Embry-Riddle's new VP plans high tech ventures at research park 

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has hired the former head of the University of South Florida's research park to the same position, and he has high hopes for ERAU's new 90-acre park that could bring aviation companies and hundreds of jobs to this area in the next decade.
Rod Casto will start his job as Embry-Riddle's associate vice president for research and innovation -- the same title he held at USF -- on July 1.
USF had unused land it wanted to make use of, Casto said, and in 2003 the university hired him in part to grow and recruit partnerships with the high tech industry in the Tampa area. He'll do the same thing now with Embry-Riddle and its new, mostly empty research and development park.
The Daytona Beach-based university already has relationships in place with some of the aviation and aerospace companies that are targeted for the park, Casto said. That partly is what drew him to contact John Johnson, president of the school.
"All these pieces are already in place," Casto said.
Embry-Riddle's Research and Technology Park along Clyde Morris Boulevard could bring 2,000 jobs from national companies with average salaries of $50,000 when it's fully built out in 10 years, Johnson said in March. Some dirt has been moved and the school received millions in funding for the project from the state in the most recent legislative session.
But it's Casto's job to fill the space.
Johnson said the park "is coming along very well."
The school is in discussions with "several aerospace companies" and looking at an initial project between Embry-Riddle and the University of Florida. The goal, he said, is to establish a center of excellence in the research park to work on the development of unmanned aircraft systems and robotics.
Casto grew up in Key West and Orlando and has been to Daytona Beach several times to visit his retired parents, he said. Casto earned a doctorate degree in physiology in 1985 from the University of Florida. He taught at a university in California early in his career but spent much of his time in private industry until he took the USF job.
He opened the brand new 115-acre USF Research Park in 2004. He doubled the intellectual property licenses and revenues at the school in his first four years, according to his resume. And he helped start the Tampa Bay Technology Incubator, creating more than 100 new high-tech businesses.
"I came in, and we developed whole areas of opportunities for faculty and taught them the advantages of working with industry," he said.
Casto cites his recruitment of the Cambridge, Mass.-based research and development company Draper Laboratory to the USF park as one of his biggest coups.

Source : http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/east-volusia/2012/06/11/embry-riddles-new-vp-plans-high-tech-ventures-at-research-park.html