Vice President, UK Office for Commercialization & Economic Development

Len Heller, former business owner, angel investor, entrepreneur, and Kentucky state government cabinet secretary, retired as UKCED Vice President March 1, 2012. Len was named Vice President for the first University of Kentucky Office for Commercialization & Economic Development on December 12, 2006.

UKCED is charged with accelerating the Kentucky economy by commercializing UK research, facilitating university-industry collaboration, and assisting entrepreneurs and small business in creating jobs. UKCED advances UK’s role as a catalyst for statewide economic growth, works with a large network of local, regional, state, federal, and private partners and helps develop and licenses university-based technologies and innovations. UKCED includes Intellectual Property Development, Technology Transfer, the Advanced Science & Technology Commercialization Center (ASTeCC) campus incubator, Coldstream Research Campus, the Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship, the Lexington Innovation & Commercialization Center, and the Kentucky Small Business Development Center.

Heller was instrumental in the formation of the Bluegrass Angels, Kentucky’s first organized investor group, and served as chairman of the board of managers for Bluegrass Angels Venture Fund I.

Heller is part of the National Academies University-Industry Demonstration Partnership, which brings top research universities together with Fortune 500 companies to develop research and commercialization relationships. He is on the APLU Commission on Innovation, Competitiveness and Economic Prosperity.

Heller was CEO of WTT Inc., one of UK’s first successful startup companies, which developed substance abuse tests for thoroughbred race horses. He sold WTT to international animal and food safety giant, Neogen Corporation, in 1991. Neogen has returned $2.2 million in royalties to UK for WTT’s technology.

Heller was Secretary of the Cabinet for Human Resources under Kentucky Governor Brereton Jones and chaired the State Commission on Health Care Reform.

Heller holds an Ed.D. in administration and organizational development from Kansas University. Since 1996, he has been a part-time professor in UK’s Martin School of Public Policy and Public Administration. He was on the faculties of the University of Illinois, University of Michigan, Baylor College of Medicine, and University of Kentucky College of Medicine.