The University of Florida’s Innovation Station celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, marking a unique partnership that strengthens Sarasota County’s tech-ready workforce with Gator Engineers.
UF Innovation Station Sarasota County, also known as UFIS-SC, was launched in 2016 with support from Sarasota County, UF’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, Gulf Coast Community Foundation and the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation.
With a growing tech sector in that region, the partnership stocks the regional talent pipeline with UF engineering interns and resources, providing invaluable workforce experience for students and highly qualified tech workers for Sarasota.
Operating out of a 1,200-square-foot office space, the program’s impact extends beyond Sarasota County. In its 10 years, Innovation Station has partnered with over 127 regional companies and placed more than 559 UF engineering interns, resulting in 69 full-time engineering employees.
“This is truly a shared investment — a partnership between UF and the county on behalf of its citizens and industry,” said Erik Sander, UF’s Michael Durham executive director of the UF Engineering Innovation Institute. Sander has worked with the program since its inception.
“Together,” he added, “we crafted a strategy focused on outcomes and impact, put a great team and execution plan in place, rigorously measured outcomes, adjusted as necessary and looked ahead at next-generation opportunities. To me, that’s a winning formula.”
County officials agree, noting in a statement:
“Over the past decade, UF Innovation Station has demonstrated the value of strong partnerships between education, industry and the community. By connecting students with local companies and hands-on experience, UFIS-SC has helped grow the next generation of engineering talent while supporting the long-term growth and competitiveness of our regional economy.”
In the last decade, UFIS-SC and its industry partners have developed a sustainable model for regional innovation and growth. A key factor is a concierge-recruiting approach that meticulously matches student skills and interests with company missions and cultures.
Companies like the model because they don’t have to sift through piles of applications. Here, Innovation Station finds the top matches among the UF intern pool.
“We do the upfront interviewing,” said Allen Carlson, the program’s regional director. “We have a database, so when a company says, ‘I’m looking for a junior or senior environmental engineer,’ we can consult our database and find those students who match those requirements.”
Sarasota County’s economy today revolves heavily on tourism and development. But there’s only so much land and water.
“The economy of the future will be tech based and expand opportunities in manufacturing, healthcare, education and financial services,” Carlson said.
Innovation Station also connects companies with technical projects and a need for engineering expertise to the University of Florida’s Integrated Product and Process Design (IPPD) program, which is part of the Department of Engineering Education, or EEd. Through this program, companies can sponsor real-world projects that are completed by multidisciplinary teams of UF engineering students.
“The projects themselves are done with students in Gainesville in conjunction with the local companies,” Carlson said the IPPD projects.
UFIS-SC connects companies to world-class resources, bringing local industry leaders to UF engineering students through the Fundamentals of the New Engineer course, launched as part of the UFIS-SC program, and senior capstone projects.
Another effective UFIS-SC component has been introducing K-12 students to career pathways in engineering,
That community outreach stays true to UFIS-SC’s mission, sparking any early interest in STEM programs and laying a foundation for the county’s talent pipeline. UFIS-SC fostered the growth of Project Lead the Way, or PLTW, programs in Sarasota County schools with educational outreach. It also assesses the districtwide growth of PLTW courses, which consist of nationally recognized engineering curricula with hands-on and applied learning experiences for K12 students.
UFIS-SC collaborated with partners such as the Education Foundation of Sarasota County, UF’s Florida Semiconductor Institute, Suncoast Science Center, Technology Students Association and Unidos Now to create in-person and virtual engagements to expose K-12 students to career pathways in engineering.
“It’s a great investment for UF, Sarasota County, students and local companies as the best and brightest remain here to grow the local economy,” Carlson said.