The Technology Park Authority Board on Wednesday narrowed its list of candidates for the park-director position to six Arkansans, none of whom has ever managed a technology or research park.

Earlier Wednesday, board members answered questions about what qualities would make an ideal candidate. The consensus: The director needs to be someone with a versatile skill set and the ability to multitask in order to succeed at both getting the tech park started and running it.

The future technology and research park to be placed along Main Street will offer space to startup companies interested in turning research from area universities into practical applications and products, thus drawing companies and jobs to central Arkansas. The director will manage as well as market the facility.

At a specially called meeting Wednesday, the authority chose to extend an interview offer to six of 16 applicants for the director's position. The authority met by way of a conference call while in a closed executive session to discuss resumes and feedback received from calling each of the job seekers' references.

The board voted publicly to invite these finalists:

• Brent Birch of Little Rock, chief information officer at Arkansas Business Publishing Group and director of its FLEX360 Web Development Firm. He works with both the public and the private sectors and manages marketing, client consulting, finances and sales.

• Thomas Chilton of Little Rock, the entrepreneurship and technology-development director at the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. He is in charge of recruiting, business development and research strategies and is the liaison to several legislative bodies on technology issues. He co-wrote Gov. Mike Beebe's five-year Strategic Plan for Economic Development in Arkansas.

• Elizabeth Hood of Jonesboro, the Lipscomb Distinguished Professor of Agriculture at Arkansas State University. She directs the Center of Excellence for Bio-products, an ad hoc, faculty research group. She's also started and runs two companies, where she consults with programmers and is responsible for budget and grant writing.

• Brian Rogers of Jonesboro, the director of intellectual property and of the Catalyst Innovation Accelerator at Arkansas State University. He has developed management programs for a billion-dollar research hospital and a public university.

• Scott Shellabarger of North Little Rock, an information-technology manager at NovaSys Health. He manages information-technology design, implementation, maintenance and vendor relationships.

• Johnny Kincaid of Little Rock, the chief operating officer at Whisenhunt Investment Group. He oversees commercial real estate activities, including marketing, leasing, sale, management and development.

Before Wednesday's meeting, authority board members spelled out the criteria they were looking for in a director during phone interviews with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The job is different from comparable positions in that the director will have a role in creating a facility rather than taking over a company already in operation. And while most company directors focus solely on management, the tech-park director will juggle a number of duties.

Technology Park Authority Board Chairman Mary Good put it this way: "It's a real mixed bag. It's going to take some real creativity on the part of the individual, and to be honest with you, that's what I'm looking for more than anything else -- someone with a vision that wants to work hard and is willing to get a move on it."

The director will oversee contractors during the construction or renovation of the space chosen for the park's headquarters and will market the facility to potential tenants and program incubators. (The authority board is still reviewing buildings along Main Street in looking for a place for the park.)

The job also will involve managing operations and maintenance, recruiting startup companies, dealing with a number of stakeholders that have various and sometimes competing interests, and working with the tenants.

"I'm looking at someone who has the ability to bridge the gap between the scientists and the companies working to get their product out in the public," said authority board member Tom Butler, former vice chancellor for administration and university relations at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. "In other words, someone who knows both ends."

Jay Chesshir, an authority board member and president and the chief executive officer of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, emphasized the need for the director to be able to build the facility from the ground up, saying that the person will "basically need to somewhat be an entrepreneur themselves."

Board member Kevin Zaffaroni, an Acxiom executive, similarly said initiative and management are important.

"You are looking for a broad base of business knowledge. Being a startup, there's no path already cut to say, 'I'm going to follow what John did a year ago' sort of thing, because there was no John and there was no year ago. You are looking for an independent self-starting person who can pretty much cut the path on their own," Zaffaroni said.

The director must be able to deal with the diverse set of influential stakeholders and all of the opinions being thrown around "about what this is and what this isn't," Zaffaroni added.

Four partners -- Little Rock, UAMS, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Arkansas Children's Hospital -- have all committed $125,000 of seed money to start the park. The city also has committed $22 million for capital costs out of revenue from a three-eighths percent city sales tax approved by voters for capital projects in 2011.

There's no debate that the ability and performance of the director will largely shape the tech park's success, but some said the park's success isn't up to just one person.

"I think they'll be very important, but I would not say it is going to hinge on them," said board member Dickson Flake of commercial real-estate firm Colliers International. "They'll definitely influence the pace of development, but we'll be monitoring that, and if we have to make adjustments, we'll make adjustments."

While the park's success is contingent upon a number of aspects, the director's ability is one of the most important parts, board member Butler said.

"I don't think you can minimize this person's responsibilities. To say they just have a part, I mean, yeah, they do, but it's going to be a major part. They have to bridge a number of pieces of our community and bring them all together to make this successful."

A section on 05/22/2014