Banker backs Innovation Park

Chris Murphy has a passion for the University of Notre Dame, and economic development of the South Bend area.

"I want to see South Bend and surrounding areas thrive," says Murphy, president and CEO of 1st Source Corp., the parent company of South Bend-based 1st Source bank, an Innovation Park partner.

So backing Innovation Park at Notre Dame is a natural for Murphy.

Innovation Park will play a key role in spurring the growth of local start-ups, by transforming innovation into viable marketplace ventures. It does this by bringing together the University’s intellectual assets, world-class market expertise and access to early stage capital in order to commercialize exciting new innovations. The 55,000-square-foot building also has space and resources for established companies with entrepreneurial venturing needs.

Murphy, who also is on the board of Project Future, a local economic development organization, says Innovation Park, burgeoning research at Notre Dame, and other efforts have the potential to produce “transformative change” for the quality of life in the region.

“There is so much good that can come out of this over the next 10-20 years. It’s just astounding. The changes that have happened in the past five years alone are remarkable.  Obviously, I’m excited.”

Murphy earned his undergraduate degree from Notre Dame in 1968. He also holds a law degree from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

A long-time proponent of Innovation Park, he’s been on its board of directors since it was created, “way back when just a few of us believed that there should be something like this in our community."

“It’s so far back that I can’t even tell you when the germination occurred,” chuckles Murphy, who also heads the education foundation for the Indiana University School of Medicine at South Bend (IUSM-SB).

“It became apparent some time ago that that we would need to have outlets for the research being produced by faculty coming to the IUSM-SB and Notre Dame,” says Murphy.

The new Midwest Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery (MIND) at Notre Dame will only add to the intellectual property coming out of the university, he says.

Long-term benefits

But Murphy warns that many of the impacts will be long-term and not occur over night. 

“They are not the kind of things where you just turn a switch and see the effects immediately,” he says.

“This region has historically been a community of manufacturers and service companies relying on those manufacturers. But today we are a community of educators, healthcare workers and professionals.

“We need to find ways to harness that intellectual capacity and grow it if we are going to keep and grow any of that manufacturing base,” he says. 

Murphy sees Innovation Park as an “opportunity to sow seeds.”

“And if nurtured properly, they can develop into businesses in our community.  Likewise, intellectual property that gets developed here can be manufactured elsewhere and bring revenues and investment back.”

“We are in a world today where you compete not with brawn but mind. We have to find ways to harness the mind to benefit this community. For way too long, we’ve let our K-12 educational system get away with being mediocre while having a strong undergraduate university, which is now becoming a strong graduate research university.”

While Murphy says Innovation Park is only one piece of the puzzle, it is an especially important one because it is the “physical representation” of the commercialization of ideas coming out of the university.

“Sometimes people have to see things to believe them -- they almost have to touch them,” explains Murphy, who says Innovation Park will also draw people from outside the area looking for ideas.

Two-way street

“It’s a two-way street,” he says. “It’s people in the marketplace coming to Notre Dame and the medical school.” 

Murphy says Innovation Park will be a place where faculty, staff and students with promising research-based innovations can connect with the marketplace. And it will provide crucial services to encourage and support them.

But Murphy says it’s wrong to think that Innovation Park is only for new companies. 

“The staff and leadership there understand and can help start-ups, but start-ups are not necessarily the only focus,” he says. “If we wait for start-ups, we may wait for years. It could be that a GE or Boeing comes here to create a product. Or a local, established company wants to develop something outside its regular facility that later on gets replanted in its business.”

Lauds City’s efforts

Murphy says Innovation Park could not have come about without a strong partnership between South Bend and Notre Dame. And he lauds Mayor Steve Luecke for the “enormous amount of time and effort he invested to make this happen.”

Murphy says his bank will continue to support Innovation Park by having people visit on-site to assist entrepreneurs and businesses with the financial side of starting and growing an enterprise.

“We’ve also established a fund at Notre Dame to recognize faculty or staff who advance the commercialization of intellectual property so that we continue to encourage that kind of culture. We see our role as a facilitator and encourager, and in some cases, as an investor and lender.”

Ultimately, he says he hopes Innovation Park will have a major economic impact on the region by helping create start-ups, bolstering existing firms and drawing major companies here.

“Like I said, Innovation Park is the physical representation of university and civic leaders’ advanced thinking. We, as a regional community, are already and will continue to be major beneficiaries of that in the future.”