The Lafayette Economic Development Authority has hired its first executive director for a newly organized technology business incubator and recruiter. The Lafayette Economic Development Authority has hired its first executive director for a newly organized technology business incubator and recruiter. Housed at the Louisiana Immersive Technology Enterprise, The Accelerator, as it's known, is designed to help provide low-cost office space to budding and newly-established technology companies in the area. Already, the incubator has helped provide the local satellite office for California special effects firm Pixel Magic, and the new nonprofit Fiber Corps. The Accelerator's new director, Bob Miller, is a Louisiana native who recently moved back home after serving five years as a senior vice president with Silicon Valley telecommunications company Globalstar, Inc. Miller has a wide variety of work experience in the tech field and is a 1988 alum of UL Monroe, where he earned a B.S. in Computer Science, along with a second major in math and minor in business. Miller began his new position as director of The Accelerator earlier this month. Golfballs.com President & CEO Tom Cox, who is the immediate past chairman of LEDA and serving on The Accelerator's steering committee, says Miller is already making an impact.
"I was very impressed from the beginning," Cox writes in an email to The Ind, "by his ability to articulate complex ideas in a way that is very easy to understand, almost folksy... As we had additional interviews I learned that Bob had a wide range of experience, not only running small business, but had direct experience working with venture capital firms and company investors. Although early in his tenure, he has proven to be a great selection for the role and I expect him to become a mainstay in the technology community statewide and beyond."