Moore earned the award for his outstanding contributions to the overall enhancement of technology transfer for economic development and for accomplishments related to the transfer of technology from a federal laboratory to industry. Support of FLC activities, internal accomplishments, industry involvement and community service were also criteria for selection.

Named director of the Chemical Biological Center in November of 2017, Moore energized technology transfer at the Center. “It is an honor for me to accept this award. While my name is on the award, we have an excellent technology transfer office and it is a testament to the hard work that the people at the center do to create an opportunity to be honored in this way.”

“Technology Transfer is essential to what we do. We want to see our work commercialized and applied in the real world,” Moore said.

To assist in meeting the goal of real world application, Moore looks to partners in academia and industry to commercialize Center intellectual property and seeks to engage with diverse minds to discover untapped innovation. He encourages collaboration with diverse partners who offer synergistic capabilities.

“They’ll take that technology and enhance it,” Moore explained.

“Commercializing military technology also helps the public become familiar with our technology.”

Moore gives his team credit that center subject matter experts were already engaging with partners, and that he merely kicked outreach up a notch.

One recent technology transfer success saw MQM Solutions go from agreement to market in just six months. The company, which specializes in offering decontamination solutions to industry and first responders signed, a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) in January 2019 for the Army’s patented Solid Decontamination Blend. The following month they signed a patent license agreement. By June, the company had completed its first sale of the decon blend, now called Decon Plus.

“That’s our gold standard,” Moore relayed. “We won’t always have transfers that occur that quickly, but we are going to push to have others move faster.”

Moore admits that internal projects can sometime languish or Army priorities may change before a project reaches fruition, but says the key to project success is to continue efforts to involve industry as development partners. He sees offering industry the opportunity to closely interact with the warfighter as part of that plan.

Moore sees a myriad of mutual advantages in industrial and academic partnerships through technology transfer. Research and development collaborations, education development and internships allow the military and its partners to share their unique strengths.

“We seek engagement with diverse minds,” Moore said. “It’s no secret that we aren’t getting the amount of STEM talent that we once did. So by working with our partners, it allows us to leverage folks in that dwindling talent field.”

On the other hand, Moore points out that the Army is particularly skilled at working with surety compounds.

“Many of the companies that have the capabilities to develop new technologies require chemical agent testing. They can leverage our unique facilities and expertise for this testing. We pride ourselves on working safely with surety materials and this is an exciting way for industry and academia to work with us through leveraging technology transfer authorities.”

To Moore, a project’s success is measured by its delivery to the warfighter, first responders or other end users.

“It’s critical. Some of these companies are not encumbered in ways that we are. We have a lot of technology development that is evolutionary, but in order to move to the next stage of the game changing, disruptive technologies that we want to build, it’s going to take working with the community of other great people with great ideas to make real those game changing technologies.”