Centers & Institutes
About the William C. Norris Institute
The mission of the William C. Norris Institute is to stimulate innovation by supporting entrepreneurship. A unit of the Opus College of Business, the Norris Institute provides a real-life learning platform by including students in the process of reviewing opportunities, making investments, and assisting portfolio companies. It also enhances the university’s business programs by providing a source of seed capital to catalyze entrepreneurial activity that results in beneficial technology-based products and services.
Specifically, the Institute provides start-up equity and assistance to Minnesota entrepreneurs who submit innovative, well-planned business strategies that address important unmet needs. Preference is given to St. Thomas alumni and students, and to businesses with the potential to provide good jobs to unemployed or under-employed individuals.
Since joining the University of St. Thomas in 2001, the Norris Institute has invested each year in three to five technology-based start-up companies
(see Portfolio).
WCNI History - 1988 through 2000
Control Data Corporation (now Ceridian) established the William C. Norris Institute in 1988 to enable its founder and retired chairman and CEO to continue his endeavors in support of innovation in education and creation of new companies with socially beneficial products and services.
Before joining the University of St. Thomas in 2001, the William C. Norris Institute (WCNI) was a non-profit organization that catalyzed collaborative initiatives to improve education and to stimulate business development. Control Data Corporation established the Institute in 1988 with a trust fund to be used to build on the pioneering legacy of William C. Norris, its founder and C.E.O. from 1957 to 1986.
Norris (deceased August 2006) was Chairman of the Board of WCNI, and its president and CEO was Tony Potami (deceased June 2004), former associate vice president for research and technology transfer at the University of Minnesota.
The Institute focused its efforts on three major objectives:
- To transform education by developing technologies and partnerships to enhance teacher productivity, learner results, and school accountability.
- To create good new jobs by assisting early-stage ventures that meet such societal needs as affordable housing, environmental protection, and revitalization of economically depressed urban communities.
- To stimulate public service collaborations by convening forums and public-private partnerships to address issues relevant to the Institute’s mission.
WCNI History - 2001 to Current
In 2001, William C. Norris dissolved the non-profit institute and, with a gift of $2.3 million, re-established the Norris Institute as a unit of the University of St. Thomas College of Business, now the Opus College of Business. Since then the Norris Institute has invested in more than 30 early-stage, technology-based, socially beneficial companies (see Portfolio). The Norris Institute not only provides a source of start-up capital for St. Thomas students, alumni and other Minnesotans, it also provides opportunities for interaction among students, faculty and entrepreneurs. Undergraduate and graduate students may participate in due diligence reviews of potential investments, and they may serve internships with portfolio companies.
In 2008, the Norris Institute established the James Rogers Fox M.D. Fund for Heathcare Innovation. With a $1 million founding bequest from Dr. Fox, who died December 18, 2007, the new fund expands the Norris Institute's ability to provide seed capital for emerging healthcare technology companies. The first investment from the new fund went to MedNet World, a Minneapolis company that provides secure electronic access to healthcare records between and among health care provider groups and professionals. Dr. James Rogers Fox was a physician who broadcast health advice on radio and television from the 1940s to the 1970s. He authored Dr. Fox's Family Health Guide in 1965, and he served as medical director for the Minneapolis Public Schools and for Control Data Corporation, where he formed a close relationship with William C. Norris.
The Norris Institute is directed by Mike Moore, former director of communications and marketing for the University of Minnesota Office of Research and Technology Transfer Administration. Mr. Moore manages the Norris Institute's seed capital funds and oversees operations with advice and direction from the Advisory Board.
Advisory Board
Christopher Puto, Ph.D.
Dean, Opus College of Business
Opus Distinguished Chair
University of St. Thomas
Mark Vangsgard
Vice President for Business Affairs/CFO
University of St. Thomas
John E.Q. Orner, CTP
Vice President, Business Development and Chief Investment Officer
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota
Elizabeth M. Brama
Shareholder; Business Litigation
Briggs and Morgan, PA
Alan Bignall
President and CEO
Recon Robotics
David Norris
Information Technology Entrepreneur
Dennis McFadden
VP Corporate Development
Ativa Medical
David Deeds, Ph.D.
Schulze Chair in Entrepreneurship
Opus College of Business
University of St. Thomas
Daniel R. Pennie
General Partner
Bluestem Holding LP
Nancy J. Drake
Sr. Principal Consultant
Alquest
John P. Seidel
Former President/CEO
American Bank - St. Paul
Ted Schwarzrock
Chairman, CEO & President
Dermatrends Inc.
About William C. Norris (1911-2006)
William C. Norris was the founder and chairman emeritus of Control Data Corporation. He founded the company in 1957 and retired as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in 1986. From 1988 through 2000 he chaired the non-profit William C. Norris Institute, which supported initiatives to:
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improve K-12 and higher education through development and implementation of technology;
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stimulate technical training in Russia; and
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create good jobs by supporting development of innovative, socially beneficial technology by Minnesota entrepreneurs.
