NMSU's Yu-Ping Tang reaches out to small businesses through the Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program.

Yu-Ping Tang, a senior engineer at the New Mexico State University’s Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Center (M-TEC), recently received the Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program’s (SATOP) 2010-2011 Top Performance Partner Engineer Award for his involvement in more of SATOP’s small business assistance projects than any other partner engineer nationwide during the previous year.

“It has been a pleasure working with Yu-Ping and the NMSU M-TEC staff,” said Naomi Engelman, SATOP director and project engineer. “Yu-Ping is always so eager to help our small businesses. This award is a testament to his enthusiasm. We are incredibly grateful for his contribution. And of course, we couldn’t have done it without the great support of his NMSU colleagues.”

Tang has been involved in 111 assistance projects through SATOP. Although approximately half of Tang’s SATOP projects have involved small businesses in New Mexico, he has also worked with clients from 12 other states, including California, Colorado, Florida, New York and Texas.

A favorite project of Tang’s involved the Quix Bottle, a baby bottle designed to mix powdered baby formula and water to meet urgent baby feeding needs. A Florida entrepreneur developed the bottle after he and his wife had an unpleasant restaurant experience with their hungry baby.

“I felt that project was pretty challenging and worthwhile,” Tang said. A leaking seal between the bottle’s two chambers was the problem Tang offered to solve. “After I took the project, I gave them five ideas and all could solve the sealing problem. Finally, they decided to use my first idea and accepted the design. Later, they got an award for the invention.”

SATOP was established through a grant from NASA to facilitate the application of space program expertise and specialized equipment in the private sector. Specifically, they offer approved small business and entrepreneur applicants up to 40 hours of technical assistance through their nationwide network of nearly 50 partnering institutions, including universities and major corporations.

The congruence of M-TEC’s and SATOP’s missions has resulted in a strong partnership since M-TEC joined the alliance in 2002.

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