prelude grew, it rented separate administrative offices in addition to the lab space. But the company is still significantly expanding. Delaware has approved a total of $834,090 in grants for Prelude contingent upon hiring goals.

Enter the IPO, which can help fund new offices, clinical trials and new product development.

Painting the Big Picture

According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, Prelude is the fifth Philadelphia-area life sciences company to go public in 2020. The others include Bio, Harmony Biosciences, Ayala Pharmaceuticals and Annovis Bio.

Experts recommended Prelude as a long-term investment, which is favored by institutional investors and mutual funds, Vaddi says. These groups see Prelude’s appeal to big pharma, which needs smaller companies to pioneer innovative therapies.

Prelude is currently in clinical trials using orally administered small molecule inhibitors as cancer therapy for solid tumors, including brain tumors. A third trial will focus on cancers of the blood, bone marrow or lymph nodes. 

If the therapies are successful, large pharmaceutical companies may wish to purchase the drug or Prelude. That, however, is not part of Vaddi’s immediate vision. 

To start, he’d like to find larger offices and labs in Delaware, which is a hub for scientists with relevant training. “There is plenty of talent right here,” he maintains. 

Delaware officials are “very customer-oriented,” he says. “They always asked us what we needed, and they followed through — every step of the way.” 

Speaking of steps, the IPO was a significant one on the way up to the next level, he says. 

To be sure, Prelude is no longer an early-stage company, although “that is where my heart is,” says the entrepreneur. Even so, he doesn’t want to sell the therapies or even his company to a larger firm. Prelude may form strategic partnerships with other companies to market the drugs on a global level.

“My goal is to build a company that will outlast my lifetime and be an enduring company that will deliver really important medicines to patients,” he says. 

Stay Up To Date With Delaware

October 5, 2020 –

“I had steel-toed boots when I was very young,” Peggy Del Fabbro said about her early exposure to M. Davis & Sons Inc., one of the leading industrial and construction contractors in Delaware, where she has been CEO for over a decade.

Del Fabbro was born and raised in Wilmington, attending Brandywine High School and graduating from the University of Delaware with a degree in business. “M. Davis has been in my family for five generations. I grew up hearing all of the stories. My dad would take me out to job sites as a kid. It’s been part of my entire life.”

As a kid, spending time with her father at the paper mills where M. Davis worked projects gave Del Fabbro a unique perspective. “A lot of people really don’t see how things are actually made. It’s incredible to see water and either pulp from a tree or cotton rags becoming paper. And then seeing things like cups being made at Sweetheart Cup in Baltimore from the flat materials in the press.”

But Del Fabbro wanted to be a veterinarian, with her strong love of animals since she was a child. “High school chemistry defeated me, so I was lucky to have a strength in accounting, which I enjoyed and was exposed to in our business.”

Del Fabbro took over the role of CEO in 2008, just as the economy went into a deep recession. She considers it the biggest highlight of her M. Davis career so far. “I look back at that time and realize that I had the guts to make it through that. How at that time our sales were $41 million and now we’re over $80 million. But that said, it’s not all about me, and I did not accomplish that alone.”

Del Fabbro holds elements of M. Davis’ history as part of what guided her through that challenging period. “I was aware of our experience (with economic challenges) in the past, and looked closely at what helped us. It isn’t that sophisticated and really is about knowing where you stand.” Knowing where they stand was effectively a combination of controlling costs and having difficult conversations about what was and what was not working at the time. “The sooner we could identify where something wasn’t working, the sooner we could act and make better decisions, and that is still my overarching approach today,” Del Fabbro says.

Women’s Business Enterprise National Council

While dealing with the challenges of 2008, Delfabbro became certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), which opened up a lot of doors for M. Davis.

“It helped the company, but it also helped me to grow as an owner of the business. Learning from other women who own businesses is just invaluable. A lot of those women had the guts to start those businesses from scratch, and what I’ve learned from them has been so beneficial. And how they have reached out and had us work together during this pandemic has been critical.”

Beyond the direct assistance Del Fabbro has received from WBENC, it has also affected her ability to connect with existing clients and attract new ones. “Every market I serve is there. It was almost overwhelming to prepare for meetings because it was so wide. So I have a color-coded spreadsheet for that, of course.” Relationships made at WBENC have helped introduce Del Fabbro to other female leaders in traditionally male-dominated industries.

Commitment to Continuous Improvement

Del Fabbro’s leadership strategy is concise, but not simple. “I appreciate the people that I work with, and I strive to put them in a position where they can be successful. If I can do that, the company will be successful. My style is common sense and down to earth, if the message gets convoluted it often gets misunderstood.”

