As co-founder and Managing Director of RPM Ventures, Marc Weiser actively seeks out and invests in promising information technology companies, including spinouts from leading research universities. Like ours.
But it is his service here that is so important to our students, the College of Engineering, and the University community at large.
Marc is an active board member of the College of Engineering’s Center for Entrepreneurship, contributing solid advice based on his years of professional experience. He is also an adjunct professor in the Center for Entrepreneurship Affiliates Program. The program’s goal is to help students, faculty and staff pursue entrepreneurial achievements, and bring ideas from invention to implementation.
In further service to our students, Marc was instrumental in the creation of TechArb, a downtown Ann Arbor incubator/accelerator for student-led businesses. TechArb is a joint effort of the Center for Entrepreneurship, the Office of the Vice President for Research and the Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. Students are empowered to bring their ideas to life by working with experienced mentors and the Michigan alumni network.
And Marc and Mary, his wife, are leading the creation of the Food Allergy Center at the University of Michigan. The Center will provide national leadership and a path to a cure for individuals suffering from these allergies.
Marc has said about his approach: “Our strategy is to find disruptive technologies and find researchers, professors and grad students that have the right kind of mindset, connect them with entrepreneurial business leaders, and help them create their companies. To reinvent Michigan, one of the best places to start is with these talented, hungry, driven students who are looking forward, not backwards.”