Mr. Norris became an entrepreneur after service in World War II, when he started Engineering Research Associates, Inc. (ERA), in St. Paul, Minnesota. ERA pioneered the development of the digital computer and in 1951 merged with Sperry Rand Corporation. Mr. Norris headed the Univac Division of Sperry Rand through mid-1957, when he and other engineers left to start Control Data Corporation.
Under his leadership, Control Data pioneered large-scale scientific and engineering computers, computer services, and the utilization of technology in education. Its PLATO computer-based education and training program was the world’s major pioneering effort in applying computer technology in education. Mr. Norris also pursued new business opportunities by working with the public and non-profit sectors to address major social problems such as unemployment, blighted inner cities, and declining rural economies. Small business incubators and Job Creation Networks supported by Control Data across the country led to more than 1,000 new companies and 13,000 jobs. And Control Data assisted its own employees to develop and spin off more than 80 technology-based new companies.
During his 29 years as CEO of Control Data, Mr. Norris led many collaborative initiatives involving government, universities, and business and industry. For example, in 1983 he conceived and initiated the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, which is based in Austin, Texas and currently has more than 60 members and associate members that collaborate on research and development among themselves and with government laboratories and universities. Mr. Norris was instrumental in the drafting and passage of the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 and the Technology Transfer Act of 1986, leading to the creation of the Small Business Innovative Research program.
In Minnesota, Mr. Norris helped organize and lead the Northwest Growth Fund, Minnesota Seed Capital Fund, Minnesota Cooperation Office, Minnesota Wellspring, and the Greater Minnesota Corporation (now Minnesota Technology, Inc.), and with Control Data’s help he established the William C. Norris Institute. All of these initiatives supported entrepreneurship and sought to improve Minnesota’s economy by assisting small companies in creating jobs.
In 1986, Mr. Norris was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Reagan, who cited him for “substantial contributions to the development of digital computer technology, leading to the founding of a successful computer and computer services company, and for his innovative application of computers to societal needs, as well as his initiation of cooperative efforts which promise to maintain U.S. competitiveness in microelectronics and computer technology.”
Mr. Norris also is a recipient of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers’ Founders Medal, and of the National Business Incubation Association Founders Award. In 1995 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Minnesota High Technology Council. In 2001 he received a lifetime achievement Tekne Award from the Minnesota High Technology Association and Minnesota Technology Inc. In 2005 the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations selected Mr. Norris as a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, presented for outstanding contributions to the United States. In 2008 Mr. Norris was posthumously named to the newly created Minnesota Science & Technology Hall of Fame and the University of Nebraska Computing Hall of Fame.
A letter sent by William C. Norris (1911-2006), CEO and Chairman of Control Data Corporation, to his children in 1975:
If it were ordained that there would only be one thing which I could do for you during my lifetime, the selection would be easy – it would be to give you integrity.
Of course, one can’t be given integrity, it is a quality one must develop for himself. The best I can do is to impress upon you the desire to have it.
By integrity, I mean standards of moral and intellectual honesty on which one bases his individual conduct and from which one cannot swerve without a sense of betraying one’s better self.
Each of us is the sum of countless acts of honesty, trustworthiness, truthfulness and openness from which must be subtracted small cheatings, evasions, cover-ups, half-truths, “everybody does it” and other moral erosions. Each of us can assert true integrity when the sum total brings peace to one’s inner self.
During my business career I have seen countless numbers of people come and go. A few were highly successful, some moderately so, but the majority fell short of their expectations and their real potential.
There are many facets to success. Luck, skill and good health are highly important. Hard work, too, but not everyone who works hard succeeds. But all those I’ve seen succeed have worked hard.
Integrity is the glue which makes luck, skill, good health and hard work most effective. Virtually all of the people whom I have known who fell short of personal goals lacked integrity in some major respect – often because of an unwillingness or inability to be frank with peers.
Integrity also has many facets. Perhaps it is derived mostly from an aggregation of small things:
Keeping an appointment on time.
Returning a borrowed book.
Recognizing one’s own weaknesses as well as strengths.
Asking for help when help is needed.
Willingness to say “I don’t know” when appropriate.
And not so small, of course, is keeping your word.
If one is mindful of such things, then integrity will develop and be there in place to positively shape the most important events in your life as they occur.
As chief executive of a large company I come in contact with many new employees. My first thoughts are – can I trust him? Will he tell me promptly if he suspects something is wrong which he cannot by himself understand or correct?
Integrity must constantly be sought because one cannot precisely perceive of what it is, therefore one cannot be sure that he has integrity. You will find that the pursuit of integrity is one of the most rewarding experiences you can have in life.
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