“I am always looking for continuous improvement. The moment I think, ‘We’re good,’ is when I know we are in trouble.” Del Fabbro finds communication to be one of her biggest challenges since the company is so physically spread out. “With all of our recent growth, I find myself constantly looking at areas we need to improve or make more efficient or safer.”

M. Davis’ management of the COVID pandemic has been informed both by the challenges of 2008 as well as helped by the strategies she’s put into place since then. “We were hit really hard back in March, and I look at the workload we have now and think this is really good, but it’s still a problem.” Every week in the M. Davis newsletter Del Fabbro reminds her team of what it will take to maintain the workload in the midst of a pandemic. “Safety is the biggest threat to our workload, period.”

M. Davis’ strong connection to students interested in trades has been uniquely successful in the last two decades. 

“Years ago we realized there would be a shortage of people working in construction.” At that point, M. Davis had established relationships with the vocational-technical school districts in Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, where they could find students interested in the trades.

“We brought in students to co-op in their senior year to get hands-on experience. Those kids could then come out of high school, and if they liked the experience they had at M. Davis, they could find themselves with a full-time job, with benefits and no student debt, and then also continue on in the Delaware Apprenticeship Program with whom we have a strong relationship,” Del Fabbro says.

“After three to four years with us, they end up with their Journeyman Papers (a certification of completed training as an apprentice), which is just as valuable as a college degree. In some cases more valuable as they don’t have the debt. Earn while you learn.”

College, Del Fabbro says, is not for everybody. “Kids that like to work with their hands, or even on computers and automation, can find perfect spots in companies like ours. We need to change the perception of these jobs, these careers.”

Terry Webb and the Path to Leadership at M. Davis

Terry Webb created a 19-year career at M. Davis by starting with an apprenticeship. After graduating from Delcastle Technical High School in Wilmington, Webb took a position at M. Davis that immediately connected him to the Delaware Apprenticeship Program. “I knew it was a pathway for me because the education leads to Journeyman Papers that I will have with me for life.” Webb is now a foreman at the company.

Webb has graduated from State of Delaware apprenticeship programs in sheet metal, electrical, HVAC and plumbing.

“The apprenticeship programs that I graduated from really expanded my knowledge in that trade, along with the working hours I had to graduate. While the classes were technical and not focused on leadership, I found that having more knowledge and education put me on the path to leadership at M. Davis & Sons.”

When asked, “Why Delaware?” Del Fabbro immediately says, “Why not?”

“I always say, it’s two hours from everywhere. It’s easy to ship globally from here, which is critical for us. It’s a great location to springboard from. The weather can be challenging but, knock on wood, we don’t have too many extremes.”

M. Davis’ recent cooling tower project for DuPont is an example of why Delaware and Delaware relationships work well for M. Davis.

“We told them up front that we believed we might have a better way, a safer way with better quality, a shorter timeline and, by the way, would save money. Because they know us and trust us, they were willing to take that risk. For me, that is the perfect situation.”

When asked about another Delaware business that inspired her, Del Fabbro is quick to mention Dogfish. “That’s an easy one. I love them. We’ve worked with them close to 15 years. They are a family business and a nationally recognized brand, but they have not really changed who they are.”

M. Davis is a classic Delaware company that leads from the idea that “knowing where you come from” and honoring the relationships and skills developed from this leads to success. From a childhood of watching her family navigate M. Davis through many of the larger corporations in the area, to the challenge of leading a company in a male-dominated industry, Del Fabbro has taken the business where she came from and amplified its success. 

Stay Up To Date With Delaware

October 2, 2020 – 

Earlier this year, as they were approaching just their second anniversary, CEO Craig Wensell, CFO Keith Hughes and VP of Marketing John Fusco of Wilmington Brew Works holed up in their expansive Miller Road location to discuss the state’s then-recently announced phased re-opening. Their navigation of the COVID-19 pandemic since then has been both successful and a testament to the partners’ collaboration and the strategic partnerships they have created along the way.

“We were almost dead in the water there for a little bit,” Hughes recalls. “There was a national shortage of crowlers and growlers, and there was nowhere to put the beer we were making. It seemed like every day there for a while, something would happen that had us trying to figure out how to keep the lights on.”

Throughout the pandemic, local breweries, along with the Delaware Brewers’ Guild, have worked to keep breweries up to date with changing restrictions. They also have come together to help each other out when supplies have run short.

“We put out a call because we were very low on crowlers,” Wensell says. “And, lo and behold, Drew [Rutherford] from Stitch House reached out right away and helped us out.” 

