The other day our office administrator was placing orders for business cards for the three new people in our office (Perry Kim, Francois Nadeau and Catherine Geci) and she stopped by my office to see if I needed to re-order mine (she knows I am rather fanatical about exchanging cards). I said yes, but asked her to change my card to reflect the RTTP designation I received from the Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals in July. For those of you who don't yet know, ATTP was created by AUTM and four other associations of professionals to provide a common means of recognizing formal training and experience in academic (and hospital) technology transfer. This recognition allows recruiters to know who has had much of the basic training that underpins our daily functions as tech transfer professionals without having to ask about courses taken, lessons learned or conferences attended. It also sets us, as technology transfer professionals, apart from those who have professional designations that, while useful to the job of tech transfer, do not necessarily convey an understanding of the particularities of our industry. I, for one, am a lawyer and have designations to reflect that professional standing but merely being a lawyer does not make me experienced and knowledgeable about how university research makes it to market (not to pick on my own profession, but its true).
Many members of AUTM are likely unaware that they are already pre-qualified for Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP) status, but in order to find out more I encourage everyone to go to www.attp.info and make inquiries. Who knows, maybe you will have to be ordering some new business cards in the very near future.