Former UNeMed President to be honored for devotion to entrepreneur community
OMAHA, Nebraska (Dec. 12, 2018)—Former UNeMed President and CEO James Linder, M.D., is the first-ever winner of the Pipeline Legacy Award, Pipeline announced today.
Dr. Linder is CEO at Nebraska Medicine, the former President and CEO of UNeMed, and served as Interim President of the University of Nebraska in 2014.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the Nebraska entrepreneurial community who hasn’t been helped by him,” Pipeline President and CEO Joni Cobb told Silicon Prairie News.
Pipeline is a regional entrepreneurial organization where Dr. Linder has long served as a mentor to startups and entrepreneurs in the Midwest.
Cobb added: “He gives you his honest opinion, he connects you. I think he is the ultimate entrepreneurial ally.”
According to the Silicon Prairie News, the Legacy Award is presented to those who have made “exceptional contributions of time, talent, financial resources, advocacy and innovation over their lifetime.”
Dr. Linder will receive the award at Pipeline’s annual celebration, the Innovators. The Innovators is set for Jan. 25, 2019 at The Slowdown in Omaha.
In addition to his mentoring work with Pipeline, Dr. Linder and his wife, Karen, founded Linseed Capital to support area startup companies.
In 2007, Dr. Linder was CEO at UNeMed, and led an overhaul of the technology transfer structure at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The overhaul merged the technology transfer office, UNeMed, with the Intellectual Property Office into a single entity.
He also previously served the University of Nebraska as Chief Strategist and as the Director of the University Technology Development Corporation or UTDC. The UTDC oversees all technology transfer and commercialization efforts throughout the University of Nebraska system.
More recently, Dr. Linder returned to UNeMed as the keynote speaker of the 2017 Research Innovation Awards Banquet.