Pivoting quickly also helped.

“On the weekend of March 13, I was on the computer all weekend building a website to allow us to take online orders for pickup,” Fusco says. “We were able to launch that the day the government shut us down. At the end of that week, we could not believe how much business we had done.” 

The three actually have been together for a long time, working as very early collaborating partners on Bellefonte Brewing Company. Fusco did the logo and design work for that, Hughes put the business plan together, and Wensell brewed the beer.

“Building a good team is very hard,” Hughes says. “[It is often important] to understand when not to get involved in something. We are all very Type A here, which is usually a tough situation to have, that many opinions. You have to respect the person and their role, which I think we do a good job with here.”

The Homebrewers Connection

Hughes and Fusco originally connected with Wensell as homebrewers.

“[Ed Mulvihill] at Peco’s Liquor told me there was someone I should meet who was creating great beer,” Hughes remembers. “I was involved early on with some of the financial parts of Bellefonte, and when this came around I was excited to be a part of it.”

The trio, Fusco says, developed their own design ethos for how they wanted to do everything. For example, he says, the naming convention for their brews.

“[That] came from the very first beer that we ever put out called Superfluous Nomenclature, Fusco says. “We wanted something difficult to read, with long words that could introduce people to new vocabulary. We have a big list of weird words that we collect and try to match with each other.”

“Our most recent beer, Sartorial Absence, came from a podcast I was listening to about the history of clothing. The word ‘sartorial’ kept coming up and making me laugh. We then had Dave Sanchez [from Spaceboy Clothing] design our label for that, which was a lot of fun.”

Sartorial Absence also brought a bit of notoriety to Wilmington Brew Works with a Facebook post that was posed to look like Wensell was brewing beer without clothing. That, Wensell reassures, was “all staged.”

Wilmington Brew Works’ first collaboration had occurred when Wensell was approached by Herb Inden, Wilmington’s director of Planning and Development, with a conveniently located spot just off Interstate 95. The location had been empty close to 20 years, Wensell says, and the city did an “incredible” job preparing it for the new brewery. 

The building itself was created by Francis Irénée du Pont after he left the DuPont Company in 1917. The long, winding Spanish Mission style was unique for this region. Blueprints from some of du Pont’s many patents, which include the first steam-powered car, a liquid vending machine and a steam power plant, all hang inside the brewery. 

La Pizzeria Metro

Another of Wilmington Brew Works’ many collaborations, the on-site addition of La Pizzeria Metro, has arguably been the most valuable. Metro is one of the hottest restaurants in the city, and the Wilmington Brew Works trash cans typically are piled high with pizza boxes at the end of each night.

“I spent four months in Naples,” Fusco says, “and Metro and Pizzeria Vetri in Philly are the only things close.” 

Wensell calls this collaboration “perfect from the start” as the Wilmington Brew Works team never sought to be a brewpub or enter the actual restaurant business.

Wilmington Brew Works attributes a lot of its pre-pandemic success to the multipurpose Alamo Room, which is physically connected to La Pizzeria Metro. The Alamo has hosted parties, concerts, plays, games and even yoga.

“We’ve had so many people tell us, ‘We’d never been here before. This place is wonderful. We’re coming back,’” Hughes says. “Or we’d get calls on Monday from people who were at parties wanting to schedule their own.”

Wensell notes that among the range of activities taking place in the Alamo Room, one, in particular, has been a specialty. Spoken word, he says, is a niche they have been able to fill. 

“We’ve had comedy and Delaware Shakespeare,” he says. “The [Delaware Poet Laureates], the Twin Poets, played back there and were fantastic. And these things have consistently drawn a great response to the point that things sell out, and people call and harass me on the phone. They want to speak with the manager.” 

Hyper-focused Local Approach

The combination of this niche community, great beer, a convenient location and a relaxed and inclusive atmosphere makes Wilmington Brew Works unique to the region. Wensell notes that one of their most surprising demographics has been parents of young children and mothers with babies who are looking for somewhere they can be comfortable.

“We have these long tables because we want to encourage people to come, hang out and meet strangers,” he says. “So many people have met friends here for the first time.” 

The hyper-focused local approach has been a win for Wilmington Brew Works, creating a microcosm of a small town in its offerings.

“It’s allowed us to really focus on what we do – it’s like we are not really competing with other breweries so much as ourselves,” Wensell says. “Ultimately, the COVID shutdown was a fantastic opportunity for us.

“Our team looked at it as the excuse we needed to take the steps we were going to have to make anyway.”

