Girl power

May 1, 2007 by

It's not easy being a young female science officer in a man's world, as writer Mary Beth Barber discovered upon meeting Shawna Brown, co-founder of High Merit Thermoelectrics, a cleantech startup in Sacramento, California.

It's a Thursday night in Sacramento, California at a mixer for local technology types, and Shawna Brown, co-founder of High Merit Thermoelectrics, isn't smiling—at least not as broadly as she used to.

Brown is a unique figure in CleanStart's 2006-07 "PowerUP!" competition, and not just because of her 27-year age, or that she's new to the world of business. Brown was one of only two females in the PowerUP! contest, and the only female science officer in the program.

Brown and her team at High Merit took the third place "Audience Award" in the Sacramento incubator's business-plan competition aimed at helping clean-energy ventures grow in the Sacramento region. The competition is designed to encourage local company executives to improve their business plans, sharpen their presentations and seek assistance and guidance from mentors, advisors, workshops and other resources provided by the program.

High Merit Thermoelectrics—specifically Brown and others from U.C. Davis who are now advisors to High Merit—developed an innovative material that generates electricity from waste heat. High Merit portends that its devices are long-lasting, compact, and environmentally benign.

"It was a little intimidating," said Brown of the first series of CleanStart meetings and similar events. Most of the competitors are older and have some business experience, unlike Brown and High Merit CEO Geoff Jennings who teamed up after taking a business-development intensive class.

Brown thought the business class would be a good way to get her foot in the door with companies after graduation. "I wanted to show a future employer that I was interested in [business] rather than just being a lab rat."

That class led to the development of a company, an experience that Brown has found both exciting and daunting. For new grads like Brown, one of the greater challenges is working through the legal maze of patent law.

High Merit Thermoelectrics relies on new materials developed in a number of universities and initially created for use by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for potential use in space exploration. She and Jennings had to go through a process to get permission to use the materials in her process—as well as discussing things with U.C. Davis, since she was a student when she developed the technology. Once the permission came from both JPL and UCD, she was able to file for a patent for herself. It took many emails, office visits, and phone calls. "It's a slow process," said Brown.

"PowerUP!" wasn't the first incarnation of the High Merit business plan.

Brown and Jennings first participated in a campus-wide business-plan competition for U.C. Davis students. Once she and Jennings did their first contest, they were hooked. High Merit entered both "PowerUP!" and the "California Clean Technology Open" in Silicon Valley in 2006. And just as with CleanStart, Brown found herself as odd-woman-out at the California Clean Tech Open contest as well.

Normally being a lone female wouldn't phase Brown; she's used to it after years in the sciences. Growing up, she was the only girl in a boy's world when she pushed to be on the boys' soccer team in her hometown of Redding when there wasn't a girls' team, and she's kept that youthful athletic appearance into adulthood. But occasionally there will be a moment that throws her.

A man "of an older age" approached the High Merit Thermoelectrics demonstration table at a CleanStart event and started asking questions.

Jennings, Brown, and a third male acquaintance who had nothing to do with the company were taking, and the "older gentleman" spoke directly to the men and not to Brown, even as she tried to explain the science part of the business. "I more or less had to just laugh at it at this point," she said.

The situation became even more ironic when Jennings couldn't find his business card, and Brown reached over and gave the man hers—which clearly identifies her as the Chief Science Officer. "He made a little more eye contact with me after that," she grinned.

She doesn't take it these situations as ill-treatment. "I don’t think they realize it half the time," she said of the occasional dismissive attitude. And she thinks about what she can do to help foster a more serious look. Her long brown hair no longer has the blonde highlights it once did, she often pulls it back rather than letting the youthful locks roam free, and she's grown much more conscious of the importance of dress and manners at the business meetings. She hopes that the subtle changes in her appearance help funders and others can see past her youthful appearance for the serious scientist and businesswoman that she is.

"I'm starting to grow up, in a sense," she said.

She's determined to build a company. When she and Jennings started the plan for High Merit Thermoelectrics, it was mostly an intellectual exercise for the business class. After the hard work of gaining patent agreements, incorporating her company, taking CleanStart and other seminars and working two jobs to make ends meet, she's says she's realized she's gone the next step. "It's not all fun and games anymore," she said with a slight—but not overblown—smile.

Author Mary Beth Barber is a freelance writer from Sacramento, California.

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