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In my hometown of Fort Smith, Ark., there’s a downtown art project in which giant murals of contemporary urban art are painted on the sides of historic buildings. It is called The Unexpected.

The Unexpected came to mind when I stumbled across some of the world’s greatest art recently while in Stillwater to interview technology entrepreneur Russ Teubner, founder and CEO of HostBridge Technology. The ground floor of HostBridge’s unassuming downtown Stillwater headquarters is a virtual art gallery, highlighted by five large signed Andy Warhol original screen prints that are part Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians series created in 1986.

It was certainly The Unexpected for me and a highlight of my trip.

Teubner placed the five Warhol paintings in a special events venue he created in what once was a shipping area for his previous company, Teubner and Associates, which was located on the same property. LED lighting highlights each print.

“I was lucky enough to source a number of very unique works of art, original Warhol screen prints that would not only define this space from a color and design standpoint, but tell the history of Oklahoma,” Teubner told me and my colleague, Debbie Cox, from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology (OCAST), as we first walked through the space.

Across one wall there was Native American legend Geronimo, along with Annie Oakley, Gen. George Armstrong Custer and a painting that depicted the Trail of Tears. A small sign above them read “Warhol.”

Along another wall hung a Warhol painting of Teddy Roosevelt, as well as a portrait of Warhol himself.

“Geronimo died in Oklahoma, Annie Oakley performed in Oklahoma, Custer fought in Oklahoma, the Trail of Tears ended in Oklahoma, and, of course, Teddy Roosevelt signed the state into existence,” Teubner said. “All those images not only remind us of the vibrance of a master artist, but also root us in our history.”

Teubner created the special events center as a community meeting space and for regular receptions hosted by his company. He was inspired to create an events center by Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis, who renovated a downtown Stillwater building to serve as the OSU Art Museum.

The HostBridge Technology events center features a large bar area running down one side, and one of the world’s unique “wine cellars” along the back wall that was once Teubner’s computer server room.

“What do you do with an empty room that has five tons of air conditioning, world class fire suppression and very secure,” he said. “Well, that’s wine storage, right? Obviously. I took my old Dell storage cabinets, reengineered them and lit them up as wine storage cabinets.”

The wine “cellar” is highlighted by art pieces, and in adjoining rooms there are many other pieces of art, such as robots made from everyday objects, an old English telephone booth and a collection of drawings with humorous captions made by a former airline pilot.

We finally got around to our interview, but my day was made by Russ Teubner’s version of The Unexpected.

Editor’s note: I attended the 32nd  OCAST Health Research conference at the Samis Education Center on the Oklahoma Health Center campus, and heard a presentation on negotiating the regulatory pathway for a life science device company. Here’s my report:

By Jim Stafford

Once a year, the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST) gathers scientists from across the state who are currently receiving funding from its health research program in a sort of show-and-tell educational event.

Recently, about 100 OCAST-funded life science researchers assembled at the Samis Family Education Center on the Oklahoma Health Center campus for OCAST’s 32nd Health Research Conference. The event featured a keynote presentation from Dan Clark, president of Oklahoma City-based Linear Health Sciences.

Co-founded by Clark and Oklahoma City physician Ryan Dennis, Linear Health Sciences developed a patented device known as the Orchid Safety Release Valve (SRV), which prevents dislodgement of IV catheters in hospitalized patients. It is estimated that approximately 14 percent of all IV catheters are accidentally dislodged, which requires re-sticking patients and creates higher risks of infection.

“Our device is designed to mitigate that,” Clark said. “The concept is quite simple. If you’ve ever seen someone drive away from a gas station with the hose still in the car, the hose rips away from the terminal, but no gas is spewing from the terminal and no gas is coming out of the car.

“We did the same thing, but we did it for your veins.”

The Orchid Safety Release Valve has drawn interest from both potential hospital users and investors alike.

Linear Health Sciences attracted early seed investment from i2E Inc., a partner with OCAST in what has come to be known as the Oklahoma Innovation Model of supporting entrepreneurs and innovation across the state.