Stay Up To Date With Delaware

September 28, 2020 – 

NEW CASTLE, DE — Put a fedora on her head and a bullwhip in her hand and Erica Nemser would be Delaware’s version of Indiana Jones as she and her team at Compact Membrane Systems (CMS) search for the chemical equivalent of the Holy Grail.

The Holy Grail in this case is separating chemicals known as olefins and paraffins through membranes rather than distilling them. These membranes separate the gases used to create plastics (olefins) from kerosene and other products (paraffins). 

Refineries primarily use a heating process that requires massive distillation columns. These and other industrial separations account for more than 10% of the nation’s energy consumption. Nearly every commercial industry uses these separations to make consumer products as varied as detergents, plastic bottles, packaging, pipes, siding, window frames, automotive components, lubricants, carpet, and clothing.

CMS’s efforts to create membranes with commercial applications has been described by industry journals as a process improvement that could be “one of the separations to change the world” and “reap great global benefits” through heightened energy efficiency.

But CMS CEO Nemser sees another potential use for its membranes – delaying the ripening of fruit, vegetables, and flowers – that could be a huge money-maker when you consider the impact on transporting perishables from farms, on storing them in grocery stores and consumer kitchens, and on providing the military with fresh food during deployment. During the pandemic, there have been many videos of food banks throwing out food, a situation that might not have been necessary, had the CMS membranes been protecting them.

“Nobody likes seeing food spoil,” Nemser says, explaining that those applications are in the early stage of commercial availability. “But [developing them] is pulling on our investments and funds and focus. The challenge is figuring out how to lean into that and continue to serve our customers well.”

Delaware – the Best Place to Start a Chemtech Company

Nemser believes Delaware is the “best place on Earth to start a Chemtech company because the chemical engineers coming out of the University of Delaware are excellent and have been taught to have an entrepreneurial mindset; there’s a community of Delawareans from places like Chemours, DuPont, and White Dog Labs who understand chemistry and their peer companies; and state government understands and profoundly supports innovation in chemicals. I’m not sure we’d get the same attention somewhere else.”

But beyond those factors, Nemser says what she loves about being in the First State is that “people in Delaware are genuinely helpful and genuinely nice. I have found that many people out of state look for transactional relationships. People here are looking for genuine long-term relationships; you don’t have to worry about being sharp-elbowed by people trying to win the cocktail party.”

Early in her time at CMS, Nemser predicted that company revenues would double every year for the next four to five years. But she says “growth has taken longer and has taken more investment to get where we want to go. We made active decisions to invest our time in the olefin technology instead of other areas. That has come at the expense of revenue because we looked at our portfolio and thought carefully” about how much money, time, effort, and focus would be needed to drive longer-term success.”

Nemser says CMS has lots of UD graduates who are fresh out of school and leading projects at the small company (~25 employees), which likely wouldn’t be happening at larger companies in Delaware or elsewhere.

“I’m not an engineer or a chemist,” says Nemser. “My background is economics” but she built her reputation as a management guru for pharma and medical products – and for leading McKinsey’s global efforts to recruit, retain, and promote women within the firm — before joining her father’s company in September 2015.

She laughs when asked about a 2013 Wharton School panel where she described her marriage as a joint venture – saying she and her husband have switched off as breadwinners and primary parent for their three children over the years – and then saying she was “very clearly not” an entrepreneur.

That’s changed since she joined CMS.

Nemser Delivers Distruptive Innovation

Nemser describes her role as delivering disruptive innovation and finding – or building – new lines of business with multi-billion-dollar potential using CMS’s membrane separation technology. Over the past five years, she’s moved the company her father founded in 1993 when he left Du Pont to focus on licensing Teflon AF for gas separations from shifting the mindset from a domestic science-driven research and development lab to a global commercial organization that is constantly generating new intellectual property (IP).

Nemser describes herself on LinkedIn as having an “uncanny ability to break down messy business problems, quickly see the possible future states, and chart the optimal solution paths.”

“I like the problems where people say addressing them is impossible,” she says. “I like to figure out how you make it possible.  I have skills but not a process. You have to be able to say what you want and then break down the problem and determine what’s on your critical path and what isn’t.  What differentiates people is a willingness to challenge assumptions because if you do it the way it’s always been done, you won’t get to your goal.  And you have to be rigorous about what you’re willing to take on.”

At the same time, Nemser is applying what she learned at McKinsey to address the challenges that women have found with a narrower career pipeline in the chemtech world.

“We hire women here into senior roles and recruit them at the entry level,” she says. “In many industries, men are promoted on potential and women are promoted on performance. We’re being very conscious of applying [those two criteria] evenly.”

