After earning a bachelors, masters, and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, Michael A. Ervin (1966 BSChE, 1969 MSChE, 1970 PhD ChE) began a 21-year tenure at DuPont in positions ranging from research engineer to vice president of R&D, and his journey took him to Europe and all across the United States. Now, Ervin, eager for a change of pace, has settled down in Austin, Texas, to get involved in a small company.
“Late in my DuPont career, we went on an acquisition binge,” Ervin said. “I started meeting and working with people in these small companies we acquired. I became intrigued by the culture of start-ups; I was intrigued by the opportunity to work in a small entrepreneurial company. Once I got into it, I decided I really liked that culture.”
Ervin began his entrepreneurial career at DTM Corporation in Austin, which was founded to commercialize selective laser sintering (SLS).
“SLS is a technology used for rapidly building prototypes and parts out of powders with a laser beam,” Ervin said. “I became familiar with it at DuPont because we looked at acquiring that technology from the University of Texas before DTM licensed it.”
Both companies provided Ervin with the opportunity to use his chemical engineering background in different ways, and he said he enjoyed positions within both organizations.
“I enjoyed very much being the vice president of research at DuPont in that it gave me an overview of the whole corporation and the work going on around the world. I enjoyed the strategic part of serving different businesses,” Ervin said.
The environment at DTM, however, is what furthered Ervin’s interest in smaller businesses.
“I enjoyed helping the small companies putting a lot of good processes in place,” Ervin said. “DTM had only a small number of people with corporate experience, so the processes that other corporations already have in place were not there. Helping to teach those processes was very enjoyable to me.”
After his five-year stint with DTM, Ervin left to begin a private consulting practice, M.A. Ervin & Associates, a company that works in intellectual property management and technology transfer.
“I worked a great deal at DTM with patents and technology transfers, and I’ve been doing that ever since,” Ervin said. “Late in 1999, I studied for and passed the bar for the U.S. Patent Office and became a U.S. patent agent, and now I both consult in patent strategy and write patents for people in small companies. I have currently six clients; several are very small companies with less than 10 people. Even my two larger clients today are only 400 and 75 people respectively.”
Ervin, who remains active in alumni activities, currently serves as the Chairman of the college’s Chemical Engineering Industrial Advisory Board.