To Be Honored for His Philanthropy to SBU
with the
Distinguished Alumni Benefactor Award
 
Carlyle on the Green, Bethpage State Park
November 17, 2005

Dr. Kedar P. Gupta, CEO, is cofounder of GT Equipment Technologies, Inc. (GTi). Starting the company in 1994 with just $1000 from personal savings, GTi has grown to a $60M global company. Over the last eleven years both the Company and Dr. Gupta have won numerous prestigious awards including the EXIM Bank Small Business Environmental Exporter of the Year, NH Exporter of the Year, NHHTC Entrepreneur of the Year, and most recently GT ranked #2 in growth in the Top NH 100 Private Companies just to name a few.

For Stony Brook's College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Dr. Gupta is known as one of the College’s most successful alumni. With a flair for combining his business acumen with innovative research, Dr. Gupta has helped to build a tremendously successful research and educational partnership between CEAS and GT Equipment Technologies.

With GTi’s expertise in the semiconductor and solar power industry and Stony Brook’s expertise in the crystal growth processes necessary to manufacture this equipment, a partnership seemed natural after GTi’s founding in 1994. “In a small but growing company, the one thing you often lack is knowledge-based resources,” Dr. Gupta explained. Just as important, according to Gupta, is Stony Brook’s national reputation. “GTi’s association with Stony Brook tells our business partners that the company can confront issues and problems that require a basic level of research which is generally not possible with the limited resources in a relatively young high technology company.”

Dr. Gupta saw the collaboration with CEAS as a major factor in GTi’s impressive annual growth rate. CEAS benefits from the injection of GTi resources as well. GTi was a force behind the Consortium for Crystal Growth Research. GTi worked with CEAS to convince funding agencies to support crystal growth research. The company itself provides funding for a number of other Consortium research efforts. When he was given the CEAS Alumni Achievement Award in 1999, it was said that were it not for Kedar Gupta, SBU would not have been able to achieve its high level of crystal growth research.

Collaborative research projects such as those in the design and fabrication of next-generation high pressure crystal growth systems, polysilicon production, and wire saw technologies for photovoltaic (solar power) wafers have produced scientific advances as well as commercial dividends. GT Equipment Technologies contributed $200,000 toward a one million dollar NSF-supported crystal growth and wafer manufacturing research facility. In the educational realm, GTi further supports the College by underwriting a $2,500 undergraduate scholarship program and offering internship opportunities to CEAS undergraduates. The company even assists CEAS graduate students by enabling them to pursue their doctoral research while employed at the company.

In recognition of his contributions, CEAS presented Dr. Gupta with an Alumni Achievement Award. At the time Dr. Gupta said, “The key to our successful partnership is trust. Too often a university-industry partnership is sabotaged by suspicions that one partner is not working for the good of the other. With Stony Brook and GTi, each side believes that the other contributes to its work. Both sides are committed to making the partnership work.” As the company continues to expand, Dr. Gupta hopes to deepen the collaboration with Stony Brook. “We want to involve more people and departments. We’d also like to expand our scholarship offerings. We have seen how good this partnership can be and we are committed to making it even better.”

Compiled from SBU Alumni Association and CEAS website articles.

http://www.solarbuzz.com/News/NewsASMA52.htm

http://www.ceas.sunysb.edu/ceasonthemove/v2n9A.html

http://www.stonybrookalumni.com/awards_gupta.htm

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