Stay Up To Date With Delaware

September 25, 2020 – 

DOVER, Del. – Dover Air Force Base is using its new Bedrock Innovation Lab to enable airmen to find solutions to barriers impacting its global mission of providing rapid global mobility.

Bedrock has been operating with four founding members since January 2019, with successes that include creating 3D-printed masks for distribution across the base; 3D-printing door handles to reduce the spread of COVID-19; and improving traffic flow at the base’s main gate.

“We had a proposed contract that would have cost taxpayers $123,000, but a collaboration between our team and base security professionals and engineers enabled us to find an alternative that only cost $3,000,” said Capt. Ryan Nichol, the base’s chief innovation officer who oversees the Bedrock program and also serves as a flight instructor on the base. 

“The Air Force is getting back to its roots when it comes to innovation,” he said. “We encourage failure, push the boundaries and come up with visionary solutions.”

Nichol said the jewel of the new facility is the coworking space that comprises about two-thirds of the 5,000-square-foot building. Other features include an event stage; a virtual reality classroom; a podcast studio that has already recorded 20 episodes of The Bedrock Podcast; and a prototyping lab with the aforementioned 3D-printers. 

Bedrock also has a four-month internship program to teach airmen innovation skills they can take back to their units or into the community after they leave the service. Bedrock is comprised entirely of volunteers from every group on base who are committed to improving processes and solving problems.

“Ten to 20 years from now, I believe we’ll realize that something special was born here today,” said Col. Matthew Jones, commander of the 436th Airlift Wing during a Sept. 23 ribbon-cutting ceremony. “We must accelerate change because losing is not an option.”

Jones was paraphrasing Bedrock’s founding principle of “Accelerate Change or Lose,” which was coined by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and is on the new building. 

Rob Nicholson of the Delaware Department of Technology and Information (and a Navy Reservist) sees the state acting as a “matchmaker” to encourage on-base and off-base engagement with organizations that have existing solutions or want to test solutions that will help Dover AFB and other Air Force facilities be more efficient, Nicholson said.

“There’s been a major drive by the military services to look for innovation at the local level, to engage service members, universities and local businesses to develop strategic partnerships at the base level, which benefits our national security objectives. Bedrock is one of those programs that the state is aligning with to engage the community, participate in collaborative initiatives and help secure project funding.”

One key is obtaining funding from the federal SBIR program, a highly competitive program that encourages domestic small businesses to engage in federal research and research and development (R&D) that has the potential for commercialization. Through a competitive awards-based program, SBIR enables small businesses to explore their technological potential and provides the incentive to profit from its commercialization. By including qualified small businesses in the nation’s R&D arena, high-tech innovation is stimulated, and the United States gains entrepreneurial spirit as it meets its specific research and development needs.

“Any commander [at Dover Air Force Base] can sign a Memorandum of Understanding detailing interest in working with an SBIR company. If selected for contract, we are able to team with the company to tackle a specific problem set [with SBIR funding],” Nichol said. “Dover currently has one for a virtual reality egress simulator, but we’re looking for more.”

The Bedrock initiative targets more sophisticated research and is designed to move from idea to operationalization, both Nichol and Nicholson agreed. 

Part of ARWERX’s Spark Initiative

The efforts at Dover Air Force Base are part of a broader USAF initiative called AFWERX, which is expanding technology, talent and transition partnerships for rapid and affordable commercial and military capability. Bedrock is part of AFWERX’s Spark Initiative, which connects Air Force personnel to commercial innovators using virtual collaboration, immersive training and networking opportunities that inspire ideas and cultivate a creative Force. AFWERX sees itself as the Air Force’s community of innovators, connecting airmen with the resources required to transform their ideas into reality, according to its social media platforms.

Chartered in 2016, Spark is an Air Force-level grassroots program modeled to bridge the challenges of rapid innovation at the unit level while navigating the administrative hurdles of compliance that often impede the velocity of change. In January 2019, Dover chartered its own Spark hub with the creation of Bedrock.

One success of the Spark initiative can be found at the Open Innovation Campus in Rome, New York, a new $12 million technology research partnership between the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Griffiss Institute and SUNY Polytechnic Institute that will help solve complex computing problems for the Air Force by linking researchers from government, industry and academia on the site of the former Griffiss Air Force Base that closed in 1995 and is now owned by the local county.

“We could potentially develop an off-base manufacturing innovation lab that is open to the public but influenced by base needs over the next five years [like the one in Rome],” Nicholson said.

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