“We see a really big opportunity here,” said Carol Curtis, i2E’s vice president and director of investments. “If we can improve patient outcomes through the device, but also capture a good portion of the market, it’s a win for investors as well as patients, physicians and the health care system.”

Clark’s presentation to his audience of scientists focused on how Linear Health’s founders learned from their experiences as they negotiated the challenging regulatory pathway.

“The context of our device is not difficult to understand, but to put it into practice, all the way from design inputs and strategy to validating those inputs to traceability across all the different elements, that was tough,” he said. “We became students again.”

Linear Health has submitted what is known as a 510(K) application to the Food and Drug Administration, which is a premarket submission to demonstrate that its device is safe and effective. The company is relying on the expertise of contracted outside experts to help it navigate the regulatory challenges of advancing its medical device.

Clark’s advice to his audience of scientists hoping to advance their own concepts centered on utilizing contractors and external resources to manage the regulatory challenges that will confront them and shape their decisions.

“While you are designing your own experiments, your regulatory path is going to dictate what experiments and what understanding of methodologies is required to get there,” he said.

Clark said Linear Health anticipates FDA regulatory clearance of its device early next year, after which the Orchid Release Safety Valve should soon reach early adopters waiting to put it to use.

Jim Stafford writes about Oklahoma innovation and research and development topics on behalf of the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology (OCAST).

By Jim Stafford

Editor’s note: I recently attended the Oka’ Water Sustainability Conference at the invitation of my friends at the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST). Here is what I learned from the conference:

ADA – At the recent 2019 Oka’ Water Sustainability Conference here on the campus of East Central University, the economic value of water bubbled to the surface.

Water is an economic driver for the state of Oklahoma, said Susan Paddack, executive director Oka’, the Water Institute at East Center University, which presented the fourth annual Sustainability Conference.

“We talk about quality and we talk about the quantity, but we don’t often talk about the value of water,” Paddack said. “When you think about water, it is either an economic stimulator or it is a limiter. We cannot grow or prosper as a state or rural communities and water districts if we don’t have a sustainable water future.”

Oka’ is the Chickasaw word for water, and the Oka’ Institute was created in 2016 with support from the Chickasaw Nation, the Ada Jobs Foundation and the City of Ada.

The conference focused on innovators and technologies that are creating new ways to remediate and recycle polluted water, the importance of soil health and ways to protect key water resources such as the Arbuckle-Simpson aquifer and Blue River.

But this year’s conference also tackled the issue of Water as an Economic Driver with a panel discussion that featured a trio of state legislative, environmental and economic development leaders brought their perspectives to the topic.

Katricia Pierson, Ph.D., East Central University president, moderated the panel, which featured Ken Wagner, State Environment Sec.; Speaker of the House Charles McCall; & Brent Kisling, Exec. Director of OK Dept. of Commerce.

“If you don’t recognize water as the most valuable resources we have in this state, you need to reconsider your position,” McCall told the audience. “Water will always be an economic driver in the sate of Oklahoma. We have been very blessed with it and we have to be very careful not to squander it.”

Kisling hails from the northwest Oklahoma community of Burlington, an area of the state where the scarcity of rainfall makes water conservation a critical ongoing issue. As the former economic development director of the city of Enid, he organized a consortium of neighboring communities to tackle water issues through a coordinated water plan.

“We have to all work together, especially in a watershed, to make sure we are maintaining our water resources on the quantity side and on the quality side,” Kisling said. “Now there is a consortium of major water users that communicate each month about what’s going on with water in the northwest part of the state.”

Wagner plays a key role in setting policy that ensures the protection of water resources throughout the state, while meeting the water consumption needs of people and businesses alike.

“We have to balance, how do we protect the resource but help these communities sustain their way of life, from creating jobs to ensuring the recreational capacity, making sure that fish and wildlife can thrive, protecting our scenic rivers, protecting our aquifers,” Wagner said, “knowing all the while that we all need water to sustain life.”

