CORVALLIS, Ore. - Frank Cloutier, director of "clean tech" start-up Future Vehicle Technologies and one of the key originators of Hewlett Packard's inkjet printer business, will give a talk from 1 to 2 p.m. Thursday, April 8, at the LaSells Stewart Center's Austin Auditorium, 875 SW 26th St., Corvallis.

Cloutier talk is part of Oregon State University Austin Entrepreneurship Program's Innovator in Residence series, is titled, "How to Start Up Not Just a Company, But an Entire New Industry ... Again." The event is free and open to the public.

Cloutier, who lives in the Corvallis area, is in the rare position of being part of several successful commercial and government start-up ventures that ultimately resulted in changing whole industries. With that as a background, he will distill some of the key insights gained, and present his ideas on repeating this successful formula in the 21st century.

Future Vehicle Technologies has entered the car in the $10-million Automotive XPrize Competition. Named by Popular Mechanics as one of the "top 9 entries" of 111 official initial contestants, the eVaro team has now made it to the final 40 teams that will compete this summer in a series of races for the Xprize. The goal of the XPrize, according to its Web site, is to "inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change."

According to Cloutier, the eVaro is a custom-designed hybrid optimized to be incredibly fuel efficient, have low emissions and perform at a high level. The car is designed to accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than five seconds, and can go 125 miles on electricity alone. With its hybrid generator, the car has an overall range in excess of 400 miles. It has a peak economy of more than 275 miles per gallon.

During his 32-year career with the Hewlett-Packard Company, Cloutier started and developed several landmark businesses for the company, including inkjet printers, notebook computers, handheld computers and Halo Video Conferencing. He retired from HP in 2006 as the Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of the Imaging and Printing Group.

With numerous patents in the computer and computer peripheral field to his credit, Cloutier has received industry awards, such as Contributor of the Year Award from the American Society of Materials, and the Lifelong Entrepreneurs and, most recently, the Innovators Award from OSU's Austin Entrepreneurship Program.

Source: 

Mary McKillop, 541-713-8044

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