People
Steve Carpenter
Steve Carpenter, BSME/MBA, serves as the Director, Research Startups at Penn State’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Commercialization. In addition, Steve works for the Smeal College of Business Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship as the Program Administrator for the Garber Venture Capital Fund and teaches Entrepreneurial Finance, MGMT870, to Smeal graduate students. Steve has served as a director or observer on 12 company boards since 2008 and has 18 years of experience with Life Sciences Greenhouse Investments providing seed and early-stage investments in promising life sciences companies in Pennsylvania. Prior to joining LSG Investments, Steve served more than 20 years in a variety of management and engineering positions primarily leading operation start-ups and new product launches. Steve earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University and an MBA from Penn State focusing on venture capital, entrepreneurship, and finance.
Dr. Shawn M. Clark
Dr. Shawn Clark is Director of the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Michael J. Farrell Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Smeal College of Business. He teaches courses in corporate innovation, entrepreneurship, business planning, strategic management, enterprise modeling, project management, and management consulting. His current research focuses on business architecture modeling, corporate innovation, and the strategic alignment of business and information technologies. He has consulted with and helped manage projects for IBM, Lockheed Martin, Oracle, Ford Motor Company, Disney, U.S. Marine Corps, NSA, Chubb Insurance, Providence Gas, and Brooklyn Union, among others. In addition to careers in consulting and academia, Shawn has launched new business ventures and filled a variety of product and software application development roles. Shawn earned his Master’s in Organizational Behavior of Science degree at Brigham Young University and Ph.D. in Business Administration at Penn State.
Janell Howe
Janell joined the Garber Center in May 2024 as the Center’s Administrative Support Assistant - Senior Support.