Homeland Security lab at Fort Detrick 60 percent complete

There was a good article published in yesterday’s FNP about progress at Ft Detrick’s NIBC project. It was actually a merger between on posted the day before about the MD Biotech Investment Tax Credit: worth the Effort written by Jason Balog of Miles & Stockbridge. I have something to say about both.

With regard to the Tax Credit, let me relay my experience from attempting to obtain this credit last year. As the writer points out

“Although Maryland has some of the best programs in the country to assist start-up companies, most early stage companies are funded through the investment of the founders, their friends and families, and private individual investors known as “angels.” The Biotechnology Tax Credit was passed with the specific intention of encouraging this type of investment and in turn encouraging the growth of an industry.”

My application, despite numerous phone calls and two separate trips to Inner Harbor/Downtown Baltimore to hand deliver items that were not even specified as being necessary nor obvious in the application process, was reject on the basis that my company was not an “ongoing concern”. I think that was legalese for saying I was not really up and running and had no revenue on the books at this point in time, although i was paying rent at FITCI and making products and providing services. I thought that maybe I could catch a break and recover a bit of the $80-100,000 of my money (my family’s money) I was going to be investing to start my business. Not an ongoing concern.

You know what’s really funny, my partner at Advanced Product Enterprises, despite being in operation for 2 years at the time and generating a good amount of revenue, got the same rejection letter.

So in our case, the attempt to get the tax credit I wasted about $100 in fees associated with the application and lost at least 40 hours of productivity filling out the forms and delivering the goods. Clearly, not worth the effort. I wonder who got all of the money? I’ll have to look into that.

In the other part of the article, I attended the AFCEA luncheon on Jan 15th, featuring Michael Jewett, Chief, Integrated Planning Office and Program Manager, National Interagency Biodefense Campus (NIBC) at Ft. Detrick. He gave an excellent overview of the program, the building etc. He even showed an interactive Quicktime movie that allowed you to take a virtual tour of the BSL4 facilities. I believe that this should be available somewhere through freedom of information act, but I was not able to find it. I was able to find this overview, which is very similar to a presentation at AFCEA a couple months ago.

Just a reminder about AFCEA Frederick, if you are not familiar. The Frederick Chapter is based on getting more information out about what kinds of programs and resources are available through the Federal Government Agencies at Ft Detrick and it’s based primarily around the Biological nature of the businesses. There is a lunch Seminar on the third Tuesday of every month, and so far the seminars have been interesting and very informative. That food isn’t bad either, but they could use some work on their web site. I think in the future they are going to make all of the presentations available on-line.

Moore Wealth

As I said a couple weeks ago, I want to start being a bit less dependent on the local news feeds and start to try to generate some of my own newsworthy posts. A few weeks ago I sent a requests to complete a “Blogterview” questionarie. I actually have one that has been returned (last week actually, but I was lazy and haven’t followed-up).

I was introduced to Shabri shortly after moving into the incubator program here at FITCI. It seems that many entrepreneurs need financial advice and Shabri & company is almost like our surrogate investment advisory committe.

So I posed a few straight forward questions:

Fredcobio: What is the single most important thing a person can do with their money, aside from spending it?

Moore Wealth: Investing it. But of course, I’m going to say that!

Fredcobio: If a person wants to start their own business, what (free) advice would you give them?

Moore Wealth: Take the time to write a business plan.

Fredcobio: What is the biggest mistake people make when they start a business?

Moore Wealth: Not writing a business plan. It doesn’t have to be complicated. A quote from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean sums it up nicely “they’re really just guidelines you know”.

Fredcobio: If you were 40 years old (with a spouse and two Middle school aged children) and got laid off today and had $100,000 in your 401K plan, what would you do with it?

Moore Wealth: Roll it over into an IRA that you control. Just like you would never leave money in a bank account when you move from one city to another, never leave money in a company that you no longer work for. Then find a job!

Moore Wealth took advantage of my offer for Free Advertising a while back.  There may be a couple more added to the list and I have been approached by some people actually offering to pay to sponsor the blog!  I would like to find someone to sponsor BioBeers, but we can wait for the third or fourth one for that.