1 You’ve worked in startup and innovation circles across Indiana and most recently in Tulsa, Oklahoma. What about this region convinced you the NIIC was the place to lead next?

McDonald: Northeast Indiana has always known how to make things, from early electrical inventions to today’s advanced manufacturing and defense technologies. The next chapter isn’t about inventing new talent; it’s about connecting what’s already here.

Innovation today is less about individual heroics and more about connectedness, which is how small ideas collide with other small ideas to become big ones. The chance to evolve the NIIC from a center to a community that fuels those collisions is what drew me here.

2 The NIIC has supported a wide range of entrepreneurs over the years. Where do you see the biggest un

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