Project Small Business Innovative Research West recently bestowed Robert Harris, interim director of Iowa State’s Center for Advanced Technology Development, with a Support Person of the Year award.

SBIR, a federally funded program, requires that a certain percentage of all federal research dollars be set aside for small business research and development, Harris said.

“It must be spent to assist small business development, new products and new processes,” he said.

More than $1 billion of these funds are available through SBIR, and Harris said Iowa has historically received little to none of that money.

“The need is to educate corporations that this money is available and how they should go about applying for it,” he said.

Harris was nominated for the award based on his efforts with the U S West Foundation to increase the number of SBIR funding grants coming into Iowa.

Cheryl Kamman, technology transfer associate for ISU’s Center for Advanced Technology Development, nominated Harris for the award.

Kamman said Harris has been working with SBIR for a long time, and he has always been proactive in getting companies to work with him.

“It’s giving him recognition for all the hard work he’s done in that area,” Kamman said.

Harris said he was not aware Kamman was nominating him for the award.

“It came as a surprise to me,” he said.

The Support Person of the Year award is given to “someone who has made a major effort in bringing more awards in … their state,” Harris said.

SBIR and the U S West Foundation wanted nominees for people doing good things in this area, Harris said.

“It takes a long time to get this geared up,” he said. “We’re willing to stick with it, and we’re just starting to see the results.”

Harris received the award in October at the SBIR annual meeting in Phoenix.

“There were only two given as support person of the year,” he said.

He said Project SBIR West serves 13 states including Iowa.

“[They] established a foundation to help in 13 of the western states that have not been high recipients of the SBIR funding,” Harris said.

Tom Barton, director of the Institute for Physical Research and Technology, said Harris has not only helped small businesses through SBIR, but he also has improved the economic development of Iowa.

“It was a very well-deserved award for one heck of a lot of hard work that benefits the state of Iowa,” he said.