Dr. Mary Spaeth is a professor of entrepreneurship and international business at the University of Wisconsin-Stout where she directs the university’s emerging entrepreneurship program.
In her early career, she worked in public relations in Dallas, Texas and was the co-founder of a successful advertising firm in Chicago, Communication Resource Group. CRG was responsible for accounts with McDonald's, Federal Reserve Bank, Bally Manufacturing, Nalco Chemicals, and several other well-known firms.
Today, Dr. Spaeth is an economic development specialist in business incubation and science park development and foreign direct investment. She conducts research in entrepreneurship, employability, identity studies, and economic development. In the last twenty-three years she has served five years as the director of marketing and business development for the Northwestern University/Evanston Research Park; four years as Executive Vice President of the US subsidiary of London-based ANGLE Technology, driving the C&M arm for all academic and government commercialization, incubation and science park initiatives in the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Poland, and the UK; and 2.5 years as the executive director of the East Sweden Development Agency where she lead economic development and foreign direct investment initiatives for a region of 13 municipalities and a half million inhabitants.
Dr. Spaeth has taught and researched entrepreneurship and management at Texas State University, Royal Institute of Technology and Linkoping University in Sweden, University of the West of Scotland, Tec de Monterrey in Mexico, and has also taught at Southern Methodist University and Loyola University Chicago. She is a champion and facilitator for the international 3-Day StartUp program and is a member of the Science Park Innovation Center Expert network based in Berlin. She has published articles in a breadth of academic journals and presented numerous papers to the International Business Innovation Association (InBIA), International Association of Science Parks (IASP), International Council of Small Business (ICSB), Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) and most recently presented her research on employability policy at the British Academy of Management (BAM).
A mentor and advisory board member for Entrepreneurship Futures Network based in the Silicon Valley Dr. Spaeth has mentored and judged business teams for the Duke Challenge, Berkeley GSVC, Rice University Business Plan Competition (RBPC), Stanford, Indian Business School and the University of Michigan, and for several companies competing for the African Entrepreneurship Awards. She is President of Transmera, a technology commercialization management consulting firm based in Sweden and the US. Dr. Spaeth has served on several boards of directors and advisors including the Swedish Fulbright Commission Board; Swedish Academy of Realist Art; the Institute of Arts Entrepreneurship in Chicago; and Scrive, an e-contracting start-up in Stockholm. She has two grown children. Her husband, Peter, is a writer, translator, bibliophile, and teaches language. She and Peter are dual citizens US/Sweden and both speak fluent English and Swedish.