Aris Melissaratos, former secretary of Maryland's
Department of Business and Economic Development, has joined
The Johns Hopkins University as special adviser to the
president for enterprise development.
Melissaratos, a 1966 Johns Hopkins graduate and
longtime member of the Whiting School of Engineering's
National Advisory Council, will have overall responsibility
for building the university's relationship with business
and forging new connections between the research and
corporate communities. He began his new job on March 1.
Specific assignments will include supervision of
Johns Hopkins
Technology Transfer, the office that links university
researchers and businesses interested in commercializing
their inventions. Melissaratos, whose office will be at 100
N. Charles St., also will market opportunities for
businesses to locate at Johns Hopkins-related research
parks such as the Montgomery County Campus, the nearby
Belward Research Campus and the Science + Technology Park
at Johns Hopkins, now under construction as part of the
comprehensive New EastSide redevelopment in East
Baltimore.
"Aris' background, skills and accomplishments make him
the perfect choice to serve as the university's point
person for creating new linkages between Johns Hopkins and
business," said university President William R. Brody, to
whom Melissaratos will report.
Melissaratos, who served as secretary of DBED for four
years until January, was widely viewed as highly effective
in marketing Maryland as a location for businesses ranging
from life science and technology corporations to
manufacturing and retail concerns. He said he expects to
find a "lot of synergy between what I did and what I will
be doing" promoting Johns Hopkins as a partner to
business.
"Johns Hopkins is a global institution with a global
reach and a reputation that is truly global," Melissaratos
said. "Its intellectual property assets, however, have not
been fully appreciated. This is an exciting opportunity to
help both maintain the university's traditional research
focus and enhance commercialization and entrepreneurial
initiatives."
Melissaratos, whose undergraduate degree from Johns
Hopkins is in electrical engineering, spent most of his
career with Westinghouse Electronics in Baltimore,
eventually becoming vice president of science and
technology and chief technology officer at corporate
headquarters in Pittsburgh. Before joining state government
in 2003, he also served as vice president of Thermo
Electron Corp. and founded Armel Private Equity
Investments.
He was a founding co-chair of the Greater Baltimore
Technology Council and is a former vice president of the
Maryland Chamber of Commerce. He holds a master's degree in
engineering management from George Washington University
and did graduate work in international politics at Catholic
University of America. Melissaratos also completed a
program for management development at Harvard Business
School.
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