INCUBATOR NETWORK GETS RESOURCEFUL TO DELIVER AID TO SMALL COMPANIES
By Katie Eder/NJBIZ
May 23, 2012
When the New Jersey Business Incubation Network lost incubator seed grants and $1.2 million in annual public-sector funding — funneled through the now-defunct state Commission on Science and Technology — in 2010, President Suzanne Zammit had to be resourceful to fill a crucial financing gap and get the incubator sponsored by Rutgers University’s Camden campus back to a self-sustaining model.
“At one time, this was going to be a two-tier incubator, with a high-tech center on the second floor and a wet lab on the fifth floor,” said Zammit, who is also the director of Rutgers Camden Technology Campus Inc. “But then the recession hit and we lost our funding, and it kicked off a lot of struggles. We had to restructure the entire focus of this incubator and reduce its size. We used to be on the entire second floor, but now we only have half that office space.”