Spartan Profiles: Patti Glaza
SIZE DOES MATTER
Imagine a supercomputer the size of a sugar cube. Or self-cleaning windows. Instant blood analysis with “lab-on-a-chip.” Nanotechnology is an emerging field which looks to do all this, atom by atom. Though in its infancy, it can literally change everything one day. And one person with a front row view of this emerging technology is Patricia Glaza, ’92, COO and vice president of finance for Small Times Media since March 2003. “I love it,” says Glaza from her Ann Arbor office. “This is a start-up company, so it’s very challenging. You learn something new every day.”
Small Times, the trade publication for the industry, has surpassed 27,000 in circulation while its web site, www.smalltimes.com, receives some 200,000 visitors a month. “This is about manipulating things at the level of nanometers (one billionth of a meter) to create value,” she explains. “It’s about making materials lighter, stronger, more durable. It has all kinds of application in medicine, such as better drug-coated heart stents.”
Patti believes the U.S. is right to spend research dollars. “Japan and Europe are investing heavily in this,” she notes. “It’s an essential investment to keep our economy moving forward.”
A native of Port Huron, she chose MSU after falling in love with the school when she visited her sister. “Education is what you make of it, and if you find the right teachers and classes, it couldn’t be better at MSU,” she notes, singling out economics professor Ron Fisher, director of MSU's Honors College, as a favorite: “I was impressed by his intelligence and his ability to teach." Nanotechnology has its detractors, says Patti: “Whenever you have a new industry, you create fear. That happened with genetic foods. There is a valid debate. Sure, there are risks, but we need to be smart about it rather than just be against something without understanding what’s going on.”
