With little business experience, professor shows promise in developing tech firm

Carol Espy-Wilson holds three degrees from some of the nation's most elite universities, none of them in business.

An electrical engineer by training and University of Maryland professor by occupation, Espy-Wilson took on a new role last fall: founder and chief executive of a company that markets a technology she developed to block out background noises on cellphones.

"I realized I don't have the skills of a CEO," Espy-Wilson said in an interview last week. "I know that I need to hire really good businesspeople to help me make this company very successful."

But Espy-Wilson has found success without yet hiring a business staff. Her company, OmniSpeech, has claimed first place in two business plan competitions, most recently a contest hosted by Rockville Economic Development Inc. called "StartRight."

Espy-Wilson said the road to where her business now stands has been filled with learning curves, but it began unintentionally.

"I knew we had a good product, that we were onto something, but I was more so thinking about getting people to license the technology through the University of Maryland," she said. "I wasn't thinking about doing a company per se."

But then Espy-Wilson was among a select number of professors asked to present her research to a panel of engineers, businesspeople and venture capitalists.

Dean Chang, director of the Mtech Venture Program, became her coach.

"More often than not, the researcher has done a lot of academic presentations at research conferences, but they've typically not given a presentation in front of VCs [venture capitalists]," he said.

An entrepreneur himself, Chang sought to help Espy-Wilson focus as much on market potential as technological advancement.

Her pitch: OmniSpeech develops a software that mitigates background noise on cellphones and other communication devices by extracting the caller's voice when he or she is in a loud environment.

Espy-Wilson said the technology can be used in hearing aids and walkie-talkies, making it useful to markets that serve the hearing impaired, the military or public safety officials.

It's also useful in commercial cellphones, she added.

"It's a big market, too," Chang chimed in, still coaching.

Espy-Wilson met last week with a partner who could help get her technology on a device by next year. In the meantime, she said she's still perfecting the product and her own business savvy.

"I've really come to appreciate what the businesspeople bring to the equation," she said. "I have a lot of respect for what they do, and I, of course, would like to learn about the business side."