CMU combines innovation and cyber security centers

Tim Foster, President Colorado Mesa University
Tim Foster, President
Colorado Mesa University
Tom Benton
Tom Benton

Colorado Mesa University has opened a new facility on its Grand Junction campus designed to foster the collaborative efforts of students as well as local businesses.

The center brings together at one, accessible location the Maverick Innovation Center and Cyber Security Center.

“As innovation accelerates on campus, the center will add capacity to support the outcomes of increasing creativity here on campus,” said CMU President Tim Foster. “Business incubation, technology transfer and development of intellectual property rights are just a few examples of what we expect as outcomes from this new collaborative facility.”

The center is expected to create synergy between users through close proximity and shared workspaces between faculty, students and community experts. The center will offer students from all academic backgrounds the opportunity to develop entrepreneurial ideas and turn those ideas into reality by working with people from a diversity of other programs and disciplines.

The center also will offer businesses and community members specialized cybersecurity services.

“CMU’s trend-bucking growth and expansion is a result of projects just like the innovation center. This space is the only one like it in Western Colorado,” said Tom Benton, director of the Maverick Innovation Center. “The project will incubate technological creativity that will create solutions for some of the community’s most pressing challenges while providing a unique opportunity for student learning and growth.”

Located in economic opportunity zones, the center also offers tax benefits to businesses, entrepreneurs and investors, said Liz Meyer, vice president of development for the CMU Foundation. That includes benefits offered through enterprise zone, HUB zone, opportunity zone and rural jump-start programs.

“Investing in the center allows for some of the most unique tax friendly approaches to innovating in Colorado,” Meyer said. “We are encouraging appointments for folks who are interested both in the innovation center and in saving money through these tax advantaged investments in CMU students.”