Rick Finholt, executive director of the University of Missouri’s Missouri Research Park, was presented the prestigious “Career Achievement Award” by the Association of University Research Parks (AURP) at the group’s annual meeting on September 30 in San Antonio, Texas. The AURP Career Achievement Award honors individuals who have made research and science parks a career focus, achieved success with parks over a substantial period of time and received peer recognition for advancing the field.

Finholt, 60, has been instrumental in the development of the Missouri Research Park in St. Charles County and a 4-mile ‘technology corridor’ along Highway 64/40 near the campus. He was hired by the University of Missouri in 1989 to develop 750 acres of pastureland just outside of St. Louis in St. Charles County into a research park. Under Finholt’s leadership, the Missouri Research Park has become home to 15 high-tech companies and two Federal agencies, housed in 1.2 million square feet of space and employing 2,000 people.

The Missouri Research Park has served as a magnet for high-tech development in the region, stimulating developments such as WingHaven, MasterCard International and Citibank which have generated an additional 10,000 high-tech jobs in the corridor. The Missouri Research Park is the first business park in the St. Louis region to market exclusively to technology-intensive and research-based companies.

Finholt received the county's first "Excellence in St. Charles Award" in 1998 for his vision in developing the research park and promoting the concept of a high-tech corridor in St. Charles County. Since 1998, Finholt also has led the development of the 62-acre University of Missouri Technology Park at Fort Leonard Wood, the first technology park in the nation to be located on an active Army post. The MRP Business Center in the Park is fully leased, and a second building is under construction.

Prior to joining the University of Missouri in 1989, Finholt was director of the research park at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Prior to that, he directed the Ohio State University Research Park and the Business Technology Center technology incubator. He has authored numerous studies, articles, grant proposals and business plans in the field of university-related research parks.

AURP represents more than 120 university research parks in the United States.