Oregon State University graduates and professors have created numerous high-tech companies, especially in Benton County.

One of the first successes, and perhaps the most notable, was CH2M Hill. The engineering firm was founded in Corvallis in 1946 by three alumni and a professor. By 2007, the company had 23,000 employees and $5 billion in revenue.

A significant change over the decades, however, is that OSU now tries to create companies through its Office of Technology Transfer and by connecting professors - and even students - with experts in entrepreneurship.

"Probably in the last three or four years, it's become more of a priority, more of what we're focusing our research on," said Brian Wall, the office's director.

Wall said licensing agreements can bring acclaim and money to the university, but the goal is getting OSU technology into the marketplace.

Still, OSU inventions earned nearly $2.6 million in licensing income in 2007-08, an increase of more than 73 percent in five years. OSU also reported 70 invention disclosures, almost double the 37 from 2003-04.

Without the concerted effort to create new firms and inventions, "This research would just sit there and nobody would know about it," said Richard Burright, CEO of RedRover Software. The OSU start-up company, formed in 2006, has a program that eliminates and detects errors in Microsoft Excel.

John Sechrest, economic director for the Corvallis-Benton County Chamber Coalition, said he's betting on OSU to spawn plenty of new local high-tech firms in the coming years because of its focus. Not that it hasn't created a lot of companies already.

Sechrest has a pamphlet showing a family tree of Corvallis' tech industry, and OSU-connected firms make up an entire branch. That includes companies such as AVI Biopharma, Gene Tools and My Strands.

"There are several biotech companies here that have spun out (of OSU). There are a number of software companies," said John Gardner, a former OSU physics professor who founded ViewPlus Technologies.

His company takes images such as maps, diagrams or math problems and makes them accessible for blind people. Gardner, who went blind at age 48, created much of the technology while he was at OSU, so the intellectual property belongs to the university.

To form ViewPlus, he entered into a licensing agreement with OSU.

In 2002, a new law passed that allowed the university to take an equity position in spin-off companies. That's enhanced OSU's ability to create such firms, because the creators of the company don't necessarily have to raise money to use the license, said Wall and Gardner.

"Under some circumstances, they can actually let the company incubate on campus, have an office, a lab and use the infrastructure with the university," Gardner said.

When Gardner started his business in 1996, it was hard to raise funds for facilities and other start-up costs.

The local high-tech companies benefit Corvallis by diversifying the economy and spawning related firms, like machine shops, Sechrest said. But the companies also benefit by being in or near Corvallis.

Gardner and Burright said they rely heavily, and nearly exclusively, on OSU graduates in their workforce.

Kyle Odegard has been a reporter for the Gazette-Times since 2003.