The conference was highlighted by a keynote speech by Bill Anoatubby, Governor of the Chickasaw Nation, who described the Oka’ Institute as “real positive development” to water sustainability in the south central Oklahoma region.

“The Oka’ Institute has a deep understanding that water issues affect us all and that it will take us all working together to develop viable, long-term solutions to water sustainability,” Anoatubby said. “Health and sustainability of our water is vital to everyone’s future and reasons to work together for the benefit of all.”

Jim Stafford writes about Oklahoma innovation and research and development topics on behalf of the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology (OCAST).

We needed to change a single letter in a name. A typo. We wanted to change an “A” to an “O,” correcting the misspelling “Soloman” to “Solomon” on a birth certificate and Social Security card issued to my newborn grandson, Solomon James Stafford.

The bureaucracy conspired against our efforts to make it happen. We had to make five separate trips to state and federal offices to get it corrected.

Let me start at the beginning.

My daughter gave birth to a baby on May 29, a boy who was born two months premature. The hospital sent a person around to inquire about the name shortly after he was born. Both my daughter and my wife told her that he was to be Solomon James Stafford and spelled it out.

S-O-L-O-M-O-N.

Somehow, Solomon became Soloman before it was turned into the state for an official birth certificate. That misspelling was picked up by the Social Security Administration, which promptly printed out a new SS card in the wrong name and mailed it to us.

The effort to correct the spelling turned into an odyssey that began with our initial trip to the records department at the Oklahoma Health Department and ended up with four trips to the Social Security office before the “a” could be corrected to an “o.”

Here’s how it happened.

At the state records office, my daughter filled out the form requesting a corrected birth certificate, and we paid our $30 for two copies and then went to the window to obtain the documents.

After a short wait of just a few minutes, the woman behind the glass gave the new birth certificates to my daughter and we were off! As we walked out, I told Sarah that she should check the spelling just to make sure that it was correct on the corrected version.

She opened the folder and then stopped dead in her tracks. I looked. It read “Soloman James Stafford.”

I looked back and no one was at the window yet, so I ran back and told the attendant that the new birth certificate we received had the same misspelling. When my daughter walked up, she was told to go pay the fee once again, then get back in line.

Sarah fought back tears and an urge to scream at someone, went back and paid a new fee for corrected birth certificates, then got back in line, which had grown considerably. Turns out, this time the wait was about 35 minutes, but we ended up with two birth certificates with the correct spelling of Solomon James Stafford.

Then we headed to the Social Security office. Bad news. Sarah was told that a birth certificate is not acceptable to change a name. We needed an official document from the hospital.

So, we drove back to Mercy Hospital and asked for an official document with a doctor’s signature as proof of birth. A nurse gave us a certificate that had the doctor’s signature, the seal of the hospital and included Solomon’s footprints.

Nailed it! Or so we thought. We were rejected for a second time at the Social Security office because the document the hospital gave us was a “souvenir,” as the attendant described it. “That’s not an acceptable federal document,” he told us.

Back to the hospital, where we went straight to the health records office and asked for something – anything – that the Social Security Administration would accept. I was given a couple of printouts that included the doctor’s notes from the birth and an immunization record. The doctor’s signature was electronic and the document did not have a name or hospital seal on it.

But that’s what we received. By now, I had gone out of town on a trip, so my wife took over and went with Sarah back to the Social Security office.

Of course, the documents were rejected again.

This time, Paula went straight to the hospital and requested to talk to an administrator. She told them about our plight and the need for a signature and an official hospital seal with Solomon’s name on it. The hospital had to create such a document and did.

Paula took that back to the Social Security office and it was finally accepted as official. I was still on my trip out of town when my daughter texted me the words “FIFTH TIME IS A CHARM!” I called her back and learned that baby Solomon (allegedly) would soon be receiving a new Social Security card with the correct spelling of his name.

I’ll call this lunacy a Confederacy of Dunces after my favorite book, because the system set us up for failure time after time.  

Baby Solomon, it will be years before you realize the challenges that we faced to correct a random typo of a single letter in your name. But we got it done. You’re welcome.